I am prepping some exterior windows in preparation to paint. This may be a question for a professional painter, but I expect some DIY'ers have ran into this issue before. My basic question is how to best handle joints/seams that appear to have some mildew growth.
Problem is illustrated here, where the paint at this seam in between the window sill and window sill nosing is softer and darker than the surrounding paint, making it easy to insert a flat scraper:
window sill joint scrapper.jpg
It appears that a thin seam of caulk was laid down to protect the joint, which was a good choice as the wood surfaces butted together were not primed by window manufacturer or builder. :( There is some similar mildew penetration into the seam of caulk bordering the bricks (seen in the picture below the scraper), where the paint has a noticeably darker stripe. Initially I was thinking of trying to remove all that brick edge caulk as well and reapply a silicon based (non-paintable) caulk, but now I am not sure that is the best choice.
Cleaning out that seam pictured was time consuming and prone to gouging the wood in different spots, especially on the vertical slope, creating additional work to try and smooth out. To repeat this exercise for other windows will take a lot of time, so my questions include:
1) Should I take the simple way out and paint over any caulk lines that are holding up, and not let a little mildew worry me? The wood below that seam I removed looked fairly clean, so I suspect it is more a cosmetic issue which I could live with.
2) Take the time to remove all these old caulk lines, even at risk of gouging wood and leaving those sort of visible imperfections behind.
3) Thoughts/recommendations on using a silicon based caulk at edges where window meets the house? i.e. beside the brick molding and below the window sill nosing; versus continuing to use something containing acrylic. I don't appreciate the trade offs between ease of use, appearance, and durability of 100% silicon.
Problem is illustrated here, where the paint at this seam in between the window sill and window sill nosing is softer and darker than the surrounding paint, making it easy to insert a flat scraper:
window sill joint scrapper.jpg
It appears that a thin seam of caulk was laid down to protect the joint, which was a good choice as the wood surfaces butted together were not primed by window manufacturer or builder. :( There is some similar mildew penetration into the seam of caulk bordering the bricks (seen in the picture below the scraper), where the paint has a noticeably darker stripe. Initially I was thinking of trying to remove all that brick edge caulk as well and reapply a silicon based (non-paintable) caulk, but now I am not sure that is the best choice.
Cleaning out that seam pictured was time consuming and prone to gouging the wood in different spots, especially on the vertical slope, creating additional work to try and smooth out. To repeat this exercise for other windows will take a lot of time, so my questions include:
1) Should I take the simple way out and paint over any caulk lines that are holding up, and not let a little mildew worry me? The wood below that seam I removed looked fairly clean, so I suspect it is more a cosmetic issue which I could live with.
2) Take the time to remove all these old caulk lines, even at risk of gouging wood and leaving those sort of visible imperfections behind.
3) Thoughts/recommendations on using a silicon based caulk at edges where window meets the house? i.e. beside the brick molding and below the window sill nosing; versus continuing to use something containing acrylic. I don't appreciate the trade offs between ease of use, appearance, and durability of 100% silicon.
DIY - Exterior Caulking - Got any tips?
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