Stripping and Painting Windows Sills and Surrounds

Painting and decorating, plaster mouldings, Artexing questions

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tzread92
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Stripping and Painting Windows Sills and Surrounds

Post by tzread92 »

I am looking to strip the paint from my outside window sills and surrounds (windows are PVC) and re paint them. The outside sills appear to be concrete, then some of the surround is painted brick and then there is a bay window which is very smooth, I'm not sure if this is plaster or concrete. They are flaking a lot already, but I am not sure what the best way to strip them is, do I use sand paper, scrapers, brushes, attachments on drills, chemicals...? Any advice would be appreciated, thank you.
OchAye
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Stripping and Painting Windows Sills and Surrounds

Post by OchAye »

:welcome: Some photos would help us understand how bad what you describe is.

Anyway, I will make a guess or two. Unless you are certain of what paints you got around the windows you should not use chemical stripping (it will make life worse with water based paints). You cannot use heat either as you got the window. So you are left with mechanical stripping i.e. hand + scrapper, hand + sandpaper and if you want electric stuff, sander and whatever you fancy with drill bits.

If you don't remove all the paint but you manage to get a reasonable surface, an exterior filler e.g. toupret murex may help you produce a good surface again.

On the smooth surface it is unlikely you will have plaster externally, it could be a smooth cement based render, something that has been filled in the past or some other material. Again, a photo may help someone else (him again) to figure out the type of construction you have.

All in all, with stripping you either try to remove everything if it looks possible or you remove the weak bits and fill in between the good/safe bits. So start by scraping as well as you can what is flaking and see what you are left with :-)
tzread92
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Stripping and Painting Windows Sills and Surrounds

Post by tzread92 »

Thank you for your reply. Just figured out photos, hopefully they will appear.
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OchAye
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Stripping and Painting Windows Sills and Surrounds

Post by OchAye »

The smooth vertical surface is either render or precast concrete, it does not make a difference what really. The sills are in a poor state. Bits have been badly filled in the past and paint has been put on top of flaking paint. Start scraping from a flaking point and if you are lucky most of the paint will come off :-( After that if you got any bits left it may be worth trying a heat gun :dunno:
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Stripping and Painting Windows Sills and Surrounds

Post by Bob225 »

A scraper or 2, maybe a hot air gun and lots of hard work, It looks to be some sort of stone normally local to the area, the sills are usually precast concrete

A lot of London and southeast homes use sandstone that is soft and marks easily
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Stripping and Painting Windows Sills and Surrounds

Post by wine~o »

flapper wheel attachment for a drill will take some of the elbow grease outta that.
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