Can you remove paint from vinyl siding?

Q. I have a vinyl-sided home. A handyman I hired to stain my deck and fire escape splattered it on the beige siding. It was a windy day. He rubbed off the spots with a graffiti remover. It got rid of all of the spots, but now the whole front of my house is blotches. It looks horrible. What should I do?

JO ANN

A. That sounds like a terrible experience. I’m sorry that you had to go through that. There is bad news, and there is good news in your case. The bad news: I don’t think you will ever get the blotches out of your vinyl siding. The solvents in the graffiti remover (or any solvent remover, for that matter) would have just softened up the vinyl slightly and allowed the discoloration to become essentially ingrained into the siding itself. I don’t believe anything can remove the blotching now. The good news is that you actually can paint vinyl siding. For the most part, it is like painting any house with a few caveats:

(Have the house power washed and cleaned.)

• The first caveat: You really do not need to prime the surface. The right paint will adhere fine to the vinyl.
• The second caveat: You want to use an acrylic latex paint that will expand and contract with the movement of the vinyl throughout the seasons.
• The third caveat: We do not recommend dark colors at all. Darker colors absorb more heat and can cause the vinyl to buckle and move in ways it was never intended to move.

You can use a sprayer, but our painter rolls it on, and then back brushes it with a paint brush. Both are acceptable means of painting. One more important note: I am sure your handyman is a great person and has taken good care of various projects around your home, but I would consult a professional painting company for this one.

Q. I just want to say I love all of the advice you provide in the Sunday Globe. Very insightful and helpful. We are hoping you can provide guidance on a situation of ours. We are a six-unit condo association with porches that contain mahogany deck flooring and pressure-treated uprights. Unfortunately, the porches were painted, as the association was sold on the longevity of a paint product versus stain. We were wondering whether the paint (done three times since) can be removed and the wood sanded and brought back to its original glory. I should also mention that a few of the original mahogany boards rotted and were replaced with pine and painted to match. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you for your help.

KAREN

A. I am going to guess that what is on the decking is a solid-colored stain. Solid stains are more like paint; most of the body stays on the surface of the wood, while some of the pigments penetrate it. Solid stain can be a little more difficult to get off than paint because of that penetration into the wood, but it can be done. I would start with a chemical stripper. There are a few good ones on the market that any paint dealer could steer you toward. This will soften up paint/stain or whatever is on the wood surface. From there, I would get a paint scraper and gently scrape the wood along the grain, or length of the boards. There is a good chance you may have to do this twice to get as close to bare wood as possible. Once you have stripped the wood to the extent possible, give it a good wash with a diluted trisodium phosphate, or TSP, bath and let that dry for several days, at least. Once the wood has sufficiently dried, lightly sand it to open up the grain, then apply one or two coats of a clear, penetrating sealer.

Mark Philben is the project development manager at Charlie Allen Renovations in Cambridge. Send your questions to [email protected]. Questions are subject to editing.