Paint protection, preventing algae, mildew and stuff

[Don L.]

Painting the front.jpg (158.03 KiB) Viewed 508 times

We are close to completing the painting on our camper and want it to look nice in the long run.

It gets parked next to the alley behind my shop and every morning it has dew all over some if not all of it. I don't think I can put a roof over it, not that that would prevent the dew but from what I see of houses around here, the paint eventually gets algae or black mildew on it. This sits on the north side of my shop so it stays cooler and damper there.

I have this idea of putting some kind of a zinc strip around the edges near the roof line since zinc is a good preventer of algae and mildew, but I'm not sure it will be easy to attach. I was wondering if a line of zinc paint would work? Any thoughts?

I have seen some zinc primers with a high zinc content and thought maybe the dew dripping down from a line of zinc primer would work. Zinc tape would be nice but I doubt there is such a thing.

Credit goes to my bride for the cool design.

[GPW]

Don, your bride is very talented , and your trailer Very Nice ... (JMHO) We have lots of trouble with mold and mildew around here too and the only thing we’ve found to keep the nasties away was a good washng every now and then ... And we’ve had to use Bleach ( diluted) to get the mold stains off ... We tried household Vinegar which seems to kill the mold but does not take away the stains like the bleach solution does ... so we spray with the Vinegar first ( garden sprayer , then wash with the bleach ... That works well ...

Also some UV and Mold resistant coatings ( clear ) are available commercially and we’ve used them in the past , Might bea good thing over the artwork ... ? We have used them on outdoor signs we made and it seems to protect for a while , but needs recoating after several years ...

Best thing we’ve found is to keep the trailer in the sun ( away from trees) , and park it end for end once in a while so the Sun gets to both sides ... Around here mold and fungus only grows on the North side of the trees , out of the Sunlight...

Never tried zinc strips before ... Interesting ...

[dancam]

Is there a clear coat you can put over latex paint? I think the zinc strips will make streaks wont they?


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[GPW]

For many years now we’ve used an Acrylic clear varnish over our Acrylic paintings ... Paints today are called Acrylic “latex" , Acrylic being the key word ( the binder) , so likely a good paint store can provide something suitable ... The Big Box store paint dept. employees don’t seem to know very much beyond the usual sales ...

[Don L.]

I have little idea what the zinc would do adversely. I got the idea from a roofing product which is a zinc flashing that is installed on roofs, at the ridgline usually.

It might be easiest just to wash the camper if it gets bad. I'm wishing there was a magic bullet so I don't have to wash it I suppose.

[GPW]

Washing it is the easiest thing to do ... A good scrub brush on a long stick helps with those high walls and roof ...