Breeze In My Bedroom

Here is the corner in question from the previous post. You can't tell in the picture, but the spider webs were flapping.

Watertight

The weather will not cooperate. It's very depressing. We haven’t seen a blue sky for nearly three days. All we have is an endless progression of cold wind, rain, and low, grey clouds. Last weekend was beautiful. Minus the section of skirting under the back porch, we put a coat of Watertight all of the way around the Devil Queen. We'd like to do a second coat, but it may have to wait for a while with the rain. Besides, we still need to seal up some windows before the days of endless winter arrive.

If the rain stops, I'll take some pictures of the Watertight. Even with one coat, it makes a huge difference.

The Mysteries of Drylock

I still haven't made time to take pictures of the Devil Queen's "skirt" so I dug up a few old ones. Aside from the lap-siding being painted, it still looks the same. That is really sad since we enclosed the crawlspace in January-February of 2006. If you would like to indulge your morbid curiosity, here are a couple of links (Link 1 & Link 2) to the original posts.

To answer some of your questions, our crawlspace is enclosed with concrete backer board, not poured concrete or masonry blocks. Why? We couldn't afford any other option. Mr. Clow, our concrete guy, suggested using backer board since it is basically bug proof and weather proof. We spent roughly $1,000 for enclosing our crawlspace including labor. The other options we considered ran between $8,000 to over $20,000. We consider the concrete board our semi-permanent temporary solution to sealing our crawlspace. Except for the bottom couple of inches, all of the concrete board will be above grade.

Our interest in painting the board it two fold. One, it will look better painted. Two, paint hopefully will keep the board from wicking-up moisture when it rains. Periodic exposure to water tends to stain the board and it is not an attractive look. No one wants to look at an old woman who has pissed herself, right?

I'm thinking about using Drylock, a latex "waterproofer" for masonry, which is produced by a company called UGI and sold at Lowe's. From what I've read, I need to sand-off or otherwise remove any paint, dirt, etc, and then paint on two coats of the stuff. I'm thinking about spraying a bead of Good-Stuff foam along the bottom of the board where it meets the concrete perimeter foundation. I'm hoping this will keep water from getting under the bottom edge and seeping up the concrete board.

I'm hoping this will seal the backer board. What I'm trying to figure out is whether I can paint over the Drylock with exterior, waterbased paint. Or, should I prime the Drylock and then paint? Or, is just a waste of time?

As long as the Drylock keeps moisture from seeping up and under the exterior paint, I figure it ought to work. If it doesn't keep the moisture out, it's just a matter of time before the exterior paint will start to blister and peel.

Any thoughts about how well this will work? Or, do I just need to buy a gallon of the stuff and play mad-scientist?