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| Painted a few weeks ago, shingle oil brought out the natural colors |
Of all the things I didn't plan to write about in my blog, was the use of shingle oil for fences if you want to maintain a natural color. A number of years ago, our neighbors approached us about sharing the cost of a fence, but they wanted to go with a cedar board, rather than some other material. My concern at the time was care and painting of it, but they have been some of the best neighbors ever and we did need a new fence. They initially painted their side with Linseed Oil, which we did too, and it looked nice, but really only lasted a couple of years. I probably delayed putting another coat, about two years too late, and water stains had taken it's toll.
A few years ago, I was in Home Depot to get some other things, and decided I should buy a 5 gallon container of Linseed Oil to coat the fence. As I was asking the clerk where to find it, a professional painter was nearby and overheard the conversation. He approached me and indicated he had purchased two 5 gallon containers of shingle oil for a client, and then they had changed their mind. He then told me that if I wanted to come by his house (which was nearby) that he would just give them to me. I asked, "Shingle Oil, what's that and can it be used for fences?" He said, he couldn't see why not, it would just be a natural straw-like color and it preserves a wooden roof, so he couldn't see why it wouldn't do a fence. I thought to myself, I could always try a far corner and if it didn't work, I wasn't really out anything, so what did I have to loose, so I went and picked them up. Linseed oil is around $75 for a five gallon container, so it had the potential of saving me a small amount of cash!
A couple more years went by and I had delayed doing anything until this spring, when I pulled the first bucket out, and decided to give it a try. I was actually impressed with how well it applied with my sprayer, didn't seem to be as messy as linseed oil and as I read about it, the information indicated you could go as much as 10 years between applications. Also the information indicated that fences were one of the applicable uses. As I was doing my fence, the same neighbors who had originally proposed the fence, were talking with me about how their side needed to be done. They had just had a baby girl so I indicated that I would be happy to put the same stuff on for them. They mentioned that when they did the Linseed Oil, it took nearly two 5 gallon containers for them, so I went about trying to find somewhere locally who sold it. I had one of the free 5 gallon containers left, but needed to buy one more. I tried the hardware stores, paint stores and even roofing companies, but no one carried it and even sounded puzzled when I asked about it. There was an online option out of California, but I had scheduled Friday afternoon off to do the job and hated to leave it half complete. I decided to do a search on Chevron product distributors and came across a company on California Avenue here in Salt Lake City,
Kellerstrass Oil Company. The guy that answered the phone was super nice about it, didn't have the 5 gallon containers at this store right now, but had a truck coming down from Ogden and would have it by afternoon for me. It turns out he threw a couple more containers on the truck, just in case I ran out and needed more! Their price was pretty comparable to the online price, or about $94 with tax for the 5 gallons.
Since my neighbors offered to cover the cost of the new container, I started with it, and nearly did the whole job with it, but had to open up my free container to finish the job. With my daughter Sarah's help, we finished it in about 4 hours and rendered a little service. If you have one of those wood cedar fences and are keeping the natural look, you should consider Shingle Oil as an option. By the way, just save yourself some time, and just go to Kellerstrass to get it!
