Homeowners would enjoy it if a wooden house stayed in good shape with only basic house repair maintenance. Only scrape and caulk a bit, put down a drop cloth or two, and roll on some layers of outdoor acrylic paint.

It is never that easy. Rather than easy, you may need to fill the wood exterior of your house.

My roughly twenty-five year old home needed a lot more be done. The galvanized metal under my shingles was badly done and enabled the water to penetrate the facing board under the gutter. As the house aged, the wood became rotten and the protective coat of paint flaked.

I researched how to get it done right. It did not seem like standard compounds to fill wood would last.

A co-worker worked on the wood of his home many weekends to control rot from termites. This guy’s work quality stood the test of time. I wanted know why his repairs did not crack.

Fix Wood Holes with the Auto Repair Filler Called Bondo and Use Wood Power Tools to Finish Sanding

He said a contractor had recommended to always apply Bondo to fill cracks in the wood. For some background look at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bondo_(putty)

Bondo was great for car dents. This auto filler kept its shape. This auto filler could be sanded. When he brought up using this auto filler, It was obvious that this was the right answer.

Using Bondo, the approach is to fill in the large holes in layers with a lot applied first and then thinner layers at the end. You can even make nice sharp corners, combining molding boards and regular kitchen wax paper. To sand before priming and painting just use one of the many wood working power tools to make the Bondo blend smoothly with the wood.

If you have a wooden deck, consider the fact that you could also apply Bondo to repair cracks in the flooring of wood decks of various types. It is useful, when you are preping a redwood deck for staining.

Consider that Bondo looks light red after sanding and this will show through, when using a light colored water treatment on a wooden deck. If you intend to preserve a lumber deck repaired with Bondo, just cover it with prime and painting.

Finally you do not need to find an auto parts store to get Bondo. Just look for Bondo at Lowes or Home Depot. By the way, my painting prep job has not shrunk at all over the years.