How to seal H2 wood to stop reacting to it?

Question

My mother replaced rotten window frames with new aluminium framed windows. The windows were put in with H2 or H3 wood (pale blue), and a lot of woodchips were left on the garden. The rain washed the chemicals from the wood into the dirt subfloor under our timber floorboards. I am so sensitive to the new chemicals that I can no longer sleep in the house. How can I seal the wood?

Is Zinsser Coverstain the best? Would Taubmans Sunproof seal the toxins in? Should I use an acrylic or an enamel coat over the primer, if a primer is needed? What other options are there for really preventing rain from reaching the wood and for preventing CCA or CCQ and other treatments from leaching out of the wood into the soil and subfloor?

Some parts of the wood closest to the wall can't be reached with paint.

It's a sloping block, house at the bottom, a slope full of greenery usually filters the water coming down. Until these windows went in, the house had an excellent microbiome, and it has been the only place I can live long term and still be well enough to work.

MitchellMc · Answer

100% @Storstomma. Any topcoat, whether oil-based or water-based, is compatible with the oil-based Zinsser Coverstain. Water-based Taubsmans Sunproof over the Zinsser Oil-based is perfectly fine.

Mitchell

Storstomma · Answer

Hi Mitchell, thank you very much!

That's all great to hear. I might test the oil based printer on a patch: even if the primer smells worse than the wood, I suspect whatever's in the wood will be much more damaging to the soil microbiome than whatever's in the primer. So the sealing function of the oil based primer seems very handy. I'll do a test patch though, to make sure the smell is OK, and then get the Taubmans Sunproof layers on before it rains on the exposed primer, so none of the primer chemicals can easily get into the soil. The primer should help prevent osmosis-style movement of H2 treatments into rainfall that then travels under the house.

I hope it will abate. Part of the reason I can only seem to live in that house, and never found a good rental in years of searching, was the treated wood used in low-rent new builds. Hopefully the oil-based printer will work.

One last question - - my mother will want to know that the Taubmans Sunproof can be used on top of the oil based Zinsser Coverstain as she is concerned the oil based printer will prevent the use of a water based top coat. It looks to me like Zinsser says any top coat is fine - - is that right?

Thank you very much for all this!

MitchellMc · Answer

If your main concern is sealing the timber from moisture and preventing odours from it, then a couple of coats of Sunproof will help with that @Storstomma. It will prevent moisture reaching the timber as it is an impervious layer. Odour-wise, it might still be an idea to use a primer and you could use the water-based version. The oil-based version would likely be better at sealing any smells in, but it itself has more VOC's than the water-based. So if you are sensitive to smells, it might be better to go for the water-based primer.

It's great to hear that the effects are diminishing. You'll find that treated timber initially can smell a bit potent, but that is just because it has recently come from the manufacturer. As it ages, any initial odour from H2 should dissipate entirely.

Mitchell