WOT: Exterior House Painting, anyone got some advice... Options

[McMark]

I'm working on painting my house and I have a few questions, or rather a few things that I'm not sure about. The house was built in 1941 and doesn't appear to have had a 'good' paint job since the original. There is a lot of cracking that goes down to the base wood. We've tried scraping the paint, and that gets the loose stuff off, but leaves 'ledges' that will obviously show through the new paint. We want to do it right, so how do we approach this? I've been using a DA orbital sander to 'feather' the edges, but with so many cracks, I feel like I'm stripping the paint off the whole house. I'm I going too far?

Also, there appears to be sealant/caulk between each slat of siding. That is cracking as well, so I've been cutting it all out and plan on recaulking all the joints. Am I correct in doing this?

[r_towle]

Start by pressure washing the house.
If anything survives pressure washing, you can sand it and paint over it.
If it does not survive a very aggressive pressure wash, it would not have held paint anyways.

DO NOT use the pressure washer at 90 degrees to the old wood siding, you can drill a hole with it.

Then sand and feather the edges.
Prime all bare wood...stuff paint in the joints to seal the wood.
the caulk everything you want, but never caulk bare wood or it will just suck out the oil in the caulk (Use Phenoseal caulk..nothing else)

Choose an oil based primer if you can buy that in CA...it behaves like a sealer on a car...it will make everything the same shade.

Spend money on primer...its cheaper than paint.
then pick a nice latex top coat...it can be srayed (so can the primer) with a wagner power painter and then you do whats called back brushing.
the point is the sprayer gets the paint on alot faster.
Rent all the tools..sprayer, ladders and power washer.

If you are spraying, rent three ladders the same size..put them right next to each other.
With two people you can never come down and the bottom person will just move the ladders in bunny hop style, you just climb from one to the next...its alot faster than setting up staging...

Rich