Thread: Oregon Pergola - Waterproofing the timber

My oregon pergola has lasted pretty well, 20 years old now. While it is still structurally sound there are some signs of timber rot now. It only has shadecloth on top so is fully exposed to the weather. All this wet weather this past year or so hasn't helped.

The rot is not widespread and only occurs in some areas where there are joins, e;g where the rafters meet the end joist and where the battens touch the rafters.

Don't really want to pull it down just yet as I think it will last another 5 years or so. Still looks good and I've recently put new shadecloth on. I was going to remove the small areas of rot and patch with builders bog or similar. Rather then just priming and repainting those patched areas I wanted apply some type of waterproofing membrane to try and retard any further rotting as much as possible.

Can anyone recommend a suitable product. It will need to be paintable. I was thinking of something like Gripset 51 but not sure if that would be appropriate, don't think it's paintable either.