How Japanese Wood Survived 100 Years Without Paint

How Japanese Wood Survived 100 Years Without Paint You do it exactly according to the instructions. Exterior paint, two coats, wait for it to dry. Look at the result. The paint peels off in sheets like a snake shedding its skin. Underneath, the wood is gray, soft and mushy, termites have eaten through a third of the boards and you never noticed. Rainwater has seeped through the cracks for five years straight, rotting the wood from the inside out. You just paid $7,000 to repaint for the fourth time. Listen to me before you blame yourself. It was never your fault. Every can of paint on the shelf promises to protect wood. And that very promise is what makes you paint over and over every five years while the wood underneath keeps rotting. The wood I grew up with in Nara has never been painted. Not once in 100 years. I am Yoshio Suzuki, born less than three kilometers from Horyuji Temple, a 1,400-year-old wooden structure. The cypress wood there has never touched a single drop of paint. They have a different kind of protection, and you will see it before this ends. At the end I will show you the real numbers, the total 30-year cost of paint versus the Japanese way, and you will be surprised. In the meantime we will find out why paint destroys wood instead of protecting it, why the Japanese use fire instead of paint, and why the wood my grandparents chose gets stronger over time instead of rotting.