You Need to Know This..

A Quiet Breakthrough in Exterior Wood Siding Technology That Almost No One Knows Exists

If you own a log home, cedar-sided home, pine cabin, timber-frame structure, or any exterior wood building, there is something you should know.

The exterior wood coating technology available today is not the same technology that existed twenty years ago.

Unfortunately, most people don’t know that.

For decades, homeowners, contractors, builders, and property managers accepted a frustrating reality: exterior wood finishes eventually fail. They fade. They chalk. They peel. They crack. They require stripping, sanding, and refinishing. The cycle repeats every few years, becoming one of the most expensive and labor-intensive maintenance costs associated with owning a wood structure.

The assumption has always been that this is simply the nature of wood.

But what if it isn’t?

A Problem Worth Solving

Nearly twenty years ago, Van Technologies, Inc., a technology-driven coatings company based in Duluth, Minnesota, was presented with a challenge.

Create a better exterior wood siding coating.

Not a slightly better stain.

Not a prettier finish.

A coating system that would genuinely last longer and reduce the maintenance burden that homeowners and contractors had simply come to accept as unavoidable.

That challenge was significant because exterior wood siding is one of the most demanding applications in the coatings industry.

Wood moves with changing temperature and humidity. It expands and contracts. It absorbs and releases moisture. It faces constant attack from ultraviolet light, rain, snow, ice, mold, mildew, and environmental contaminants. Every weakness in a coating system eventually gets exposed.

Many products perform well in the can.

Far fewer perform well after years of exposure to the elements.

Van Technologies approached the challenge the same way it approaches every technical problem: through chemistry, testing, and real-world validation.

The result was a coating system that dramatically outperformed expectations.

Yet despite nearly two decades of proven performance, few people outside the customers using it even know it exists.

The Best Technology Nobody Has Heard Of

That lack of awareness is not because the technology failed.

Quite the opposite.

The coating continues to perform on structures coated nearly two decades ago.

The reason more people haven’t heard about it is simple: Van Technologies is not a traditional sales-driven coatings company.

The company has never maintained a large sales force. It doesn’t spend heavily on advertising campaigns. Instead, it has spent more than three decades functioning as a technology partner, helping manufacturers and end users solve difficult coating problems.

Customers typically find Van Technologies when they have a challenge that existing products cannot solve.

A coating is failing.

A process isn’t working.

A finish isn’t lasting.

A performance target isn’t being met.

The company develops technology around the problem.

As a result, many of its most successful products have spread largely through customer referrals and word-of-mouth recommendations rather than marketing campaigns.

The exterior siding system is one of those products.

The Problem Was Never the Wood

Wood is one of the most beautiful building materials ever used. It is renewable, structurally remarkable, and capable of lasting generations.

The challenge has always been protecting it from sunlight.

Ultraviolet radiation slowly breaks down wood fibers. As degradation occurs, coatings lose their anchor to the surface. Color changes occur. Weathering accelerates. Maintenance becomes inevitable.

Historically, most exterior wood coatings were designed around appearance.

The better question was durability.

How do you protect the wood itself?

High Performance Without Compromise

There is another part of this story that deserves attention.

Historically, the coatings industry often treated sustainability and performance as opposing goals.

If you wanted maximum durability, you frequently had to accept higher solvent levels, greater VOC emissions, hazardous air pollutants, flammability concerns, and more difficult application conditions.

Van Technologies chose a different path.

Since its founding, the company has focused on developing advanced “Green” coating technologies for demanding industrial applications. Whether protecting wood, metal, plastics, or composite materials, the objective has remained the same: solve difficult performance challenges while minimizing environmental impact.

The exterior siding system became an example of that philosophy.

The coating system was engineered as a waterborne technology with extremely low VOC content while delivering weathering performance that rivals or exceeds many traditional solvent-based systems.

That is no small accomplishment.

Creating a coating that performs well in a laboratory is challenging.

Creating one that withstands years of outdoor exposure is even harder.

Creating one that accomplishes both while utilizing low-emission, waterborne chemistry is where true innovation occurs.

Today, homeowners, contractors, builders, and architects increasingly seek products that are safer to apply, easier to maintain, and aligned with modern environmental expectations.

What makes this technology remarkable is that those benefits were not achieved by lowering performance standards.

The performance came first.

The sustainability followed naturally through thoughtful chemistry and design.

In many ways, that represents the future of coatings technology—not forcing a choice between durability and environmental stewardship, but achieving both simultaneously.

What Changed?

Advances in polymer chemistry, UV stabilization technology, transparent iron oxide pigmentation, and waterborne coating design created opportunities that did not previously exist.

Van Technologies incorporated multiple layers of protection into its system.

Transparent iron oxide pigments help block damaging ultraviolet radiation. UV absorbers and free-radical scavengers provide additional protection against sunlight-induced degradation. Together, these technologies help preserve both the coating and the wood beneath it.

The coating system utilizes a three-coat design consisting of a tinted sealer followed by two protective topcoats, creating multiple layers of defense against weathering and moisture intrusion.

The result is not simply a coating.

It is a preservation system.

The Real Proof Is Outside

Laboratory testing matters.

But real-world performance matters more.

Van Technologies still receives calls from homeowners whose structures were coated in the mid-2000s. In some cases, homes coated as far back as 2007 are only now requiring maintenance on the most demanding exposures, such as south-facing walls and elevations.

Think about that.

A homeowner can spend years enjoying a home rather than planning the next refinishing project.

That is not an incremental improvement.

That is a fundamentally different ownership experience.

Laboratory testing helps explain why.

Accelerated weathering evaluations following ASTM procedures demonstrated exceptional color stability and weathering resistance. After more than 1,500 hours of accelerated exposure, testing reported no chalking, checking, cracking, blistering, or flaking while also exhibiting excellent resistance to fungal and algal growth.

The laboratory predicted exceptional durability.

The field performance confirmed it.

Why Contractors Should Care

Contractors today face increasing pressure from customers who want products that last longer and require less maintenance.

Most contractors can offer a coating.

Very few can offer decades of demonstrated performance.

That distinction matters.

When a contractor installs log siding, cedar siding, pine siding, or timber accents, they are making a recommendation that may impact the homeowner for years to come.

Being able to offer a system with extensive field history and documented weathering performance creates a value proposition that extends far beyond initial appearance.

It allows contractors to compete on long-term performance rather than short-term price.

The Bigger Question

The technology exists.

The field performance exists.

The testing exists.

So why doesn’t everyone know about it?

Perhaps because some of the most significant innovations happen quietly.

Not every breakthrough comes from a company with a national advertising campaign.

Sometimes it comes from a technology company in Duluth, Minnesota that spends its time solving difficult problems for customers instead of promoting itself.

For nearly twenty years, this technology has been quietly protecting homes, cabins, lodges, and wood structures across North America. Developed by a company known for solving some of the coatings industry’s most challenging performance problems, it demonstrates something many once thought impossible: exceptional long-term exterior durability delivered through modern, waterborne chemistry.

And perhaps that’s the most remarkable part—not that the technology exists, not that it works, and not that it has been proven through years of laboratory testing and real-world exposure.

It’s that so few people know about it.

If you own, build, specify, or maintain exterior wood structures, this is something worth knowing.

Sometimes the best innovations aren’t the ones everyone is talking about.

They’re the ones quietly proving themselves year after year in the real world.

By Kristen Van Iseghem
Vice President | Van Technologies, Inc. | Duluth, Minnesota

Kristen Van Iseghem is Vice President of Van Technologies, Inc., a Duluth, Minnesota-based coatings technology company specializing in environmentally conscious, high-performance coating solutions for wood, metal, plastic, and composite substrates. Since 1991, Van Technologies has helped manufacturers, builders, and homeowners solve difficult finishing challenges through custom-engineered coating technology.