I bought an older home which has some wood paneling that I've been caulking, Spackling, and painting. I've recently had some issues however with an area of the paneling where it was cut to install an air duct. Before installing a new grill, I filled the existing cracks with Spackle and painted over them.
I have noticed that since we have switched from using the AC to using the heat, cracks are starting to open up like crazy. I'm assuming this is due to the lower moisture levels in the air when using the heater as opposed to the air conditioning.
Does anyone have any suggestions for how this could be fixed?
Best Answer
You would have to remove the cracked boards (what you show appears to be what is normally called "bead-board," a subset of tongue-and-groove boards, rather than what is typically meant by solid wood paneling, where "panels" are in "frames"), glue them together properly, and replace them - or just replace them with intact boards.
When doing that you need to install them in such a manner that the tongue-and-groove edges are free to move as the boards expand/contract. This wall appears to have been painted over in a manner that has "locked" the tongues and grooves with many layers of paint, and when the boards shrunk the weaker spot was out in the middle of the board, so it cracked, as opposed to the movement happening at the joint.