House Exterior Painting

House exterior painting is a great DIY project that will save you a lot of money. It will cost you upward from $5000 for a professional house painter to paint your house, if you can find one. If you are considering having your house painted by a “professional” be sure of what you are contracting for. Get it in writing and pay attention to the details. There are many so called professional painters that talk a good line but may leave you with something less than a professional job. House exterior painting in labor intense, however, most home owners perform the task themselves as a DIY home improvement project.

You can DIY for the cost of material; the paint, brushes, and a few rolls of masking tape. Fall rather than spring is a great time of the year for house exterior painting because the humidity is relatively low and you can depend on the weather to be more stable than during the spring season. By stable I mean that it is likely that you will have three to five days in a row of pleasant dry weather to get the job done.

When contemplating exterior house painting of your home the question most commonly asked is, “should I use oil based or water based house paint”. That answer is easy if you have previously used water based exterior house paint. Once you have painted the exterior of the house with a water base paint you should stick with it as oil base paint does not adhere well when applied on top of water base paint. The opposite, applying water base paint on top of oil based paint, works well.

I am in the process of painting the exterior of my house. It will be the third time in ten years that it has been painted. When friends and neighbors hear this they asked why is it necessary to paint the house so often. The simple answer is because of mold. I really do not like house painting however, I happen to live in a region of the country where there is a lot of humidity about six months out of the year. When you couple the humidity with acid rain, and lack of direct sunlight on half of the house, a gray to black stain (mold) accumulates on the house, particularly under the eaves and the sides where there is no to little sun exposure. There are two ways to remove the mold, hand scrubbing or by a pressure washer.

The exterior of the house has red cedar siding. The first time the house was painted it received a coat of oil based primer and a finish coat of oil base finish. It took approximately three years before the mold started to accumulate to the point that it needed to be cleaned. After pressure washing and letting it dry for a week I realized that the paint had lost its luster, looking dull in appearance. At that point I painted the house using a water base paint that had an anti mold component in it. It held up for five years before the mold started to accumulate again. Again I pressure washed it and again the paint seemed to have lost its luster. I am now in the process of painting it the third time. Such are the continuing chores of a homeowner.

Most quality paint manufactures warranty their paint for five or more years, when properly applied. I would suggest that this is the maximum time a fresh paint application will hold up under nominal environmental conditions. Of course the region of the county you live is a big factor in this. The other factor is if you use a poor quality or high quality paint. Poor quality paint will have to be reapplied more often that high quality paint.

When buying paint it is important to read and understand the label. Paints are really glues that contain colored dies. Poor quality paints contain low quality ingredients. There are three types of exterior water based paints. One contains vinyl acetate as the glue, or resin in the paint. The second type contains 100 percent acrylic resin and the third contains both vinyl acetate and acrylic resins. The first type can be considered poor quality paint. The second and third are high quality paints.

The resin or glue in paint holds to whatever it contacts. For the most durable exterior paint look for a water based paint that contains both vinyl acetate and acrylic resins and follow the manufacturer’s recommendations for applying it with one exception. If the instructions suggestion that it isn’t necessary to clean the surface before applying the paint, ignore it and clean it anyway. It simply is not conceivable that anyone would paint a dirty surface and expect the finish paint job to look professional.

Many contractors will not recommend that exterior wood surfaces be cleaned using a pressure washer because water will be imbedded in the wood or you may damage the wood. It s perfectly fine to use a pressure washer as long as you let it dry thoroughly before painting, five to seven days, and you take care not to damage the wood while cleaning. Use the correct tip for the job. Practice using the different nozzle tips on a piece of scrap wood before pressure washing the house.  

Exterior House Paint Maintenance