Proper Expectations When Painting The Exterior Of Your Home

 

Its exterior painting season and one of the main things that are important to an ex terior painting job is proper preparation of the surfaces. 

When planning to paint the exterior of your home or business it's very important to check and inspect every surface around the house whether it's siding wood trim aluminum or other materials

Painting on top of damaged wood or metal can significantly lower the long Gemini of the paint job however  Sometimes a budgetary restraints can significantly reduce the preparation of a surface

It's a balance between budget and proper preparation on some projects especially historical homes.

 What is proper preparation of a service proper preparation of a surface for a paint job is clean dull and dry notice I did not say smoothed a surface does not have to be smooth to be properly prepared and paint it especially on older homes were you've have many many layers of painted surface chipped paint paint the has been painted over over the years and multiple layers of other a paints.

When we discuss these types of jobs we like to give clear expectations on what the customer is going to receive what the customer wants and what the customer can pay for again it is a fine balance between budget and a properly painted surface.

When preparing a surface it's very important that the customer clearly explains what they want the surface to look like after the job is done because the number one issue on any paint job is failed and missed expectations.

The few issues we've had on paint jobs have been surfaces where a customer thinks that a home that has been painted countless times over should be completely smooth where in the real world that service needs to be completely stripped and that is a whole different job than a repaint

A properly painted surface for us at a normal job is preservation techniques with preservation techniques we one remove any failed paint that is clearly chipping we want a feather sand that area notice I did not say fill it in or make it smooth we want a prime any bear would typically using an oil based exterior primer and then a top quality exterior paint on top of that 1 coat 2 coats it depends on the job itself.

As long as the customer has clear written expectations that are also put into their contract and proposal and you fully walk them through the job and explain what can and what can't be done 

You should have no issues on your painting project.

Why does a customer feel a surface should be smooth even if it has not been for the last 50 years these are questions that we ask ourselves all the time and I guess that's that's part of the issue now with Google with Yahoo with being able to go on to YouTube and watch other preparations and home shows.

The issues with the shows are their perfect conditions and there are very compressed video where a job may have taken weeks they put it down into less than an hour of show.

Add caption

In the real world these types of preparations time frames and applications are impossible, Although maybe I shouldn't say impossible it is certainly possible with the right budget.

In our area Pennsylvania we're lucky if we get a few days a year with ideal conditions to paint from rain to snow to sleet to to Hi of humidity the dew points never correct we have very limited time to actually paint if you went by the specifications from the manufacturers.

The manufactures are very aware that these conditions can never be met so they do give broad ranges and better explanations on the local level with your sales rep.

Knowing that if you have an area that is currently peeling or failing that it is likely it could peel and fail again what we see are issues with moisture expansion and contraction causing pain failures locally correcting these issues and putting the new coat of paint on May not correct the the moisture or expansion and contraction movement issues.

Doing your best diligence to properly prepare these surfaces goes a long way in making a great paint job.