Exterior painting

What we paint outside

• Fiber cement siding — Hardie board and the lookalikes, including full color changes
• Vinyl siding, in the heat-reflective colors rated not to warp it
• Stucco and synthetic stucco, with the cracks addressed before anything is rolled
• Brick and block, including whole-house color changes on the ranches
• Wood, cedar shake and board and batten
• Soffit, fascia, frieze, window trim, gutters, downspouts and shutters
• Front doors, garage doors, screened porch ceilings, columns and railings
• Foundations, crawl space vents, meter boxes and anything else that reads as a distraction from the street

Prep, in order

• Wash the whole elevation — pollen film, mildew and chalking all have to come off, and none of them come off with a rinse.
• Let it dry properly. In July that can mean waiting a day on the shaded north side after the sunny side is ready.
• Scrape and sand everything loose, then feather the edges so old paint lines do not telegraph.
• Prime every bare spot — bare wood with a wood primer, cut fiber cement edges with an alkali-resistant primer, rust spots with a rust-inhibitive primer, bare stucco or brick with a masonry primer.
• Caulk joints that should be sealed, and deliberately leave open the ones that need to breathe — fiber cement butt joints and weep gaps included.
• Mask windows, roofing, walks, plantings and anything downwind.
• Two coats, back-brushed where a roller alone will not fill the texture.

Brick, Hardie and stucco each want something different

A painted brick ranch, a Hardie-board two-story and a stucco house are three different jobs and they are all common around here. Brick wants a breathable masonry coating over a properly cleaned face — done right it looks sharp for years, done over damp brick it traps moisture and peels in sheets. Fiber cement holds paint beautifully but the factory finish has to be cleaned and dulled, and every cut edge needs primer or it will wick moisture. Vinyl can be repainted, but only in colors rated at or lighter than the original, because a dark color on vinyl in Upstate sun will cook it out of shape. Stucco needs its cracks opened and filled first — paint bridges a hairline for about one season, then splits along it. If your surface is in good shape and you are on the fence about painting it at all, we will say so.

Sun, pollen and the season

Two things chew up paint here. The first is ultraviolet: a south or west elevation takes far more sun than the shaded sides, which is why those faces fade and chalk first, and why we spec the coating for them rather than for the whole house. The second is water — humidity, afternoon storms, heavy dew, and the mildew that grows on any north-facing wall shaded by pines. Exterior season runs most of the year, roughly March through November. Late March and April we wash first or we are painting pollen into the finish; in midsummer we start early and follow the shade around the house so a coating is not flashing off in ninety-five-degree sun. Tall gables, a steep pitch, a porch roof in the way — normal, and handled off ladders, staging and roof jacks.

Questions about exterior painting