Painting a House Exterior

[t1kilo]

Check out the Sherrington Williams Emerald Rain Refresh product. Not cheap, but amazing paint. I used it to paint my house. 6 years ago. Recently, I had some boards that I needed to paint to match the house. Didn’t have any of the original paint left over, so I went pick up another gallon. It matched the six year old paint exactly, in spite of the south Louisiana heat and sun.

Check out “tape & drape” when you pick up your paint. It’s a roll of lightweight plastic with painters tape on one edge. Makes taping off windows and doors quick and easy.

 

[HawkinsHollow]

Well, been doing a little more research and seems like rolling it might be the better option. Definitely more time consuming and labor intensive but potentially a better product, less prep and taping, less chance of over spray, less chance of screwing it up. I have rolled plenty but I have never sprayed a house. My neighbor's house is about 20 feet from mine and is white, we are painting our a dark blue sounds like a potential mess if I get overspray.

 

[ultrarunner]

Spray only exterior jobs here don’t seem to last with the new construction being the least in longevity…

It’s often a quick cosmetic option to sell…

 

[HawkinsHollow]

Oh, I missed a whole section of posts before i made that last post.

Ok, no pressure washing. I did a couple smaller sections of the house with the pressure washer today and yeah, it felt wrong. I hope I didn't screw anything up. I did my best to aim it down the siding but I am sure there were a few times it didn't go as planned. Hose and brush to finish the rest of it. Luckily it will be nice and warm and breezy the next couple of days to dry things up.

I as mentioned in my last post I thin kI am going to go with the roller and brush. Thanks for all the comments about what things to use ot make that eaiser. i am going to go back and reread those comments now.

 

[HawkinsHollow]

Another question. The hardie that was just put up about 5 months ago probably doesn't need a really good cleaning right? Quick hose job to wash off the dust?

 

[Richard001]

You haven't said what kind of paint is on the walls now. If it is an oil based paint, DO NOT use a water based paint to paint over original paint.

Like others have said, no pressure wash, and unless you can actually see dirt on the wall, no washing is required. Two years ago, I had my house painted, well actually, stained. My exterior walls are cedar with vertical groves. The painters started out using a sprayer, but as someone else sad, the sprayer is just a quick way to get the paint on the wall. The guys doing the work used brushes to get the stain into the wood.

They used a pressure washer even though I ask them not to.

The window were all a mess. Spent days cleaning the windows.

I would not use water based paint on an exterior wall. It just doesn't last.

Richard

 

[JeepHead]

If you are panting ANYWHERE close to an HVAC outside condenser unit, make absolute sure you turn it off so that it isn't pulling in any air. It will suck the paint right into it from pretty far distances.I made this mistake early in my power washing career staining decks.

 

[EddieWalker]

Before painting, I'll brush off everything on the surface. I might use a stiff broom, a wire brush, or sand it with anything from hand to my 5 inch random orbital sander with the courses disks I can find. Usually 18 grit. I never use a hose or water when getting ready to paint.

Prep work for me can take a week, to a month. Most of the time when I'm hired to paint a house, it's because there is a lot of rot to repair, and they have hired painters before that just painted over the rot.

Funny story. One of my clients is super wealthy. She hires me to fix everything on her house, and to look for things to fix that she isn't aware of. Her house is 5,000 square feet with a great room that has 20 foot tall walls. She asked me to paint it, but I declined. I told her it was too big of a house for me to mess with and I'd be there for months. She called a bunch of painting contractors and got bids ranging from $20,000 to $35,000. She went with the crew that said $25,000 because she felt they where pros, and she knew somebody that had used them. Then she told me she was going to hire me to go over what they did after they left and fix all their mistakes. I charged her $2,000 for what I did. What impressed me was how she expected there to be issues, and how she went about dealing with them. In the end, she got it done for $27,000, which she was very happy with.

 

[EddieWalker]

Currently, the very best paint that you can buy is Emerald from Sherwin Williams. It's crazy expensive, but they sell enough of it that they don't care. I mostly use it for cabinets, but if I have an area on house that I'm worried about, I buy Emerald. I tell my clients what the cost is, and they usually agree to spend the money.

For my personal home, I use Valspar Duramax paint from Lowes. All my exterior walls are Hardie, and I feel it's the best value paint out there.

Valspar owns Sherwin Williams. They have the same technology and materials to make their paints. The manager at Sherwin Williams told me that the exact same paint that they sell there is sold for less money at Lowes. But their premium and industrial paints are only sold at Sherwin Williams.

If you were painting wood, I would suggest something different. Wood is a much bigger challenge then Hardie!!!!

I've never had any success with a roller on Hardie. If you use a deep nap, like half an inch, you will spray paint all over the place. If you use a 3/8 inch nap, you will have trouble getting the paint into all the cracks. In the end, the brush is faster because you do it once and move on.

 

[tradosaurus]

Well it is time to paint my house. I got a couple quotes came in about $4000-$4500 for our 1800 sqft single story house and the 650 sq ft garage. Seems kind of steep to me and I am out of money after our big addition and renovation, so I think I am going to do it myself. I have never painted a house before. I have caulked everything, I am fixing some minor window trim rot, scrape, then I am going to lightly pressure wash the whole house, and finally paint. I bought an airless sprayer from Harbor Fright and one of those big metal drywall knife things to block the paint spray. I have quite a bit of experience with spraying smaller items with an HVLP sprayer system, so I feel like those skills will cross over to house painting well. What am I missing? Tips, warning, advice is all appreciated.

I need my eaves painted about 6 months ago. My house is brick but the trim is wood and probably hadn't been painted in 15 yrs and there was signs of rot in places.
I bought the paint and a spray paint gun about 3 yrs ago (lol) but kept putting it off.
Found a guy that works in my company that does painting on the side. $2200 and 9 gallons of Sherwin Williams exterior paint later and it looks good.
If I did it wouldn't have look great and I didn't want to see my handiwork everytime I drove up to my house.
I would recommend to not skimp on the price of the paint.