When to Repaint Your Home’s Exterior?
By ICG
When you start to notice signs like cracks, gaps, and paint bubbles, it’s time to repaint your home’s exterior to improve its curb appeal.
The paint on your home’s exterior can get old and start peeling after experiencing harsh weather conditions like heavy rains and snow. Your home’s exterior is the first thing anyone sees before entering your house. In other words, it can make a lasting impression.
Not only this, but having unappealing, cracking, and peeling paint also hurts the curb appeal of your house. Therefore, you need to consider repainting your home’s exterior.
Repainting your home will help you attract home buyers if you want to sell your house. You can even impress your friends and colleagues with your knowledge of different color palettes and shades. In fact, as older paints can release VOCs into the air, painting exterior walls, roofs, and other exterior elements will help you improve indoor air quality.
So, consider investing in a fresh coat of paint if you notice these signs on the exterior of your house.
Signs Your Home’s Exterior Needs Coat of Paint
Cracking, Bubbling, or Flaking Paint
These problems can occur because of wet rot, dry rot, or mold developing on the walls or roof due to failed waterproofing. Harsh winters, scorching sunlight, blowing sand, storms, humidity, and ocean breezes can also be the reason for this type of damage.
If you notice these problems, you need to repaint your home’s exterior to boost its appeal.
Hardened Caulk
Caulk is the material that helps close leaks or seal joints in pipes and other structures. However, over time, your home gets exposed to harsh weather conditions, causing caulk to lose its elasticity. It’s better to hire experts to repaint your house.
Gaps
Gaps are another major sign that your home needs a fresh coat of paint. If you notice shrinkage of trim or wood pieces, gaps in siding, and other related problems, it’s usually a sign that you need to start repainting your house.
Of course, when you will fill out gaps and fix different things, you also need to repaint your home’s exterior.
Fading
Fading exterior paint can make your house look dull, old, and even unpleasant. Typically, this problem develops when you haven’t painted your house for many years. Your walls, roof, windows, and door will develop a different color, very different from what you painted years ago.
Mind you, fading is much more common and quick in the case of light paint. So, not only is it vital to paint your house after a few years, but you should also opt for darker and brighter colors.
Things to Consider When Repainting Your Home’s Exterior
Look for Damaged Surfaces
Before repainting your home’s exterior, it’s better to make all the repairs and replacements. Walk around the entire perimeter of your house, take notes of things you need to fix, and hire experts to help you with the project.
Make sure to look for damage in every surface type, like metal, wood, stucco, or siding. Also, you need to caulk trim, fill the holes, and fix problems in windows and doors. This way, when you finally repaint your house, there will be no risk of peeling and cracking.
Remove Loose Paint
Check your entire exterior and look for chipped or loose paint. Now, place cloth on the ground and start removing loose and chipped paint. For this purpose, you can use a medium-grit sanding block or paint scraper.
Apply More than One Coat
You need to apply alkyd primer first if you want to paint over metal or bare wood, which will help you prevent paint from bleeding. Besides that, you can also tint the primer with a contrasting color after the final coat. It will help you identify any spots that you haven’t covered.
Opt for the Right Tools
If you want a perfect home exterior, you need to use a high-quality roller, brush, or airless sprayer (if needed). You can also rent these tools from local rental outlets or home improvement stores. Additionally, the simplest and quickest way to apply paint and premier to textured walls, roofs, and other surfaces is to spray content with an airless sprayer. It will save you time and energy and give you impressive and appealing results.
Bottom Line
It’s best to repaint your home’s exterior after every 4 to 6 years based on the quality of paint and craftsmanship. If you don’t know after how many years your house will need a fresh coat of paint, look for the signs mentioned above to make a decision.
Apart from this, if you are planning to paint yourself, make sure to invest in high-quality paint and the right tools. You also need to repair the home’s exterior before painting, as it will help you prevent peeling and cracking for many years. Lastly, look for bright and dark colors to keep your paint from fading in a few years.