Exterior Painting Tips for LA

Our approach to residential exterior painting is quite simple: we want the exteriors of our clients’ homes and office buildings to look amazing and last a very long time. What’s important to understand about paint failure is that it’s not a consistent linear decline, meaning it doesn’t decline at the same exact rate over time. Most homeowners don’t realize that paint deterioration literally starts the next day after you finish painting. The good news is paint deterioration, however, isn’t noticeable for several years. But the paint begins to accelerate in its failure as time goes by. The declining rate is actually more like a parabolic curve or a line that is bending downward, meaning that the paint is fine for several years, but once it begins to noticeably fail, the failure process speeds up tremendously. While the exterior paint looks great in years 1, 2, 3 and 4, by year 5 or 6, it is starting to perform poorly. If you wait too long to repaint, your costs to repaint go up considerably, i.e., more removal of failing paint, more sanding, wood replacement and more priming. By taking the time to thoroughly and properly prep the surfaces, add a primer coat and upgrade to higher quality materials, we are able to push the deterioration out by several more years so that you can save money in the long run.

At the end of your project, we can also help identify all areas that may need additional attention in the future. Areas like wood facing the southern exposure, open-grained wood, and horizontal surfaces get hit the hardest during extreme weather changes. If we schedule a yearly inspection after the second or third year from your last completion date, a dramatic cost savings may be realized. Typically spending only 10% to 15% of your original painting costs in year 3 will greatly extend the life of your exterior paint and save you a lot of money in the long run. This will ensure your property looks new for a total of 10 to 12 years or more.

See this article as also published in our local newspaper/magazine called “The Magazine of Santa Clarita”