Is it Time to Paint Your Home’s Exterior? Let Your Eyes Be the Judge.

Is it Time to Paint Your Home’s Exterior? Let Your Eyes Be the Judge. There is no “right” time to paint your home. While every exterior painted surface will eventually begin to fade and lose its original attractiveness, there’s a lot of middle ground between new and old. One homeowner may say, “This house looks horrible – let’s paint it,” while another may say, “It still looks fine – let’s go play golf.”

Franklin Painting of Farmington, CT, would like to share some ideas about making the decision to repaint your home along with some ballpark estimates on how long specific types of painted surfaces should hold up and look good.

Is it Time to Paint Your Home’s Exterior? How to tell if your home needs to be painted

The way to tell is to stand in the yard and look at it. If it doesn’t look the way you want it to, it’s time to paint.

Typical paint issues include:

Fading

Fading is inevitable on all types of painted materials. A higher-quality paint will last longer, but even the best paint will finally lose out to season after season of extreme weather.

Flaking

Flaking, chipping and bubbling in a painted surface are often caused by cheap paint or painters who don’t know what they’re doing. Quality paint applied correctly usually won’t flake, chip or bubble.

Stains

Water and rust stains aren’t automatic signs to repaint the house. Some of these stains can be removed without harming the paint. You should, however, stop whatever is causing the stains.

How long paint lasts

Below are some very general rules of thumb in predicting how long paint should last on various surfaces. Many things can affect a paint job, and yours could have a longer or shorter life than what we show here.

• Painted wood siding should look great for a minimum of six or seven years and possibly much longer.
• Aluminum siding, when painted correctly, can retain its color for 10 years or more.
• Painted brick will typically start to fade or exhibit other problems after about 12 to 15 years.
• Paint on stucco should hold up well for around 10 years.

Other reasons to paint your home

Aside from the current paint looking old and faded, here are four other reasons you might choose to paint your home.

You’re selling the home

A freshly painted house (inside and out) is a powerful attractor of new homebuyers. A beautiful paint job, coupled with a manicured yard, can sell a home almost on the spot.

You’re putting on an addition

Assuming you’re going to paint the walls of the addition with the same color of paint used on the rest of the house, it’s probably a good idea to paint the whole house. This way, all the paint will wear equally over time.

There are plans for major landscaping or property renovation

If the property around your home is going from blah to fabulous, you might consider adding to the aesthetics with a new coat of paint for the home.

Because you want to

If you painted the house last year and now you’re tired of the color, paint it again. If your home’s color is fading rapidly but you have more important things to do, leave it alone. There are no rules or laws for when to paint. Your home should look the way you want it.

Expert painting for your Connecticut home

If you want help in planning and executing a home painting project, call the experts at Franklin Painting. We’ll work with you every step of the way to turn out a result that will delight and amaze you.

Reach us by phone in the Farmington, CT, area, or get in touch through our handy contact form.