If you’re like many homeowners, you might be pushing off your exterior painting project. Perhaps you’ve thought, “The paint isn’t peeling on all sides yet, just on the back. It still looks pretty good from the street!” or “Let’s wait until it’s really bad, so we can get our money’s worth!”
Not paying attention to the condition of your home’s exterior paint is a dangerous and expensive game to play.
Waiting and letting your exterior paint suffer isn’t maximizing your investment, it’s creating a larger-scale project that you will have to tackle later on. No one wants to spend extra time and money on a home improvement project when you could be spending quality time with your loved ones.
The most cost-effective way to protect and enhance your home is to pay attention to your home’s paint, invest in ongoing maintenance and take preventative measures. Here are some signs that your home needs a new exterior paint job:
Peeling and Chipping Paint – If you notice that your surrounding landscaping and bushes look like they have a dandruff problem, this is a sign of the paint chipping off the house’s exterior surface. Peeling results when a wet substrate (e.g. the surface that has been painted) swells, causing the paint film to loosen, crack, and fall off.
Alligatoring – Patterned cracking in the paint film resembling the scales of an alligator. This can be caused by natural aging of oil-based paints due to temperature fluctuation. The constant expansion and contraction results in a loss of paint film elasticity.
Blistering – Bubbles appearing on the exterior walls are caused from a loss of adhesion and lifting of the paint film from the underlying surface. Heat blistering can be caused by painting in direct sunlight on a surface that is too warm. Moisture blistering can be caused by the migration of water through an interior wall to the exterior, thus pushing the paint off of the surface.
Fading – Over the years, your original paint color will fade due to exposure to natural sunlight and the weather. Consider a high-quality paint, because its color integrity will last longer than cheaper alternatives.
Split Caulking – Fresh caulk and paint often go hand-in-hand. If yours is growing brittle and breaking down, you’re opening the door to a host of issues, including a loss of energy efficiency.
Spider Cracks – Right before paint peels and chips, it offers one last warning sign: spider cracks. Catch this symptom early, before paint failure strikes in full force, and you’ll save a lot of money.
Olympic Painting and Staining Company specializes in both exterior and interior painting and staining, powerwashing, wallpaper removal, and light carpentry on commercial and residential properties. We proudly serve Central New Jersey, and the Yardley, New Hope, and Newtown PA areas.