The exterior of your home in Eugene, Oregon is starting to look a little pale and dated, and you’re now wondering if it’s time for an exterior repaint yet. Well, there are a few obvious signs that indicate your siding could use a fresh layer of paint, and this includes paint peeling, cracking, fading, caulking and flaking. But as you probably already know, exterior painting is a major task, especially if it’s a multilevel home, and no one wants to do it more times than necessary.

Which brings us to the question; how often should you have the exterior of your home repainted? Unfortunately, there is no set timeline for all, each home is different and unique. However, there’re a few guidelines that can help you pick an appropriate frequency that works for your unique situation. Here is a quick look at the top four.

The Siding Material

Paint has varying durability across different surfaces, which is one of the biggest reasons why lifespans for different paint jobs will differ even if they’re in the same neighborhood. According to popular findings, here is how painting needs will vary for different materials:-
• Aluminum siding – Paint every 4 years.
• Wood siding – Paint every 3-7 years, or every 4 years if it’s stained
• Stucco – typically lasts 5-6 years before requiring a fresh paint.
• Other Materials –hybrid and new types of materials such as brick and cement fiberboard often require less painting frequency, typically 10-15 years.

Quality of the Previous Paint Job
Not all paint jobs are created equal, even under the same conditions. There is a lot that goes into an exterior paint job other than just changing the color of your siding. And the overall quality of the paint job and materials used play a major role in how long your paint will last and how often you need to do touch-up painting.

The surface needs to be thoroughly prepared – washing, sanding, paint scraping, caulking, repairing and priming need to be done where appropriate. Failure to thoroughly prepare the surface will lead to signs of paint failure in as little as one year or even months after painting. The quality of paint, number of coats applied and the color will also determine how long your paint job will withstand external harsh elements.

Your Maintenance Habits.

Your home’s exterior takes a toll from a myriad of damaging elements such as frost, rain, humidity, mildew and mold, sunlight and insect invasion. These elements can quickly damage your paint system. Without regular intervention and a bit of TLC, your paint can fade, crack, peel, flake and caulk much faster than you can file your tax returns.

To ensure your exterior paint job lasts longer and in turn requires less frequent painting, perform a regular inspection in order to catch these problems at their early stages. Take care of any spotted issues such as insect invasion, mold and mildew growth, and rotting wood as soon as possible. Regularly wash off the dirt and mold, and hire a professional painting contractor to touch-up areas that have signs of failing paint.

Wear and Tear
If you see major paint failure signs such as extensive paint bubbling, cracking, peeling and chalking, it’s time for a new exterior paint job. You can only touch-up and correct so much when your paint starts to fail, so knowing when to call for a full exterior repaint is important. Generally, the longer the problems sit on your siding, the more damage there is, and the harder and more expensive they will be to correct.

Bottom Line
The above guidelines should give you an overall idea of when and how often you should repaint your home’s exterior. If you’re considering hiring professional painting service in for your home in Eugene Oregon, we can help. Call us today for a free estimate or more information.

You could buy the highest quality of paint in the market with the best lifetime-warranty and apply 3 coats, but if the surface is not well prepared, the stage is already set for an inferior paint job. The amount of effort you put towards surface preparation before exterior painting will determine how long the paint lasts.

A majority of paint failures result from inadequate surface preparation. Some people skimp on prep work because, understandably, it’s hard, and time consuming. Other do so because either they don’t understand how important it is, or how to do it. In this article, we will go through some of the main steps of surface prep before exterior painting to help you understand the processes and their importance.
So here we go;

1. Cleaning

Your siding collects fine dirt and debris over time. If you paint over this contaminants, the paint will be sticking to the dirt particles and not to the surface of the siding. This causes the paint to peel off the surface sooner than you can expect. To tell if the surface was not well prepared, experts look at the back of the peeling paint chip –if it has dirt and contaminants, it means the surface was not well cleaned.

So clean the surface thoroughly either by hand scrubbing or using a pressure washer. You will find pressure washing to be more convenient, faster and effective in dislodging dirt and grim from difficult areas such as surface cracks and crevices. If you’ve already scheduled painting, be sure to pressure wash 2-3 days in advance to allow for sufficient drying time.

2. Scrapping 

Most homeowners decide to repaint their house after seeing signs of paint peeling and flaking. If this is your case as well, you need to scrape off all the loose paint from your siding until all that is left are areas of bare surfaces and well-adhered paint. Leaving any flaking or peeling edges will definitely lead to failure of your paint job.

You can choose from different types of scrappers from your local home improvement store. Most people prefer long-handled pull scrapers because they work faster and have replaceable blades for when they because dull. Try not to be too aggressive with it otherwise it can gouge into the siding and leave undesirable dings.

3. Repair Damages

Cleaning and scrapping your siding also provides a good opportunity to inspect your siding for damages. If your siding has any damaged or rotted sections, this is the best time to have them repaired. Replace rotted or missing sections and treat any sections that have mold and mildew with a water/household bleach mixture at a ratio of 3:1. If there’re any protruding nail heads, set them just slightly below the surface using a hummer.

4. Sanding

Sanding is the next important step that will help you achieve a smooth surface. Sand down any rough exposed wood as well as feather-sanding the edge of the remaining paint that’s still on the siding. Doing so reduces the appearance of the transition from the existing coating to bare surface when you finally paint over everything.

While sanding manually using a sandpaper is an option, this is going to take ages and it’s quite laborious. Consider buying or renting an electric sander, preferably a random orbital sander. Start with a medium grit if your surface rough, or go straight to the fine grit if your surface is fairly even.

5. Priming

If you’re in a hurry to change the color of your exterior, you might be tempted to head straight to applying the paint without priming. Skipping the primer during exterior painting is only justifiable in very few cases, but you almost always have to prime before applying the paint. Priming creates a suitable surface for the paint to adhere to. It also blocks the previous paint and any other stubborn stains from bleeding through the new coat of paint.

Make sure to use a good quality primer that’s suitable to being used on the surface you’re applying it to. If you’re transitioning from a dark to a lighter paint color, consider tinting your primer with a bit of the paint that you’re going to apply. You might also want to replace caulking that has been damaged before finally painting.

Final thoughts

Once the above steps are completed, your exterior is ready for painting. The color and choice of the paint are entirely up to your preference, but we always recommend using high quality paint products for the best results.

If you’re located in Eugene, Oregon and would like some professional assistance with your exterior painting project please give us call on 541-600-2025 or send us an email at sales@sirpaints.com and we would be more than happy to help.

Painting your home’s exterior is probably one of the largest and most complicated projects you can take on as a homeowner. Doing it all by yourself is nearly impossible, yet it still has to be accomplished to restore the glory of your home, or maybe prepare it for sale.

By all means, hiring an experienced exterior painting contractor is the best way to have your exterior repaint job executed faster, safely and professionally. And perhaps the second biggest challenge is finding a reliable, and experienced painting contractor in Eugene, Oregon.

While there’re dozens of painting contractors out there, finding a contractor that offers value for money by producing long-lasting and stunning results can be quite a gamble. This article seeks to take the guesswork out of way by sharing the 5 most important things you should consider when hiring a painting contractor.

Here you go;

Ask Around for Referrals

Your first task would be to actually find a number of painting contractors and vet them against your painting needs. One of the best ways to get referrals is by asking your friends, family, neighbors or colleagues. The best thing about referrals from your inner circle is that you can actually visit the painted house and asses the quality of the painter.

If you can’t get reliable referrals from within your inner circle, your next best option would be to head to search engines such as Google and other platforms such as Angie’s list for referrals. Next, narrow your searches to local painting contractors within Eugene, filter the available options using the next checkpoints.

What Services are Offered?

Not all painting contractors are made equal in terms of the services they offer. Different painters specialize in different painting areas. Some have specialized in commercial painting, others in residential painting, while some simply call themselves general painters/contractors.

Before you even find out what services your potential painter offers, identify and define your painting needs. If you have a multi-level home on a slope that needs exterior painting, for instance, you need a contractor that can handle this unique situation. So even if you find an exterior painter specializing in residential houses, go further and ask if they can handle hard-t-reach areas such as the eaves of a multi-level home on a slope.

Licenses and Insurance

Any reputable painting contractor that handles people’s properties worth thousands should have the appropriate paperwork in place. For starters, your potential painter should be licensed to operate in Oregon State and should have no problem displaying a copy of their license.

Additionally, always strive to work with painters that have insurance for both their business and employees. Insurance ensures that if anything goes wrong on your property during the painting project, the damages will be covered by the painter’s insurance policy. In addition, if any worker gets injured while on the job, you’re not liable for the resulting costs.

Painter’s Experience

You want to check if your preferred painter has the required experience to take on your project. While new painters, can do a pretty good job too, they don’t have much to paint you in terms of references. Ideally, you would want to see a few photos of their past projects and even talk to some of their previous clients. As earlier mentioned, your preferred painter needs to have considerable experience (2-5 years) in exterior painting.

Request and Compare Estimates

By now you should have about 3 painting contractors you’re considering hiring. Request estimates from each of them and make comparisons. Don’t fall in the trap of selecting the least costly option for your exterior painting job.

Most homeowners tend to choose the cheapest option from hiring a painter to selecting paint and materials. They generally think that selecting the cheapest option is the best way to go about things. The best price in most cases is not always the lowest one. Instead, you should look to get value for your money. You should consider hiring the contractor that offers the best value.

Conclusion

Choosing a painting contractor is more or less like choosing a tailor, you get what you pay for. If you take some time and do proper research, your efforts will show in the pristine final results that you will get.