Top 5 Proactive Residential Exterior Painting Services
Exterior painting isn’t just about boosting your home’s curb appeal (though it certainly achieves this). Applying fresh paint to your home’s exterior surfaces protects them from various environmental threats, including sunlight, moisture, wind, pests, temperature fluctuations, and more. Proper surface preparation is key in achieving this lasting protection. As such, the exterior painting process involves more than just slapping on a new coat of paint; there are a number of steps to take before you bring the brush to your siding.
Let’s go over the top five proactive residential exterior painting services that will protect your home from the elements and extend the lifespan of its paint job.
Top 5 Residential Exterior Painting Services
1. Pressure Washing
Though often performed on its own, pressure washing is also a key preparation for exterior painting. Pressure washing blasts your exterior surfaces with water and detergent at high velocities, removing dirt, grime, mold, and mildew in the process. Doing so brightens up your home’s outward appearance and mitigates the risk of further deterioration. Moreover, providing a clean exterior in this way allows for better adhesion of exterior paint, improving exterior painting outcomes.
2. Sanding and Scraping
If the previous paint job donning your home’s exterior is peeling or chipping away, you’ll want to eliminate any and all loose pieces before applying fresh paint. Otherwise, the fresh paint won’t adhere as well, and you’ll only be prolonging the problem. Exterior painting services can remove a fair amount of this peeling material via pressure washing, but more stubborn areas may need to be dealt with manually by scraping and sanding them down.
3. Caulking
Old paint isn’t the only concern when preparing to paint your home’s exterior – you must consider the condition of old caulk as well. Over time, the caulk that seals the gaps between joints, windows, doors, etc. will dry up, loosen, and otherwise break apart. The exterior painting contractor you hire should provide fresh caulking to seal any existing spaces before applying paint. A well-caulked exterior will keep pests out, reduce drafts, and lower your home’s energy costs.
4. Priming
In order to ensure the best exterior painting outcomes, you’ll want to do everything you can to make surfaces receptive and smooth. Pressure washing, scraping, and sanding are all part of this, but priming helps seal the deal. Primer acts as a buffer between the underlying surface and the incoming paint. If you paint a bare surface before priming, some of the paint will absorb into the surface, resulting in an uneven coat and warranting additional coats. If the surface in question is already sealed with a previous paint job and said paint job remains firmly in place, priming may not be necessary. If you’re unsure, however, it’s always wise to prime anyway.
5. Application of High-Quality Exterior Paint
When it’s finally time to paint your home’s exterior, keep in mind that not all exterior paint products are created equal. If you want your home’s appearance and integrity to stand the test of time, you’ll want to use the best residential exterior paint for your exterior materials and budget. While premium paints are more expensive overall, they’re also thicker and composed of superior ingredients. As a result, you won’t have to apply as many coats when working with a high-quality paint compared to a lesser one, and you’ll be left with more durable, even results. Of course, proper paint application is also key regardless of the specific type of paint you deploy. Exterior painting companies may use sprayers, rollers, and/or brushes to the site for different portions of the job. Sprayers and rollers cover larger sections quickly, while brushes are designed for precision tasks, hard-to-reach areas, and touching up.
How Thorough Is Your Residential Exterior Painting Project?
If it wasn’t clear before, the best exterior paint jobs consist of many proactive tasks. If you’re gearing up for residential exterior painting in Raleigh, NC, why hire multiple contractors when you could work with one provider who handles every important aspect of exterior painting? At Anderson Painting, pressure washing, scraping, sanding, caulking, and priming are all included in our exterior painting offerings – and these are just a handful of services we offer our clients.
To learn more about us and all we do, call today at 919-610-1855 or email us at info@andersonpaintingnc.com!
