Keep Up With Exterior Maintenance And Painting
It may sound counter productive, but painting more often will save you money. How often your house exterior needs to be painted goes far beyond aesthetics. The paint is one of the layers of protection for your home. Many home owners wait far too long to re-paint until there is an extensive amount of scraping, sanding and re-caulking to be done. The extra labour to do this preparation will greatly add to your painting costs.
Neglecting the exterior maintenance of a home’s exterior can result in wood rot, excessive mold or mildew build up or water ingress. Wood siding or trim work that is not kept well protected with a layer of paint or stain can become prone to warping, cupping or cracking. Having to hire someone to replace damaged wood can be costly, especially the it’s on the higher levels of the house.
You should do a visual inspection of your house at least once a year and and keep on top of any issues you see arising. It’s not uncommon as painters to show up for an exterior quote and have to inform the customer that the have rotting siding or fascia boards, or that the majority of the caulking on their house has deteriorated.
If wood has been left to deteriorate to the point that it’s severely cracking and peeling it leaves it exposed to the weather elements. Hours of preparation labour will be needed to prepare it for painting, if the wood is even worth saving.
This bucket is full of peeling and flaking paint that was on the majority of the wood siding of the house below. Some of the boards were cracked and deteriorated beyond repair. They had to be replaced before the painting commenced. It took a great deal of time to scrap and wire brush off the loose paint which significantly adds to the labour costs of the job.
Luckily this scenario was not as bad as it could have been. With the exception of about a dozen boards the siding on the house was still in relatively good shape. However, it did cost the homeowner a lot of extra expense for the painting preparation and to bring in someone to replace the decayed boards.
Don’t Neglect Parts Of The House That Are In Need Of Painting Because You’re Waiting Until The Whole House Needs To Be Done
A mistake that some homeowners make is allowing one portion of their house to suffer because the rest of it is not necessarily in need of painting. It can be make economical sense to paint a portion of your house when it needs it. You may have a particular side of your house that is exposed to intense sunlight or harsh weather it may require painting more frequently than other areas
Trim work and in particular the fascia boards may become weathered, faded or discoloured, but the body of the house is still in good condition. By painting just the trim it can give a fresh new look to the entire house.
Use Quality Paint And Do The Proper Preparation
The importance of using a high quality paint on the exterior of your house can’t be overstated. Low quality paint will break down faster, may fade prematurely and could allow the house to accumulate mildew or mold at an accelerated rate. However, the highest quality paint is only as good as the surface preparation that was done prior to its application.
The same goes for interior painting. A low quality paint is going to mark and scuff easily. It may not stand up well to humidity in areas of the home or could accumulate mildew. It may stain easily and if you try to wash or wipe a low quality paint it can leave noticeable steaking or burnish marks.
Tips For Saving Money On Interior Painting
Schedule Painting While The House Is Empty – If there is the opportunity to schedule painting before you move into a newly purchased home take advantage of it. Not only will it be reflected in a lower painting quote, it will be a lot less stressful for your family.
Schedule Painting While The House Is Unoccupied – if you hire trustworthy painters there’s no reason you can’t allow them to paint while you are away. We quite often have clients who schedule us to paint while they are on vacation. This allows us to work earlier or later hours if we choose to. We don’t have to accommodate for the homeowner to use any of the spaces during the day or after we leave. We can work on all areas of the house at one time, leaving our drop sheets, work equipment and paint materials in place from the start to finish of the job.
Paint In Winter – Consider booking your interior painting in the winter months. Often this season can be slower for the painting industry and contractors may offer discounts, particular in the months of November through February.
Book Several Rooms Or The Whole House At Once – Having a contractor come in to paint several interior spaces at the same time is more cost effective. It’s less effort and more convenient for the contractor to do so, versus returning on multiple occasions and setting up equipment and supplies each time for one room.
Save The Painting Contractor Time – Anything done on the home owners part to allow the contractor to focus on painting will help reduce the cost. This should of course be agreed upon beforehand and written into the painting quote. Having to work around difficult furniture, move furniture, blinds, or other window coverings all take up time. Contractors take many factors into consideration when doing an estimate.
Multiple Interior Paint Colours Increase Painting Costs – Homeowners may not realize that it can cost more to paint a house interior in multiple paint colours, both in paint and labour costs. For example a typical bedroom might take a gallon and a half of paint. If that’s the only room being painted in that colour a half gallon of paint doesn’t get utilized elsewhere.
It takes the painter more time, effort and expense to paint a number of colours.. Each one requires a different brush, roller, tray, brush bucket, liner, etc. When painting with one colour a painter can efficiently transition between rooms and go back and forth between spaces applying first and second coats as drying time allows.
Accent Or Feature Walls Cost More – Things to take note of when having a feature wall painted. It often requires purchasing a full gallon of paint, even for a small feature wall. It takes more time and effort to precisely cut in the accent wall against the adjoining wall colours. If you’re painting an entire house it’s not going to significantly add to the cost if you have one feature wall. However, if you start adding in several of them it start adding up and it will slow the painting process down. If you’re having only a single room painted and adding in a feature wall you’ll likely to take more notice of the cost increase that it will incur.
Omit Painting Closets If They Don’t Need Painting – Unless you’ve done it yourself most people don’t realize how time consuming it is to paint a closet or pantry that has a lot of shelving or an elaborate clothing hanging system. In the closet example below we would remove the metal shelving, leaving the mounting hardware in place. This makes it easier to paint, but we still have to cut in around dozens of mounting clips and it takes time to remove and re-install the shelving. If the closets need to be painted so be it, but if they are in relatively good condition and you’re fine with the colour leave them out to keep the painting costs down.
