How often do I need to paint my New England home?
Posted on June 1, 2022
It’s not easy to tell if your exterior needs painting.
First, it’s just not that obvious that an exterior needs painting. Often a home that needs the protection of paint or stain looks “just fine.” This is because as paint fades, it looks pretty good as long as it fades evenly.
Many buy a new home and forget to ask the previous homeowner when the exterior was last painted. In this case, take our quiz to see if your home needs a coat of exterior paint.
You may not know when the previous owners last painted your home’s exterior.
You may also have moved into a home recently and forgotten to ask the previous owners when they last painted the exterior. So again, you’re in the dark about when you should ideally paint the exterior to keep it protected.
The main reason you NEED to paint is the protection of your home.
Paint isn’t just decorative; it’s protective. This means that even if a house looks good, the paint is still slowly wearing away from UV sunlight and harsh weather.
Paint is comprised of two elements: 1 – thepigment (the color) and 2- the resin (the part of the paint that offers protection).
Resin is the part of the paint that protects your home, so moisture can get into your wood clapboards, siding, and trim when it breaks down over the years. Painting is much less expensive than having to replace siding and trim wood that’s been rotted by moisture.
New England is known for its heavy precipitation, including snow, sleet, and rain. This can make it difficult to keep moisture out of wood. Painting or staining your home will help keep the wood in good condition.
Did you know many new construction homes on the South Shore are painted with only one coat of exterior paint? We are often called in to apply a new coat of paint to protect the underlying wood.
The main reason people WANT to paint is aesthetics.
Protection aside, people mainly call us to paint their exterior because they want to change colors or give their home a fresher look.
New England is home to many historic houses, and it’s important to preserve the character and integrity of antique homes when painting their exteriors. In many cases, it may be necessary to use historically accurate colors and paint formulations to maintain the authenticity of these homes.
A quick way to determine if your home needs painting? Take our 20-second quiz.
Here are the general timelines for painting homes in the Boston area. Homes closest to the coast will likely need painting more often than those inland ones, but the following are good rules of thumb.
Is there an easy way to tell if my exterior needs painting?
Our 20-second quiz will tell you if you need to paint now or have a few years left in your previous paint job.
How often should I paint my home’s exterior?
Coastal homes need on the South Shore should be painted every 5-7 years:
Homes along the coast in towns like Duxbury, Marshfield, Hingham, Cohasset, Hull, Quincy, Kingston, Plymouth, Marion, and Dartmouth, Massachusetts, tend to need painting every 5 to 7 years. Painting a “maintenance coat” of paint after 3 years for homes directly on the coast is advised because salt and wind quickly wear away at the protective resin in your paint because you’re near the ocean.
As climate change occurs, Northeast storms and tide surges can wear away at coastal homes in ways they didn’t before. This is because storms are stronger, winds are more damaging, and rain, sleet, hail, and snow are more common. It’s also because tide surges can reach parts of our home’s exterior that they weren’t before – this is why lots of South Shore towns are building sea walls, raising coastal roadways, and recommending that new coastal homes be built either much more setback on the property, or on stilts.
Inland homes likely need painting every 7-8 years.
New England’s harsh winters and very hot summers tend to wear away at paint faster. The true impact of the sun is seen on your deck and porch’s floorboards which take a beating from the sun and are the last thing on your home to dry when it rains (the floor of your deck is a horizontal surface that holds puddles of water, while the wood on your house is mostly vertical, so it sheds rainwater more easily due to gravity).
Better paint and preparation tend to result in a longer-lasting job. It does matter which paint brands and grades you choose!
PVC Trim Boards:
Every 12+ years. Usually, exterior paint lasts MUCH longer on PVC than on wood or wood composite boards because no moisture penetrates the PVC material.
Often PVC trim does not trim the entire home but is only “spliced in” where rotted wood has been replaced. If this is the case, we simply paint over these small PVC spots when we’re painting your regular exterior wood trim and the PVC and wood are indiscernible from one another once they are painted. PVC trim boards even come in historic profiles that match antique trim perfectly.
How often do I have to paint my Boston-area deck or porch?
Deck floors
The floors of decks and porches need staining or painting every 1-2 years because of the beating they take from foot traffic, hot sun, and puddling rain and snow. Most uncovered decks are in direct sunlight, which quickly fades the horizontal deck boards.
Deck railings
Deck railings and vertical spindles need painting or staining every 5 years.
PVC, Composite, and Trex Decking
While PVC decks can be painted, the idea is that they are maintenance-free and don’t need to be painted. We love seeing PVC decks (like Trex) all along the South Shore because staining a deck every 2-years to keep it protected from rotting and looking good gets expensive. Our carpenters can install Trex decking if you’re interested in switching from a wood deck to a composite one.
How often should I paint my interior?
How often should I paint my walls?
Because of the scrubbable paint formulas available today, our customers often get tired of a particular color before the paint shows a lot of wear. Scrubbable simply means it’s easy to wash off dirt and dings. Sometimes cleaning a wall makes it look brand new, so start by cleaning a small patch to see if this can help.
Refreshing a coat of paint to remove scuffs generally is done after 5-8 years.
We can use scuff-resistant paint to prolong the paint job for high-traffic areas and businesses.
How often should I paint my interior trim:
Adding a coat of trim paint every 5-7 years lends a sense of cleanliness to marked woodwork. We often are called in to paint one coat of paint on the trim before it goes up for sale, to lend a clean look to the space.
How often do bathrooms need to be painted?
Using paint specifically formulated for the moisture and mildew growth in a bathroom should keep the bathroom walls and trim looking good for 7+ years.
Run a strong bathroom fan to reduce moisture after showers and baths. It is worth investing in an industrial bathroom fan to keep mold and mildew from growing in your bathroom.
To test if your bathroom fan is strong enough to clear moisture, hold a square of double-ply tissue paper up while the fan is running, and make sure it is held in place by the fan’s suction.
How often do I need to paint my ceilings?
Often ceilings can go 10+ years before adding a coat of paint because they are not often touched.
Of course, if you have a leak causing your ceiling to stain, you must fix the leak or else the ceiling stain will return.
Moving? That’s a good time to paint:
We see many people paint their homes right before they put them up for sale and after moving in. In general, painting before a home goes on the market helps “neutralize” a home’s colors so more buyers can visualize themselves in that home.
You don’t have to break the bank when trying to paint a home to sell. Ask your painter for a “one coat real estate spruce up.”
Painting done after you move into your new home helps to personalize a space. Painting an interior or exterior of a home on the market only makes sense if the increased price you will fetch for your home will be more than the price of the painting.
Many customers rush to have us paint their homes BEFORE they move in, but we don’t NEED to paint your interior while it’s empty. If you’d rather take your time moving, get settled, and then have us paint. Our painters are used to working around furniture, pets, and your family!
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Our 20-second quiz will tell you if your exterior needs to be painted (or not!)
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