Sustainable ways to paint your home.
Posted on August 26, 2022
As customers in the Boston, South Shore, and Plymouth areas look to combat the effects of climate change, they have looked to CertaPro Painters for their expertise as Boston’s sustainable painter.
Paige NeJame, the owner of CertaPro Painters, is also one of the writers of the bestselling book The Carbon Almanac – a guide to climate change. She also co-wrote the book Generation Carbon: It’s time to start – about climate change for kids.
Here’s how painting, something you have to do anyway to keep your home protected, can be done in a greener, more sustainable way:
Paint your home’s exterior white to maintain a cooler temperature.
The temperature difference between a white house and a dark house is significant. To test this yourself, on a sunny day, place your hand on a darkly painted part of your home or your driveway’s blacktop. Then place your hand on a lighter part of your home. The lighter section will feel measurably cooler.
We recommend white or light, sun-reflective paint to keep your cooling and air conditioning bills down in the summertime.
Seal the gaps around windows and doors with caulking to prevent your heat and air conditioning from escaping:
We recommend Sherwin Williams’ SherMax or Phenolseal Brands of caulk. Our painters can seal the gaps throughout your home before you paint. This way, you can use less energy to heat and cool your home.
Choose low and no-VOC paints.
Choosing low and no-VOC paint formulas helps reduce and eliminate Volatile Organic Compounds – chemicals associated with health concerns. Another plus of low and no VOC paints is their very low odor as they dry. The toxic chemicals that cause paint fumes are missing from these paints. Choose low-VOC or no-VOC interior paints when a baby or small animal lives in the home because their tiny lungs are sensitive to paint fumes.
Reducing the use of harsh chemicals also sustains a healthier planet by reducing environmental toxins. VOCs in exterior paint can react with nitrogen oxides to pollute our air.
Low and No-VOC paints also come in a variety of designer colors. If you want a color from a paint brand containing VOCs, have it matched by a paint brand with no VOCs. Paint matching technology is fantastic, and Sherwin Williams and Curry Ace Hardware in Hanover is our favorite place to match paint.
Consider Air Purifying Paint
Air Purifying Paint is a coating that is durable and washable. This paint is mainly used for interior walls and trim and improves indoor air quality by absorbing and neutralizing indoor pollutants and VOCs from other household culprits like carpets, cabinets, and fabrics. Air Purifying paint can help improve your home’s indoor air quality and possibly improve your asthma and allergies. It also helps eliminate household odors. Our favorite is Sherwin Williams’ Superpaint with Air Purifying Technology. It’s available at all Sherwin Williams locations – the closest Sherwin locations are in Pembroke, Hingham, Plymouth, Braintree, Quincy, Stoughton, and Randolph.
Dispose of paint responsibly:
If you have leftover cans of paint, places like Habitat For Humanity’s ReStores will take them as a donation. If someone can use your extra paint, the need for new paint and all of the carbon involved in its manufacturing, is eliminated.
Most South Shore Transfer Stations have “bring back your paint day,” where you can dispose of paint and paint cans.
Check out your town’s website for information like this (this is Pembroke Massachusetts’ Household Hazardous Waste Collection website, and your town likely has something very similar).
Reuse building materials:
Before shopping for anything new, hit up a Building Salvage lot for kitchen cabinets, wood trim, shingles, and clapboards. Keeping stuff out of landfills means less methane, a byproduct of landfills that will warm our Earth.
Also, consider “Oops” paint. This is paint that was returned to a paint store because it wasn’t the color the customer wanted or paint that was incorrectly mixed by the store.
Paint, don’t replace old kitchen cabinets:
We can paint your kitchen cabinets for, on average, $3,000-7,000 – a fraction of the replacement cost. This keeps your cabinets out of the landfill and saves you the kitchen remodel price.
How does CertaPro work to lower the carbon we emit?
Since 2012, most of our sales and field cars are Toyota Prius Hybrids which get about 55 MPG. Our painting vans still run on gas, but as they need replacement, we plan on replacing them with electric vehicles or hybrids. We are such a fan of hybrids, we’ve convinced many other contractors to adopt them as well.
We buy paint in as large of a container as possible. This means we’ll purchase a 5-gallon container of paint over five 1-gallon containers when possible.
We clean two highways on Route 3 South – one near Hanover/Marshfield and one near Rockland/Hingham.
Our estimating software defaults to Sherwin Williams semi-gloss bright white paint for interior trim and satin for exterior trim. This allows us to buy white paint in large containers and use it on multiple jobs, so there’s almost no waste. Of course, you don’t have to choose this white, and we’ll paint any paint color you’d like, but most people don’t have a preference as long as it’s a bright white, premium paint.
Our estimators email you a digital copy of your quote, and when accepting the proposal, you can use our e-sign software, which saves paper and mailing.
Our premium quality paintbrushes have been well cared for, so they can be reused for years.
We offer remote estimates to customers who request them to reduce the travel of our sales staff.
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You also might like to read:
The bestselling book our owner, Paige NeJame, co-wrote about Climate Change
Our kitchen cabinet painting services.
Painting a nursery with no-VOC paints to eliminate smelly paint fumes
