Exterior Painting Residential Painting

The Many Types of Exterior Painting Rollers

Posted on August 26, 2019

If you’re like most non-painters, you’ve probably entered the painting aisle at your local home improvement store and immediately felt overwhelmed. Yes, there’s definitely many different types of rollers available. Not all of them paint the same way. Each one will produce different results, and those results may not be exactly what you’re seeking. This is why it’s always a good idea to choose a professional painter for exterior painting.

paint rollersTypes of Paint Rollers for Exterior Paint Jobs

Each painting roller has a different nap. Some of them are better for rough surfaces, other medium textured surfaces, and then there are those for smooth surfaces. Let’s start with thick nap rollers.

Thick Nap Rollers

Thick nap rollers have a 3/4″ nap, and they are best for rough surfaces. They are best able to go into crevices, which makes them great for wood, vinyl, and stucco. As you can probably imagine, with more nap, there’s more opportunity for the paint to spread on surfaces.

Medium Nap Rollers

These rollers have a 3/8″ nap and they don’t do as well on really rough surfaces. They just don’t have the thickness to get into all of the crevices of surfaces. You want to use these on medium textured surfaces, such as vinyl that doesn’t have as many grooves or wood that’s on the smooth side.

Thin Nap Rollers

These have a 1/4″ nap or a foam one. It’s important to only use these rollers on smooth surfaces. Exteriors don’t usually have smooth enough surfaces to allow for these types of rollers, so you likely wouldn’t choose these unless you’re painting indoors on an untextured wall.

Roller Sizes

It’s not all about the nap when it comes to rollers – size matters, too. You’ll find there are different lengths of rollers – long vs. short.

You probably can guess the differences in results with long vs. short. Longer rollers cover more area, so they allow you to work faster. This is perfect for larger homes – just remember to choose the right nap.

The shorter rollers can still be useful for exterior painting projects – they are best for trim work or hard to reach places. This should be part of your painting tools.

exterior paintingWhy Hiring a Professional Painter for Exterior Painting Is Important

You have this information now on rollers, but there’s still a good reason to use a professional painter for exterior painting. Different brands of rollers produce different results. Also, if you do not use the rollers correctly, you will wear down the rollers much faster and that could end up giving you sub-par results.

These are all the things you have to worry about when you decide to paint the exterior of your home yourself. If you just hire a team of painters near you, all of this won’t matter AND you’ll end up with a beautifully painted home.

Think it’s too expensive? You won’t know until you ask us for an estimate, so go ahead and do it. Contact us today for an in-home estimate. We’ll assess the outside of your home and then give you a fair quote on the cost.

Call us at 760-735-6402 or click here to schedule a day and time for an estimate.

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