What are the steps in preparing to paint a wood house exterior

You might think that painting a wood-clad house is just about climbing up your ladder with a brush and a bucket of paint and away you go, but any professional painter will tell you that most of the work involved in painting a wood house is in the prep.

Wood is a very popular exterior cladding for homes, it’s simply easy to work with, durable, and affordable. It’s also naturally porous and makes a great surface to apply paint to. The paint’s primary job is to protect the wood underneath so that it lasts, but occasionally, for a variety of reasons, this partnership fails.

Ideally, you should repaint your house before it starts showing signs that the paint is failing because at that point the prep work is about to really increase. The first step any painting contractor will take when giving you an estimate is to conduct a walk-around of your house to see what condition the paint is in now.

In some severe cases it might be obvious, even without getting close to things like fascia boards, that wood is going to need replacing. Visibly rotten wood will almost certainly have areas where the paint has fallen off and beneath it, you will see dark brown or black wood indicating it’s already started to rot. At that point, it’s going to require some carpentry work and new replacement wood before you can even think about painting. Additional damage may be caused by tree sap, bird droppings, woodpecker holes, impacts, and insects.

For less severe situations it will likely be the case that the paint is just showing signs of fading, chalkiness, and cracking. These are all signs that it’s time to repaint after some good prep work.

If you are about to paint an older home you have little experience with you may need to have the existing paint checked for lead. This is a test any professional painting contractor can perform using a simple swab test.

The prep work usually starts with a power washing using water and trisodium phosphate (tsp). This chemical cleans the paint surface, cuts grease, and removes any glossiness that would make a new coat of paint difficult to adhere to. The point isn’t to use the power washing as a method to blast off the old paint, which only saturates the wood and makes things worse.

The goal is to simply get it clean enough so that the majority of the surface can be ready to paint and the bad areas are more clearly revealed.

Once the power washing is complete the painters can begin to look for areas of your wood exterior that are having problems. When an area is found that has peeling paint the painters will scrape and sand the surface until they have revealed an area that the new paint can adhere to.

The wood that’s exposed may turn out to be very stringy indicating early rot and these areas will need to be scraped out until you’re only left with solid wood. For small areas, wood putty can be added to wherever material has been removed and then sanded to provide an even and porous surface.

Every area on the exterior that is suspect will need to be either scraped, sanded, or brushed with a wire brush to get under the paint so that the condition of the wood can be determined. The ultimate goal is to find and remove even the smallest areas of rotten wood. It’s quite common to find wood issues on the trim especially since the purely vertical surfaces tend to let water roll right off. Anywhere you have angles, corners, and detail you have places where water can collect or pool so these places get added scrutiny.

One of the things a professional exterior house painter will be on the lookout for is WHY certain areas are failing and where the source of the problem is. Occasionally drainage issues, leaky gutters, missing caulking, or other causes can be identified and addressed at the same time to make sure the problems are completely solved.

As part of the scraping process, any failed caulking in seams around trim, corners, and windows will be removed. Fresh caulking will then be applied and allowed to dry to create a water-tight seal around edges, window, and door frames, etc.

Once the wood exterior is power washed, prepped, and then caulked, primer is applied to areas of exposed wood. Primer serves as a middle layer between the wood and the coat or coats of paint to follow. Any replacement wood siding or trim will also be primed before painting. Most primer dries with an hour or so and can then actual painting can start in earnest.

Are we ready to paint that wood now? Yes, we are but you can see that the prep involves quite a bit of work and a thorough inspection of every area of your home’s exterior. This explains why the prep can easily take longer than the actual painting. Painting over problems is not an option if you really care about your house and true professionals won’t cut corners or simply paint over a problem area.

If you have your exterior repainted by professionals like the pros at CertaPro Painters® of West Rochester and the first two days don’t end with any paint applied, don’t worry, it just means that there is a lot of prep work going on but the end result will be a paint job that will last at least 10 years or more depending on the climate and a few other factors.

If you’re reading all of this and thinking that the process is more complicated than you thought and now you’re having second thoughts about trying it yourself that’s understandable. It’s not uncommon for professional painters to come to the rescue of a homeowner’s DIY project that didn’t work out.

When it’s time to repaint your house and you live in the Rochester, New York area give the nation’s top professional house painters a call at CertaPro Painters® of West Rochester at 585-200-5007 and let them provide you with a free estimate today, your wood house will thank you!