The Project: Exterior Painting Great Kills, Staten Island, NY
The Work:
Unfortunately this home was only painted 4 years ago by another contractor. When we tested the existing paint during
our estimate, 80% of all the paint was failing. In this particular home, the wood siding and molding were rapidly
deteriorating. If the paint condition remained in this state, the siding would need removal and replacement.
In picture below there are three identifiable problems that you can clearly see. First,
you can see pealing paint and exposed wood. Next, you can see dark spots in the siding, this is an indication the water was
seeping into small splits in the paint and soaking into the wood. Finally, the color has begun to fade in sections, indicating
inferior paint quality and prep.
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Environmental factors have a significant impact on paint durability.
Homes in the northeast suffer from drastic temperature change, this is especially true with sections of a home that are exposed to directly to the sun more than 50 percent of the day.
Temperatures. In the direct summer sun exposed surfaces can reach as high 130 degrees, during the winter many nights can be low as the teens. Paint needs to expand and contract with those conditions.
Marine influence. Homes within 2 miles from salt water are exposed to marine air. What does that mean to a homeowner? Salt from marine air deposits on exterior surfaces and seriously effects paint durability. At a minimum, homes need to be properly washed twice a year. salt is a corrosive compound, and it's effects are not limited to paint, all types of siding including vinyl need routine maintenance.
Pollution has a significant impact as well. Acid rain is a prevalent factor in the northeast, and maybe even greater here than most places in the country. While we can't estimate its impacts on paint and siding, in all likelihood it's significant.
Our experience with various paint manufacturers suggests that consumer based products that local box stores carry are significantly inferior to professional brands of paint, only quality acrylic latex should be used.
Your contractor should always advise you of different applications and primer types that are necessary to account for changeable environmental conditions.
The northwest side of the home had the worst damage, because of its consistent
exposure to the sun and improper use of primer. Our evaluation revealed the prior contractor failed to use any primer
at all. Unfortunately, this was the result.
Moldings and trim on older homes receive repeated coatings of paint,
the failure of the older layers of paint causes pealing, cracking and pitting at the surface. Although we recommend striping
the paint to the original surface, the process can be costly. There are alternative quality measures we can
use to create a long lasting finish without fully striping.
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The Job Progression:
All the surfaces were cleaned,
old failing paint removed and prepared. The wood siding on this home is over 85 years old, so we placed
a single clear coat epoxy primer over the entire home. This allows old and new paint to achieve maximum
binding, without future pealing. Additionally, it would create surface uniformity so new paint would look absolutely smooth.
The old exposed wood siding was spot primed with oil based primer, and 2 Coats of Benjamin Moore were applied as
the finish coat.
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The painting process was broken down into three parts. The house was first coated in an epoxy clear coat, and then an oil based specialty primer was applied and finalized with two coats of finish paint.
