Is Fall the Best Time of the Year for Painting Your House Exterior?

Is your home’s exterior in desperate need of a facelift? Is the paint slowly chipping away, leaving flakes on your grass that will soon be frosted over each morning? Is the dullness of the once flawless finish sinking into your mood and flaking away as quickly as the hours in the day? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then getting your house painted is a priority for you. Here are some key considerations for exterior painting in Birmingham, AL in the fall:

• Weather conditions: Painters want to ensure that the paint goes on smoothly and has the chance to dry and cure properly; therefore, the weather will be the most important factor when you plan to have your house painted. You want to plan your painting on a warm, dry day, preferably with no rain in the forecast the day before or after to reduce the risk of cracking, peeling, running or clumping paint. In previous years, professional painters would require that the temperature be at least 50 degrees Fahrenheit to ensure a flawless finish. However, new technology is allowing homeowners to push their exterior painting into the later months in temperatures as low as 35 degrees. Now, homeowners in the colder Northern states can paint through mid-November and those in the Southern states can paint through December.
• Extremes: While some consider summer the ideal season for exterior painting—as it is typically the warmest and driest season—summer also presents another obstacle: extreme heat. Exterior painting done in extreme heat will reveal brush marks and, potentially, clumps of paint because it dried too quickly. Extreme heat can compromise your flawless exterior painting finish just as easily as the very cold temperatures you are familiar with, making extreme temperatures an important consideration in the planning process.
• Temperature fluctuation: Severe temperature fluctuations will prevent paint from curing properly, leaving you with a cracked, peeling surface. Severe temperature drops from day to night increase that risk. For example, summer days can reach a scorching 105 degrees during the day and then drop to 43 degrees at night, causing your perfectly planned paint job to flake away with the slightest wind. Therefore, fall is the perfect season to do your exterior painting, as there is less of a difference between daytime and nighttime temperatures, and thus, fewer temperature fluctuations and no cracked paint.
• Moisture: Another factor that will influence your exterior painting plans is the moisture in the air. Weather conditions including rain, snow, humidity or heavy dew will impact the look of your painted house. A house that has been rained on would need a minimum of four hours of drying time in direct sunlight at 72 degrees, but waiting a full work day for the surface to dry would be ideal. To avoid an ugly mess and the cost of repainting, only paint on surfaces you know are dry.

Therefore, yes, in fact, fall can be the best season to do exterior house painting in Birmingham, AL because temperature fluctuation is less severe, there is minimal rain and professionals can now paint exteriors in temperatures as low as 35 degrees without compromising the finish. Give Metro Contractors Inc. a call today and we will make sure that your home receives that much-needed facelift before the holiday season!

Categorised in: Exterior Painting, House Painting

This post was written by Writer