When Should You Paint Your House?
Does your house need a fresh coat of paint? Whether you feel like it’s time for an update or you want to make your home ready for sale, there is a good time to repaint your home, whether inside or outside. Obviously this does depend on what other projects you have on hand, along with weather, budget and time constraints, and knowing the following tips will help too. Let’s break it down by looking at repainting the exterior of the house first:
Painting the exterior of your house
Outside painting is best carried out during periods of warm weather without the onset of rain or cold spells. If you do paint an exterior wall or panelling, and then it rains before the paint has properly dried out, you will get sagging of the paint or streaks appearing across the surface. Rain can also lift the colour or pigment out of the paint so that shiny flat areas appear unevenly on the surface, along with giving it a streaky appearance.
Cold weather will dramatically reduce the life of the paint and cause bubbling on the painted surface, as well as cracking, sagging and small depressions. It is also worth avoiding painting on windy days, not just for ladder safety reasons but because twigs, leaves, debris and dirt could blow onto a newly painted surface and stick there, leaving a bedraggled appearance to the house.
Besides considering the climate before planning an exterior repainting job, it is also important to note whether your neighbours are having any work carried out, such as sanding or cutting down trees, that could throw up sawdust and dust particles that will stick to your brand new paint work.
Painting the interior of your house
If warm weather is best for exterior work, then the colder winter months are the best time to paint indoors. There are a couple of reasons for this, namely if you are getting in a paint contractor to do the job, they are usually looking for work during the slower winter months. In summer, they are often busy on exterior painting projects, so if you approach them in winter, you might be able to get a good deal on an indoor project.
Outdoor painting relies on the work being carried out during the daylight hours, and as the days become shorter, painters cannot work for as long. Indoor painting does not have this problem so you can either do the painting yourself after work, or have a contractor work for a full day, and maybe even pay them for some twilight work to get the job done quickly.
Avoiding the long summer school holidays for interior paint jobs is also a good idea if you have children. Once they are back at school, you will be able to get down to the painting so that the majority of the walls are dry by the time they come home, reducing the risk of wet paint marks on their school uniforms.
Finally, while painting in warmer weather does have its advantages, the humidity of summer air can cause problems when it comes to drying paint. The higher the humidity, the longer it takes for paint to dry, and time comes at a cost. Waiting around means the job takes longer, and if you are using a contractor, that could make the work more expensive than it has to be. If you paint the inside of your house during the winter months, then all you have to do is open your windows just a little, and the dry winter air will ensure the paint dries quickly.
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