Exterior Painting — Ongoing Process
Watching the daily temperature and using a 35 degree paint allows me to keep painting into the winter (hopefully).
Bruce and I started painting in August. The progress is paced by the siding and trim installation, weather and available time.
We started painting on the gable ends we sided while they were still lying on the second floor deck.
As we sided a section of the house I painted working from top down. Since we had the pump-jack staging set up to install the siding it made sense to paint the high sections before removing the staging. I was able to keep up with the siding process by working into the evenings when temperatures permitted and on weekends.
Temperatures started dropping below freezing at night in October so I kept close watch on the forecasts.
One thing that helped was the paint selection. Many paints have low temperature limits of 50 or 45 degrees. I opted for Sherwin Williams Emerald exterior paint mainly because it can be applied down to 35 degrees. I only painted on days when the forecast low temperature was 35 or above. Though we’ve had cold snaps with temperatures as low as 5 degrees there have been enough days warm enough to paint.
In some cases I pre-painted materials before they are installed. Primarily the trim but also the deck soffit material – Boral TruExterior Channel siding. Lap siding and Nickel Gap siding is pretty simple to paint in place but the Channel siding has a 1 1/2 in. slot that is a challenge to paint with a brush. I found it much faster to use a roller and back-brush the finish on a long table than working overhead after the siding is installed.
The main house is mostly painted leaving the front and back of the garage to finish. With January just around the corner I’m hoping for a mid-winter thaw to wrap up the exterior finish.
