Seattle House Painting

The most common occurrence of surfactant bleed in the Seattle Area is the tannin leaching out of Cedar. It permeates the paint, and needs to be blocked with an oil base primer. Bleeding is a problem with latex paints, that’s why an oil base primer, or stain blocker is recommended on new repaints more than twenty years old.

In some cases the leaching is a soap or additive that comes to the surface of freshly painted projects. Those can be washed off, and should be washed off before correcting, if need be, with a primer.

This is an example of what it looks like on a light colored latex surface:

Just to finish my thoughts on Airless Paint Sprayers I want to talk about HVLP systems, and what they do. Most paint sprayers push out paint using an air method. A compressor is like blowing water out of a cup. You blow the air over the water, and it sprays out. An Airless Sprayer pushes the paint by using pressure built up in the lines. It’s like the glass of water is covered with a straw inserted in one side that blows air into the glass, and another straw that allows the water to be pushed out. High Volume Low Pressure lets the paint flow more evenly with less over spray, by using less pressure. The flow of the paint is regulated in the gun, or cup, rather than at the spray tip. In theory the paint lays flatter on the service, but as you can imagine it doesn’t have the same volume that an Airless does.

Going back to the compressed air method, it was mainly used for lower production painting like cars, or metals. To get higher production you needed a bigger compressor. The airless method allowed for more production with a much smaller machine, but it made over spray that car painting doesn’t allow. HVLP is the technology that took over finer detailed paint jobs, like cars, with a much, much smaller machine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spray_painting

There was some controversy today over the type of paint spayer that was the most professional. I say Graco is the industry standard. Wagner,  Campbell Hausfeld, and Titan are also long established makers of airless paint sprayers. Other manufacturers like Craftsman, at Sears, Ryobi, and Milwauki make airless equipment, but it’s not the same.

There are also two types of pumps, piston, and diaphragm. The piston pump is more reliable, but both pumps serve a purpose.

There was a time when painters only used brushes, and the paint roler was the new thing. Compressor pumps took hold on stationary job sites, like boat docks. The airless system means it doesn’t need a compressor to push air through a hose. The airless system pushes the paint into a gun and atomizes it through a spray tip.

There is still a lot of debate about what is the best way to apply paint. I know that the airless system has dominated the paint industry, but the response to having atomized paint flying around has been the HVLP spayer, which means high volume low pressure. That is probably a post for another time, because there are quirks with that system.

This site is about House Painting information. We have referred people to Jeff Amsberry Painting in the past year, and tried to get Shearer Painting, our neighbor, interested in the site. I had a Painting Company for many, many years with a specialty in high end residential. We converted that into residential house cleaning about six years ago. I still have the van in the driveway, so maybe this year we’ll branch out.

Winter is the best time to take paint bids. Painters have time, and your house is exposed. The leaves are gone, and the flower beds are bare. There is also time to prune back bushes that may interfere with painting. It’s good to think about things like this after a freeze. After the thaw is also a good time to clean mildew, and pressure wash. I already have a post about that.

When talking with any contractor you want a clear sense of who they are. The number one problem with a working relationship is if the person you hire has emotional baggage. We all have problems. We do the best we can. The question is if the contractor can start, do the job well, and finish in a reasonable time, at the agreed price.

You need to be able to have a conversation with the contractor before you get to the numbers. There is a lot in that statement. What I’m asking is if this is a reasonable person. Cheap may mean problems. Listen about the quality of the work, and ability to perform. Do they do the work, or do they have a crew? Is that crew hired as temporary labor?

It’s important to feel comfortable after the contractor leaves, and you have a bid in hand.

It’s winter time, and you’ve noticed how drab the house is. It’s a great time to clear out a room , and paint it. It’s more complicated than it appears, but with some simple steps it can go a lot easier.

Number one is to clear out your stuff. If you have to leave the couch, amour, or desk, get them in the middle of the room after you have prepared any work in the ceiling. Cover the heck out of your stuff, and keep in mind you may need to stand on it to get the center of the room. You may not have to, but be prepared, think ahead.

Wall preparation is with spackle first, sanding second. Patch, and repair whatever you need to, now is the time. If you have texture match it as best you can, if it’s smooth wall, start with a heavy grit sand paper and finish with a finer grit. I have a post about that.

Clean baseboards, around light fixtures, hand prints, spills, drips, or grease. Vacuum up dust, and get any debris out of the way. I use paper tarps with a plastic back. Then I tape the baseboards with 9″ paper, cover the doors with plastic, and get ready to paint. The more you cover the less you have to worry about. 

Spot prime spackle, or if you have stains use a stain blocker. Two coats are better than one.

Once you have cracks filled, cleaned, and primed stains you are ready to paint. Figure on two coats, no matter what the paint can says. You are going to make misses. Relax, stay calm, and resign yourself to making the paint flow.

Keep your strokes, smooth, and flat. Roller lines look amateurish. Cut in one section of the time before you roll. Do the ceiling first. Cut in around the lights, then around the perimeter using the flat side of the brush. Most people prefer a 3″ angle brush, I use a 4.” After you cut in, roll the ceiling, and flatten out drip on the wall as you go, with the brush.

You do each wall by cutting in then rolling into the wet edge. Always try to keep a wet edge. Once you start working with the paint you have to finish. Just be prepared, stay calm, and work your way through one section at a time.

Winter starts this week, and that is the perfect time to start your exterior paint project. Now is the time to trench around the house to lower any earth to wood contact. Cleaning out all of the gutters, and raking away any remaining leaves, should be pretty easy. You can save cutting back bushes until spring, but now is an excellent time to do pressure washing, unless it’s freezing, or snowing.

We talk about killing mildew, and spraying fungicides this time of year when the spores are weakest. Cleaning walk ways, stairs, and out door areas are also much easier in winter than in spring. Again, you need to do these things before it starts snowing or immediately after the end of the thaw.

The more you do now the better your job can be come next fall. Yes, I said fall, which is after the summer. If you had painted last year you would be doing final clean up just before Halloween.

My wife, and I operate a residential house cleaning company. We charge $30 per hour per person, and work in teams of three. Our top pay out for a cleaner is about $15 per hour. We have some contractors that make $20 per hour, but there is very little over head in cleaning.

For professional painters you pay $18 to $24 per hour. Casual labor you can pay $10 to $15 per hour. There isn’t a lot of over head to painting other than the advertising to keep jobs coming in. Some paint crews can book three months in advance. It’s hard to keep people on the books for the next season, or for months at a time. Most people just decide to paint, and don’t want to wait.

I was talking with my paint representative at Parker Paint and asked him if my thinking was correct about the cost of painting even a modest house. I figured an average of $90 per hour 8 hours a day, plus paint at another $150 to $200 with supplies, that’s $920 per day. A good estimate is a week worth of work and you’re at $4600.

Now that $4600 is a low figure. $6000 is the going rate for a modest sized house, and it goes up to $16000 for a large house.

In later posts I’ll talk about why you want to hire your paint job done by a professional. For right now I just wanted to plant the seed about the price.

If you are considering painting you should be aware that the quality of paint will add years of life, and vibrancy. We were in a home yesterday that the paint looked new even though it was ten years old. By contrast a home we are preparing for an interior repaint is completely trashed due to the low quality of the paint. We will have to double coat all of it, and in one of the rooms, repainted a couple of years ago, it took three coats to make the color change complete.

We have talked about paint products before. The reason I’m brining it up again today is that if you are planning an exterior paint project you may want to add a higher quality of paint to your budget.

Drive around and look at new construction to get an idea of what cheap paint can cost you in the way your house looks. Some builders did spend the extra to get a good, high quality finish, most just used what cost the least. For your home, if you are planning to stay, or if it is going up for rent or sale, most people now are choosy about how the property looks, today, rather than what it can become.

The spring is a time for you to prepare your exterior for paint. If you are pruning trees, or bushes this is the time of year, and you should do that with the idea of painting, if this is the year for that. You may even be able to train some trees, and tall bushes to grow away from the house. Also if you wanted to transplant some prize roses, shrubs, or ornamentals you could do that now.

In a lower article I talked about bleaching, and power washing. You can actually do all kinds of preparations this time of year, and anticipate painting next fall. September, October are the best times to paint here in Seattle. All of your prep can be done over the course of time. You have all summer.

One of the most important considerations is your roof. Are you going to clean that this year? Because if you paint the house then clean the roof next year the paint may look dull. There are a lot of considerations, lots of power washing tasks. Don’t forget to use the bleach solution, with maybe some simple green.

We’ll talk colors in a later post, along with some interior painting projects that are good to do in summer months when the kids are out of school.

A pressure washer is based on pounds per square inch, PSI. What is also mentioned at the time of rental or purchase is the gallons per minute. Most commonly that is associated with a paint sprayer, but it’s also a cleaning component of a pressure washer. The more water per minute the better.

Think of it as a water fall and the eroding action that has. The more water rushing over the falls the more erosion.

High pressure can peel the paint right off of a surface. You have to be careful not to gouge the wood, or concrete. Power washing is more of a process. Bleach, and detergent wet the surfaces, kill mildew, and prepare stains for washing. The action of power washing rinses the surfaces taking away any residue.

We’re talking about the same machine, just different ways to use it. The machine is a tool to make your work easier. Try to use it with some judgment on what will be easiest for you. Some places are in really bad shape and can use the added prep of blasting off loose paint. Get in, and get that done, but after you have scraped, and sanded you still need to rinse. That would be the time to treat with chemicals, and power wash the surface.

For concrete I especially encourage letting the water action do the heavy work. Pitted concrete looks bad. You have to hold off a bit. It’s the same with decks. Use a little more bleach, a little more detergent, so you can get a smoother look to the surfaces.