How to Avoid Cracking and Peeling Paint - Northern California Real Estate Agent

Today we talk about the best time of year to paint your home. Hey, thanks for joining us today on our video blog. My name is Andrew Lamm and today we're talking about when to paint your home. What's the best time of year to go ahead and paint your home. And also we get into a little bit of the process and what differentiates some single house painters to a company that has an entire crew who can really knock out your paint job in just a matter of days. You don't have to paint it again for a while, and your home looks like one of the best on the block. So we're going to get into that. If you are looking to buy a home in Northern California, you can click the Search all homes link or if you're on Facebook, click the Home search tab. And that will take you to basically a backstage pass of the mls interior and exterior photos, property description, everything you want to know about a home. You can see it right there and you can actually request a showing or request more information directly through the website. If you're trying to figure out what your home could sell for in today's market, click the free home value link. That will let you know a good range your home could sell for. But if you have a specific range or a specific price in mind, go ahead, give us a call. We'd love to talk with you about the upgrades, the features of your home that make it unique and exactly what it could sell for in today's market, as well as our 151 step marketing plan and how we typically get 18% more money for for our listings than the methods of traditional real estate agents. So thanks for joining us. And we're going to get into our conversation with Steve from Universal Painting on when is the best time of year to paint your home. Hey everyone, thanks for joining us. Today we're joined by Steve from Universal Painting.

Hi, how are you?

And today we're going to answer some of your questions about painting your home. So Steve, thanks for being here.

Oh, thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

So, a question. We're getting a lot from our clients and just from even our database, our friends and family, they're asking, when's the best time of year to paint my home?

Well, as far as an exterior, I would stop painting. I usually stop painting all my exteriors come Halloween. Pretty much. No exteriors being done in November. What happens is the sun starts coming up later and drops sooner, so you don't get things that are drying properly. So typically what we do is we jump into Interiors from November till maybe the end of March, early April. And that's when I would start doing my exteriors again because again, the sun is sitting up longer, you get longer days, things are drying out properly. So I wouldn't do it anything earlier. The worst thing you could do is paint your house during the wintertime. What happens? Moisture will get caught in there. That first hot sun that hits your house will pull that moisture out. That's where you get your peeling and your cracking and all that sort of stuff. So that's kind of my advice as far as doing exterior ink from April till end of October.

What's a frequently asked question you get?

Oh gosh. Frequently asked question I get just when we walk around the house, if there's dry rot, what's going on? How do you do that? Typically, dry rot occurs because when the people built the houses here in Solano county, they didn't prime the back. And so when we replace wood, it's primed all four sides. You can buy it that way. I mean, a lot of times when we talk to homeowners, I'll pull the wood out and show them an open piece of wood is like a sponge. It sucks in the water, it rots. Questions? I get dry rot. What type of paint do you use? And I'll put a shout out there for Sherwin Williams. I think they're one of the best paints you want to use, the best you possibly can get your hands on. As far as paint caulking, a 60 year Elastomera cockney is what I use. There's lots of questions. I'll tell you how we do an exterior. The first thing we do on exterior is we come out and we power wash it. I think power washing is as important and more important than painting. Paint only sticks to what's clean. So if we did it on a Tuesday, we come out with two power washers, very different than most companies out Semi apprentice. I send my former, who's been with me 18 years with an energetic and we come out, we thoroughly clean it. It's always two full days of drying. So let's say we did it on Tuesday, going to dry Wednesday, it's going to dry Thursday, then we come back on Friday. Not to paint, but to prep. We go around, we sand, we caulk, we prime, we fix stucco, cracks, we do all that. Then the next day we show up and I call it the big show. The whole crew arrives and when I say the whole crew and we're doing your house, guess what? We're Doing your house, you get a much higher quality job. When you have a lot of guys painting your house, everybody knows their place. First thing we do is we cover all the windows with plastic. We drape all the bushes, we if there's concrete, we'll put 1 inch tape, 12 inch paper tarps all the way around your house. That's all done. Two guys set up. One guy's the spray guy, one guy's sitting there spraying like this, and the other guy's standing right next to him with a roller pole and he's back rolling. Go around the house once, then we go around the house again. That's on top of primers. Once the body's down, we jump up, we hand brush all your trim, we'll paint your front door, your side door, everything. One thing if you hire my company, you'll get. Nobody's playing any music. Don't loud. Nobody's goofing off. We're here to work. When the job's done, we walk the job with you personally to make sure you're 100% satisfied. I don't ask for any money up front. Not a dime, not a penny. The job's 100% done and you're 100% happy.

So what do you guys do for interiors?

Oh, interiors. Just a completely different ball game. My whole theory about interior. We're going into your castle. That's where you live, even though you know we're coming here Monday at 8 o', clock, you winds out of the year, so we get in there. The first thing we do is we take all the furniture, we move it towards the middle, and we cover it up like a Christmas package. Then we put plastic on the floors, and on top of the plastic, we put tarps. The only thing we ask the customers to do is just remove the knickknacks, anything that you think might fall. Once everything's covered up, then we go throughout your house, repairing all the texture, the drywall, we caulk, we sand, we do all that. It's only after that that we actually start to paint. We'll brush and roll two coats on everything. When everything's done, put everything back in place, vacuum the carpets, walk the job with you. I think there's one thing I haven't explained though, is as far as paint colors, we do a lot of before the project starts, kind of we'll come out four or five times, we'll go through brochures and you'll say, gosh, Steve, I like these three or four colors. What I do then is Actually go down to the paint store, get the paint and come brush them on the wall. Looking at a brochure or looking online, a lot of people want to pick their color through the monitor. Yeah. Through the computer. Excuse me, but you're looking at a monitor, you're not looking at real paint. You really need to see it on the wall. You want to look at it in the morning. Yeah. You want to look at it in the middle of day and you want to look at right around desk. That color that you've seen in the morning, that looked different. So I never get this. That, hey, that wasn't the color what I was thinking. I always get this when I go to a customer. Last time we had our house painted, it really didn't come out to what we thought. That's because they didn't take their time. You need to come out. So it's kind of work. We're good at it. Been on it a long time.

Enjoy what I'm doing and if you have any questions for Steve, how can I reach you?

You can reach me at 707-427-0445. My cell number, 707-372-0765 or you can email me at steveuniversalpaintinginc.com alright, thanks.

Thank you. Hey, thanks so much for joining us. If you have any real estate related questions or even anything paint related, feel free to reach out to us or give Steve a call. His contact info is below. And as always, thanks for joining us on our video blog. This is us helping you create a better life through real estate.