Exterior house painting
Lets face it, painting the external areas of a property is a pretty big undertaking for a DIY person and to be honest, they are also one of the more labour intensive aspects of our work too. There are just so many things to take into consideration, such as accessing the tricky high areas using ladders or scaffolding, what products and methods of working are going to improve the maintenance period and also the dreaded U.K weather! As a young apprentice I remember turning up at the yard on a Monday morning and feeling my heart sink after my old boss shouting me over and saying “Paul, your on an external today”! Thankfully things have changed since then and I along with my team, have painted so many exteriors that its very rare for us to come across something that we haven’t done before and on the few occasions we do, we relish the challenge!
Our procedure
To get the best possible lasting finish, our exterior painters follow a certain procedure and we approach every external project in a very similar way. First we work out the safest way of accessing the high shifts and providing it is safe to do so, we use ladders wherever possible but for certain projects a scaffolding or cherry picker may be required. We will of course advise and include any access that will be required in the written quotation. Next we thoroughly prepare the areas that we are painting. This usually includes applying decorators caulk and either powder filler or two part filler to any areas that have broken down. After this is completed we thoroughly rub down and either patch prime or fully prime any untreated surfaces, this can be wood primer for woodwork or stabilizing solution for bare masonry surfaces. By this time, the majority of the preparation work should be finished and we apply the undercoat. Quite often there will be a few areas that may need another fill after we have painted the undercoat on, we call this a second fill. After the filler has been applied a second time and touched up we then move onto the top coat and thus finish the project. When we have finished we ask the customer to have a look around to make sure they are happy with the work before we move on to our next project.
Materials
The materials we use will be largely dependent on the the project type and the customer requirements. Generally speaking we will use either Dulux, Crown or Johnstones paint but have used all manner of different brands over the years. We are more than happy to offer advice as to which materials are best for a particular project and will only recommend products that we have tried and tested in the past.