There’s a certain joy in completing a task involving making your home look more beautiful, such as painting the exterior of your home.
That joy can be entirely ruined if you find that your home exterior starts having issues with peeling paint only a relatively short period after you have painted it.
You may be baffled by what could have possibly happened and think it just isn’t possible given the age of the paint and most likely the quality of the paint that you may have chosen to prevent such an issue.
In your excitement to paint your home, it’s entirely probable that you took the measure to make sure that the exterior was as clean as possible, and perhaps that entailed making use of some kind of soap or another cleaner.
The issue comes if you do not properly remove the soap from the exterior and then proceed to paint over the not quite visible but very much there film of detergent or cleaner that may remain if it is not washed away with water.
When this happens, paint can peel over time and in a much shorter period than if the film were not there.
A gloss finish, paint wise, looks fantastic whether you are painting the interior or the exterior of your house.
That being the case, if you have a gloss finish on your home and then you paint over that, you will likely find yourself with peeling paint issues.
This is particularly the case if you do not know first sand the surface before painting and, of course, to make sure to use a primer — primer coats are meant to be there to help the topcoat(s) to stay on better.
If you paint your second coat, assuming that you deem it necessary to paint a second coat at all (some people find that it’s not entirely appropriate) too soon after you finish painting your first coat, the second coat may re-activate the first coat, and that will cause the bad peeling issue that you might be experiencing.
If you want to make sure that your second coat of paint won’t activate the first coat of paint, be sure to give it enough time to dry, which may, of course, be longer depending on the season in which you are painting your home.
For this reason, some insist on only painting their home during the springtime as it is just warm enough not to slow down the drying process and just cool enough that it won’t adversely affect the paint.
Another reason you’re going to see peeling paint is when you paint with water-based paint on top of a layer or two of an oil-based paint with no sort of preparation done beforehand to make sure that it will adhere.
This is likely once again the sort of thing that can be prevented if you properly sand the exterior of your home before painting and then applying a good coat of primer.
As absurd as it possibly might sound, primer before paint is a better solution to more cases of peeling paint than you might realize — so you should be careful to always sand first and of course use primer.
If you love the idea of a newly painted home to help sell your home and you think you could use some professionals on your side. At the same time, you are doing so in Valrico, FL, our team at American Veteran Painting can help.
To get started, book a FREE estimate below or call us with questions at (813) 520-6096.
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