Your house is one of your most significant investments. Exterior paint helps protect and grow that investment, with a fresh exterior paint job bringing a 55% ROI.
You expect a lot from your house paint. You don’t only want it to give your home a new look, but you also need it to protect your house from the scorching Florida sun, hurricane-level downpours, and high humidity.
Oh. And it needs to do this for years without cracking, fading, or peeling.
Picking the right exterior paint for your home means you’ll get up to 10 years of protection. However, if you use the wrong paint, or misapply it, your house will be cracking and peeling within a year.
You don’t want that.
Neither do we. That’s why we’ve put together a guide to help choose the best exterior paint for your Florida home.
What Makes a Good Paint?
The best exterior house paint for a home in the dry desert of Arizona won’t last a year in Florida. In our professional opinion, there are two big factors that you need to consider when choosing exterior paint for your home:
Durability
• FADE RESISTANCE
The Florida sun might feel lovely, but its UV rays can be quite damaging to your home. As a homeowner, it’s essential to select a high-quality fade-resistant paint. If the paint you choose isn’t specifically fade-resistant, you can plan to begin fading and cracking within months. A premium acrylic paint will provide the most fade resistance.
• DIRT RESISTANCE
There are some types of paint that excel at resisting dirt buildup, making them perfect for homes near the sand. A premium acrylic once again comes out on top in this department. But it’s not just the type of paint that helps keep dirt off, the finish matters too. We recommend going with a gloss acrylic paint finish if your top priority is keeping your exterior clean.
• MILDEW RESISTANCE
Mold loves Florida. Mildew has all the warmth and humidity it needs to grow quickly. In a less optimal environment, you could get away will merely avoiding an oil-based paint that mildew loves, but not in Florida. We recommend choosing a mildew-resistant primer to create a reinforced line of defense for your home.
Surface Suitability
If the surface you want to paint has already been painted before, you should use the same type of paint as before. Otherwise, here are our recommendations:
• BRICK
Whether it’s traditional brick, stucco, or concrete, they all require a masonry primer to be applied first. The primer will help the paint fuse onto the surface. Then, as long as the paint you choose contains elastomeric materials that allow it to expand and contract with Florida’s changing temperatures, you’re good to go!
• SIDING
Modern-day siding holds exterior paint very well with just a single coat of acrylic masonry primer. We recommend two coats of exterior premium latex or acrylic paint help prevent fading.
• WOOD
Wood is exceptionally porous. It can absorb too much moisture and causes paint to peel off its surface. If this wasn’t Florida, you could go with an oil-based option. But down here, we have to be extra careful about mold and mildew. It would be best to go with premium exterior acrylic paint to prevent cracking and peeling.
Good Exterior House Paint Doesn’t Matter.
It doesn’t make a difference to buy the best can of paint in the world if the job isn’t done right in the first place.
Before you start painting, you study the art of exterior painting and understand how to prepare your surface. You need to purchase high-quality paint applicators. You need to make sure to check the weather forecast. You need to learn about VOCs.
Or, you could use make your life easier and just call us.
We have been providing high-quality exterior painting services in Florida for over 20 years. We are state-licensed exterior house painters that serve the Lakewood Ranch, Saint Petersburg, Bradenton, Fruitville, Venice, North Port areas, and more.
Don’t wait any longer to give your home a fresh new look. Contact us for a free estimate today.
