The house looks tired, so you assume it needs paint
Sometimes that is exactly right. Paint has a life, and after eight to ten Cape summers on a sun-facing wall it has given what it has. A repaint is maintenance, and deferring it costs more than doing it.
But sometimes tired is a symptom. The wall is not faded, it is wet. The paint is not worn, it is being pushed off from behind. Paint over that and you have spent good money buying yourself a two year finish and a second bill.
Six tests you can do yourself
- 1The hand test. Rub a dry palm firmly on the wall in full sun. Chalky white residue means the binder has broken down. That is normal ageing and it means repaint, with a proper wash and a binding primer first.
- 2The tape test. Press strong packaging tape hard onto a sound-looking painted area and rip it off. Paint coming away in flakes means adhesion has failed and the surface needs stripping back, not another coat over the top.
- 3The pattern test. Where is the damage? Even fading across a whole elevation is age. A defined patch, a horizontal band low down, or a plume under a window is water, and water is a repair.
- 4The height test. Damage in a band from skirting height up to about a metre, worse in winter, is rising or lateral damp. Nothing you paint over it will hold.
- 5The crack test. Hairline crazing across the plaster face is cosmetic and fillable. A crack you can get a fingernail into, running diagonally from a corner or continuing through the plaster in a straight line, is movement, and that is a builder before it is a painter.
- 6The gutter test. Stand outside in real rain. Watch where water overshoots, splashes back off paving, or runs down a wall from a blocked downpipe. Every one of those stains is a plumbing fix, not a paint job.
Fading is age. Patches are water. Age is a repaint, water is a repair, and the difference is what your money buys.
The thing nobody in the trade wants to tell you
The order to spend in
| Step | Why it comes first |
|---|---|
| 1. Stop the water | Roof, flashings, parapets, gutters, downpipes, raised soil against walls. Nothing else holds until this is done. |
| 2. Let it dry | A wall that has been wet needs weeks, not days. Coating a damp substrate is the classic blistering cause. |
| 3. Repair the substrate | Cut cracks open, treat rust, replace rotten timber, make good plaster. |
| 4. Prepare and prime | Wash, scrape, sand, bind the chalk, prime by substrate. |
| 5. Then decorate | This is the cheap, satisfying part, and the only part most quotes describe. |
Read that list against your last quote. If it describes step five and nothing else, you now know what you were being sold.
What we do on the inspection
We run those tests on your house, look at the roof and the drainage while we are there, and write down what we find with photographs. If the honest answer is that you need a builder or a plumber before you need us, we say so, and we would rather say it before you spend anything.
Common questions
No pressure
If you would like a second opinion on your own property, we will come and look.
The inspection is free, you get the findings in writing with photographs, and you are under no obligation to do anything with them.