Interior vs. Exterior Painting
You can paint the inside of a house during every season and under nearly every condition. The reason is that house interiors are controlled environments. Temperature and humidity can be adjusted so that they work best for painting. But painting house exteriors is an entirely different matter. You are at the mercy of the elements. Rather than adjusting conditions around your project, you need to adjust the project around conditions. When is the best time to paint the outside of your home?
The Best Season to Paint a House Exterior
Optimal painting season for house exteriors is usually thought of as summer. The weather is warm and the rain has tapered off. Summer does not mean the same thing in all parts of the country; it's more about the conditions than about what you call the season. For areas in the world that experience hurricanes or monsoon-like conditions toward the end of the summer, try to start painting earlier in the summer. Extreme heat, too, prematurely cures paint; the paint practically dries as you are applying it. So, if you live in an area of extremely high temperatures, you'll want to avoid painting when the sun is directly shining on the painting surface. However, in BC, we usually don't have those problems (knock on wood).
Painting During Autumn
Early fall, when temperature extremes are mitigated, might be a good time of the year in your location to paint. Daytime and nighttime temperatures are often closer than during other times of the year.
Painting During Winter
Paint manufacturers recommend a minimum outside temperature for painting. As paint quality has improved over the years, so too has the minimum temperature point. For a long time, it was recommended that you never paint a house when the ambient temperature is 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius). Improved paint technology lets you push down as low as 35 degrees Fahrenheit (1.67 degrees Celsius). We use our standard paint A100 by Sherwin-Williams which has the aforementioned technology included. Source
Painting in Moist Conditions
Paint should only be applied to a dry surface. Your painting surface can become moist either by direct contact from rain or snow or by humidity in the air. Although paint technology has improved dramatically and allows for damp surfaces to be painted (ie. morning dew), after a hard rain, you should still wait at least one full day before painting. Check the surface to be painted. If it is wet, do not paint. Even if it does not feel wet to the touch, it may be wet within, especially for porous surfaces like bare wood and masonry. Call us if you are uncertain and need professional assistance,
Moisture occurs indirectly, too. Dew forming overnight or in early evenings can quite easily ruin exterior paint if you do not know what you're doing–even though it was a dry, balmy 70 degrees Fahrenheit (21.11 degrees Celsius) just six hours earlier.
Homeowners may forget that paint is still drying after they stop painting for the day. Look at yesterday's evening low and today's predicted low. Even though lows tend not to occur until deep into the evening, it is prudent to assume that they might happen right after sunset.
Painting Seasons for Professional Painters
Some professional painters let almost nothing, not even inclement weather, prevent them from painting a house. While professional painters can be good at stretching seasons, it is just not possible to paint during all seasons.
In a cold, snowy Alberta winter, you will not, or should not, find painters painting house exteriors; it is just too cold for the paint to cure. This is the season when professional painters switch gears and take on interior painting.
Professional painters in BC often conservatively block off the entire period from mid-October to the end of March a period excluded from exterior painting. During the coldest of the cold months, even the low-temperature premium paints do not make a difference. A professional in mountainous areas of Alberta might even back off from exterior painting around the first part of October.
Fun Fact
Ancient Egyptians created the first exterior paint out of milk, lime, and honey. They would add plant pigments to create murals, and eventually, the paint was also used to help seal a structure.
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