You Don’t Have Time for Weather to Stop You
It’s true - you don’t have time. You are already dealing with material shortages, permit delays, and other unforeseen building issues. Why add more headache and delay when you don’t have to?
Read the back of a paint can, and you’ll be shocked. Whether you're building in the rainy Pacific Northwest, temperate Southern California, the hot and humid Sunbelt states, or during the four seasons of the Midwest and Northeast, you’ll have to contend with the following:
1. Rain
- Paint should only be applied to clean, dry surfaces. It’s recommended to wait a full day after a rain to paint.
- If you’re trying to squeeze in painting before a rain, remember, a coat of latex paint needs at least four hours to dry.
2. Outside Temperature
- To create a durable film, the air temperature cannot be above 90 degrees, and the board surface temperature cannot be below 3 degrees.
- In fact, you can’t even paint if the surface temperature is going to drop below 35 degrees within 48hours of painting.
3. Humidity
- Manufacturers of retail paint recommend painting when the relative humidity is between 40-60%.
- Unless you’re in Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, or Utah where the average annual humidity level falls in this range, painters will likely break the humidity rule, go against coating manufacturer recommendations, and leaving you to hope for the best.
- And average annual humidity doesn’t take into account the actual humidity on the day of painting.
You Don’t Have Time for Call Backs
Tree pollen, leaves, dust, bugs, and other airborne debris always find their way to sticky, freshly painted surfaces. This isn’t disastrous, of course. But your customers may be expecting a finish that’s as pristine as one that’s applied and dried inside a state-of-the-art Allura facility.
Also keep in mind that windspeed can play a factor, which means if the paint is being applied on-site with a spray gun, more paint could end up on the neighbor’s car than on the wall.
You Deserve the Best, And So Do Your Customers
A Thicker, More Uniform Application
It’s humanly impossible to apply paint on a vertical surface in outdoor conditions with the same consistency and control you’ll achieve in a cutting-edge painting facility. When working out in the elements, applying a perfectly uniform coating across every board is highly unlikely. In a controlled factory setting, paint is applied with a DFT (Dried Film Thickness) target of 1.9 mils. For a field-applied paint, a DFT of 1.5 mils would be considered normal. (Not that anyone on a job site measures it like we are in the factory, but the point is an important one.) Pre-painted siding not only has a more consistent application of paint, but the coating is also 26% thicker.
Better Coverage, Better Protection
When paint goes on siding that’s already installed, only the exposed surfaces get painted. With installed lap that means the hidden 1.5” horizontal run (the recommended overlap for installation) of each board's face has zero paint. When you get pre-painted siding, it’s completely coated on 5 sides entirely (front, top, bottom, and each end), all with the same uniform coat. This means more complete coverage and durability with increased protection against the element.
Twice the Durability for Your Customers
This is a biggie. An on-site paint application simply cannot deliver the same durability as a factory-applied finish, some of which are guaranteed as long as 15 years! That’s up to twice the durability of an on-site application. In an expensive labor market like Seattle, the cost of repainting so much sooner can more than negate any savings you thought you’d enjoy.
