Painting Vinyl Siding
Can you paint your vinyl siding?
One of the big questions that I get asked is, “Is painting vinyl siding possible? It’s been up there for 10 years and it’s faded and I never liked the color.” Others wonder if they can paint their aluminum siding as well.
Reasons for Painting Exterior Siding
Make sure you are painting vinyl siding for the right reason and the reason you know that it makes sense.
- Usually, folks tell me they hate the color of their house siding and they want to change the look of it. Cool, I get that, no problem.
- The second reason is that it’s faded and chalking. Yes, vinyl siding does fade and chalk.
They may tell you that it’s maintenance-free, but it’s not fade-free. Let’s just leave it at that. So it will start to break down. Any surface even, even your automobile ok, one of the finest finishes out there is a car finish. It is sprayed on, it’s heavy, and it’s the latest technology. Look at a car 10 years down the road, and it doesn’t have that luster or the color that it was when it was brand spanking new. So your siding color is going to wear too.
How to Clean the Vinyl Siding for Painting
How do we handle this? Let’s start with the basics. Let’s get the outside of your home’s siding cleaned up. Put a mild detergent or possibly if you are having mold and mildew issues, something like a combination of a product called Jomax or bleach. Please read the directions. Spray it on and a lot of times, it will make the mold and mildew disappear.
Agitating the vinyl siding will get it good and clean. But how do you do this? After applying mild detergent, you should pressure wash the siding thoroughly. But use the correct pressure and the correct tip. A lot of times we find that folks go out and find this brand new pressure washer and they use the wrong tip.
Make sure you sand your exterior to free it from any loose or flaking paint or this will be a problem when you go to put your new coat down.
Determining Paint Color to the Vinyl Siding
Now that the vinyl siding is clean, you will need to let it dry. The next step is applying paint to the vinyl siding. First, determine what color are you going to put on the house. Try to stay in the same family of colors if you can. If you go to an extremely different color, such as from white to black, you will have issues. Most people don’t paint their houses black but if you go from white to black, the difference of how your siding expands and contracts will differ from black paint and white paint. Remember, darker colors attract more heat than lighter colors do.
I always recommend if you are going to put a color on, try to use your roof as a good marker. Many times, there are some tones in your roof that you can find work really well with siding paints.
Applying Paint – Painting Vinyl Siding
Try to find a good color by beginning picking one out with your local representative at Benjamin Moore or Sherwin Williams. Another way to pick out paint colors is to drive around the neighborhood. I always tell my customers to drive around and see what you like. Make sure if you are looking at the neighbor’s house that the neighbor down the street has a similar roof as you do. Also, make sure the house you like has the same window trim and the door trim so that you can coordinate everything. After cleaning the vinyl siding, a primer will need to be applied in most cases.
Before painting, apply a bonding primer and two good coats of high-quality latex paint to get everything nice and tight.
Applying Paint on the Shaded Side
Always work on the shaded side and be patient. Worktop to bottom and from left to right. We keep it simple. Hopefully, this will answer some of the questions for you, if there is anyone out there that can really have any more questions or if we could be of help to you, please reach out to us.
If you found this post helpful you may also like my post on how to clean aluminum siding.
Don’t forget, if you need an estimate on painting your vinyl siding, give me a call. My team and I have been serving Evanston, Wilmette, Kenilworth, Winnetka, Glencoe, Highland Park, Lake Forest, Glenview, Northbrook, and all of the Chicago area for 30+ years.
