Size and Scope of Job:
Customer request: Exterior painting of trim and wood siding
Age of house: 14 years
Style: Contemporary
Square Footage: Approximately 2,600 sq. ft.
Condition of house: Extensive rotten wood trim and siding on the exterior of the home.

Consultative Painting Solution:

Smart Painting

The home is a contemporary that was built like a production home on a 5-acre lot. Like other production homes, the emphasis was not on using the best exterior substrates.  Lynn had known the client for some years and painted her other homes in McLean, Virginia. She bought this home in 1995 and called Lynn recently to give her an estimate for exterior painting. As soon as Lynn inspected the exterior of the house, he realized that like many exterior projects, this was going to involve major carpentry work in addition to the painting. In fact the cost of carpentry would exceed that of the painting.

The usual scenario in residential painting involves doing a little carpentry, priming, scraping and painting the existing, weak substrate. This is not a long-term solution because it is a well-known fact that the life of the paint job is dependant on the quality of the substrate (wood, vinyl etc.). Unfortunately the average painter does not educate the customer on the options available to them. The warranty on the job expires the minute the check clears!

Price sensitive bidding may give the homeowners the satisfaction of saving them a few bucks by going with the lowest bidder, but in the long run it provides limited value to them.

At Bicknell Painting we offer Good, Better and Best options to our customers before we start the project so they get the best value out of the job given the financial resources they have at their disposal. We call this Smart Painting.

Lynn gave the customer three options. The Good option was to do the marginal carpentry, i.e. only replacing the obvious/visible rotten wood. The Better option was to wrap the existing trim with Aluminum and cover the T1-111 with vinyl. The third and Best option was to replace all the trim with new woods such as Redwood, Cedar and the existing siding with HARDIPLANK® a fiber/cement composite or fine woods. The customer was clearly interested in the Best option.

Lynn linked her with Tim Burch of Case Handyman Services in Chantilly, Virginia. This turned out to be a $50,000 carpentry job. Tim replaced all the rotten trim, wrapped T1-111 with Tyvek® and hung HARDIPLANK® horizontally over T1-111. The first step was installing all new cedar trim around the windows, doors, vertical corners, rakes, fascia and soffits and a turret under the deck, then installing HARDIPLANK® siding.

The painting component of the job began only after all the carpentry work was done. First we primed all the new expensive cedar trim with a good heavy coat of cover stain. Then we caulked the HARDIPLANK® where it meets the vertical trim. We had learned from experience that Cedar, Redwood and Cyprus might be the Cadillacs of exterior trim, but these surfaces needed sealing due to the Tannic bleed. We then brushed on a solid hide oil stain over the primer. We selected the solid hide stain system because it does not peel and is the best coating system for the exterior trim. Semi glosses work but the texture of the surface—rough cedar was well suited to the flat stain system.

The HARDIPLANK® siding was painted with semi-gloss, which we sprayed on. Clad casement windows were also painted over because they were 14 years old and had chalked badly. These windows are very stable but do need repainting depending on the exposure to the sun.

Conclusion

The customer is happy with the quality of work and consultative painting solution she received. We are confident that Smart Painting will provide her with long-term value.

Please click on image below for larger photo...

Front view of the home	Rear deck view of new Cedar trim and HARDIPLANK® siding	Gilbert and Mark priming bay window frame with cover stain.