Prime Exterior Wood Of House Before Painting?

If you are wondering why you need to prime exterior wood of your home before painting, you've landed on the right article. Going over all facets, reasons, why prime before painting is required over old paint, on wood siding.

Because let's face it, you want the very best for your home's outer shell. Making sure exterior paint you've just purchased will last it's printed specifications. As best exterior bonding primers do just that. An expert in this field, happy to convey all our knowledge on this subject.

Why Do I Need To Prime Before Painting Wood Siding

 

 

Asking why you need to prime before painting wood siding is an excellent question. In a nutshell, high bonding exterior primers grab & hold to bare wood siding much stronger than typical high quality exterior paints. Knowing this, same high quality exterior paints bonds to primers much better than bare wood siding.

How you can tell an extreme bonding primer bonds much better than typical quality exterior paints is just get it on your hands. Getting these primers dotted on your hands & fingers, you'll probably go to sleep first night with primer much harder, tougher to wash off.

Same thing with paint on wood, as primer nearly becomes part of wood it's covering. However, if wood siding has been painted without primer first, you only need to prime over problem areas, where paint has shown failure in the past.

Reason for this is current paint is adequately grabbing, holding, generally staying the duration, so no reason to top-coat it with primer.

Prepare House Exterior For Painting

Painting Exterior Wood Siding

 

 

Putting this in the forefront of article, hoping to ease some of your minds, it is very rare an entire home's exterior needs primer, if repainting. Preparing to paint your entire home's exterior, certainly not going to hurt anything priming entire exterior, but most of surfaces not required.

But giving your exterior an arsenal of weatherproofing bonding sealer, prime bare exterior wood siding first. This combination insures proper adhesion, sealing, also weatherproofing. Not allowing moisture penetrating wood trim or siding, to cause peeling, cracking, or blistering.

If current paint is very dark or vivid, going to a softer tone, you'd be best served priming over that vivid color first. Tinting primer is another trick used by many pro painters. Tinting exterior primer of a light gray, covering many dark purple & yellow colors first will make sure your earth tone colors lay down properly.

 

 

Also, if you are updating a home's colors from neutral tint base to a deep tone, especially yellows and purple, you'd might be best served priming first also. Prime siding with 50% of colorant additive of final coat, ensuring proper paint coverage. If not, you could see yourself applying multiple coats to cover adequately.

However, in 2019 you now have the luxury with primer and paint in one formulation. Also several of these paints only require one heavy coat. So it's a win-win if you want the very best exterior paint coating today!

Simply, any bare wood requires primer first. Reason is exterior primers bond to wood much better than typical exterior paint coatings. Also understanding your standard exterior paints grabs to primers much better than to bare wood.

Top Exterior Primers For You

Sherwin-Williams™ Extreme Bond Primer

For surfaces that require a greater degree of adhesion than our standard primers can offer, Extreme Bond Interior/Exterior Primer is up to the challenge. Designed for coating hard, glossy surfaces like tile, glass panels and plastic piping with minimal surface preparation. Can be tinted and is compatible with a full range of finish coat products.

KILZ® General Purpose Primer

KILZ® GENERAL PURPOSE EXTERIOR is a fast-drying latex primer and sealer, specifically formulated for outdoor use. It minimizes problems caused by surface texture and porosity differences. It’s ready to brush, roll or spray and can be topcoated after one hour with latex or oil-based paint.

Glidden™ Gripper Primer

Gripper Interior/Exterior Primer & Sealer is a premium acrylic primer and sealer designed to meet the variety of challenges experienced in the residential, commercial and multi-family markets for a multi-purpose primer. This fast-drying, all-purpose, bonding primer and sealer is suitable for interior or exterior application with its excellent adhesion to a variety of surfaces. Ideal for use on properly prepared interior or exterior wood, masonry, plaster, wallboard, cement, brick and stucco.

PPG™ Pittsburgh Primers

Choose from a range of professional-quality interior and exterior acrylic latex primers that are quick-drying, feature excellent adhesion and have great hiding and sealing qualities.

Valspar Exterior Multi-purpose Water-based Primer

Benjamin Moore® Fresh Start^® Premium Exterior Primers

Pressure Wash First

 

 

Pressure washing is your first important step before painting over old paint on wood. A good pressure washing will highlight areas you need to later scrape after wood has dried out.

Cleaning, washing off cracks, crevices, where siding overlaps each other tends to collect a considerable amount of dust, debris. Washing these areas before sealing with paint will have nothing but a positive impact on your exterior surfaces.

You're best served, scraping any paint that has failed first, before any primer is applied. You may even want to fill any unevenness with exterior Spackle, sanding before priming, as these areas need primers before painting also.

Prime Exterior Windows

 

 

Remembering primer bonds to bare wood much better, this is even more important preparing wood windows for painting. Wooden framed windows far more expensive than siding, so any bare wood on your window frames needs an extreme bonding primer first.

Even using very best exterior lifetime paint, I'd still prime any bare wood window surfaces first, before applying final finish coats, even with a primer & paint.

Prime Exterior Wood Siding

 

 

Painting Masonite™, James Hardie™, or LP™ siding comes pre-primed. Not needing to prime these areas, unless natural oils showing through previous paint coatings. We call this spot priming, only priming certain areas.

When painting say a T-111 fir wood siding, pine, would diffidently without question prime first. This can be done by spray, brush, or roll application, allowing to dry overnight, before any finish coats applied.

A Few Important Primer Sources

• • Walmart™
  • Target™
  • Lowe's™
  • Sherwin-Williams™
  • Benjamin-Moore™
  • PPG™
  • Ace Hardware™

You Can Prime Entire Exterior Before Painting Wood Siding?

 

 

Without even knowing it! Yes, today's paint technology has come full circle, now including highest grade exterior primers built right into exterior paint bases. We call them Lifetime paints. Saving a very important step painting any exterior of house, having primer included within formulation.

If you like doing two things at once, saving time, also a big step with primer, it's time to invest in a lifetime paint starting in 2019.

Just about every major paint manufacture has a premium exterior paint with some sort of lifetime paint warranty. Some have limited, others have full non-inclusive warranties as long as you own the home.

Saving time & money, if your home is in dire need of paint, showing massive areas of paint failure, I would strongly suggest removing all that old paint by lightly pressure washing first, followed by hand scraping, filling, sanding, thereby applying the best exterior paint money can by. This will insure your exterior wood siding lasting many additional years.

Be Sure To Repair Any Wood Siding Before Painting

 

 

As you pressure wash, all eyes are on surfaces, a good time to inspect any areas of wood siding that may need repairs before primer & paint is applied. Having to stop in primer or paint process having to repair or replace wood siding not only interrupts what you are doing, but takes additional time. Knowing how valuable your time is, if painting an exterior by yourself.

Good rule of thumb is make a cut list of any wood siding pieces you plan addressing after pressure washing. This can be done immediately after cleaning, not having to wait to dry.

Repairing wood siding after pressure washing, and before painting will make your job go as smoothly as possible.

Prime Upper Soffit Areas

 

 

One more area that could be overlooked is upper soffits or eves. Preparing entire exterior includes the upper most portion of your home, the overhang or soffit area. Following all steps preparing exterior for painting, be sure to include any primer. Portions that you may have repaired, discolorations, scraped, or filled.

After primer is applied, you're at liberty to paint soffits with the very best paint you can afford.

To Summarize

Primer is a vital part of preparation painting your entire home's exterior. You do need to prime exterior wood of house before painting if going over different colors, light to dark, or dark to light.

Also, need to prime exterior wood of home where any failed paint has been removed, knowing exterior primers bonds to old wood much better than exterior paints. Exterior paints bonds to exterior primers much better than bare wood. So, prime bare exterior wood on siding is far better, ensuring your final finish coats will last.

If you need a professional team of Denver painters, to prime exterior wood of your home before painting, contact us today!

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