Respect Your Paint By Don Strube, Florida Paints
Florida’s unique environment places special demands on exterior paints. Educate yourself on how to best take care of your painted surfaces.
Don Strube is co-founder of Florida Paints with 35 years experience of paint manufacturing in Central Florida.
Let’s talk about the paint on the exterior of your home. It truly is a wonderful thing! Paint adds beauty. Paint provokes emotion. Paint makes a statement about the people living inside. Are the occupants bold, trendy, reserved, or mysterious? Do t hey like to blend in or be noticed? Do they like change or prefer the status quo? Regardless, the colors and combinations of the paint on a home send a message about those who dwell within. Paint is protective. A typical coat of paint is no thicker than a piece of paper yet it is expected to provide protection against wind driven rain, the sun’s ultra-violet rays, blowing dirt and debris, mold and mildew growth, and a myriad of other attacks. Paint is also expected to last for many years, which can be especially difficult in Florida’s harsh environment. Here it rains harder, the sun is brighter, and the mildew grows faster than the rest of the country. Florida is real tough on paint. Unfortunately, paint is typically neglected. People wash their clothes every day, their cars every week, but how often do they wash their paint? Paint longs to be bright, shiny, and squeaky clean. It wants a bath every now and then. Who likes to be covered in dust? The same goes for paint. So much is expected from a simple concoction born in a can that just sits there day in and day out, year after year. Poor, poor paint, it doesn’t get much respect.
Do You Spend Quality Time With Your Paint? Paint has come a long way in the last fifty years. Almost all of today’s exterior architectural paints are water-based and formulated using latex emulsions dispersed with various types of pigments and additives. In Florida, a superior quality exterior 100% acrylic latex paint can provide beauty and protection for decade if properly applied, maintained and cared for. In the old days you were lucky if a paint job looked good for more than five years. The Villages have always prided themselves for selecting the highest quality paint products and systems available for their new homes, carefully testing and evaluating the many formulations and options in the marketplace. They also have stringent paint application guidelines, which is as critical as the quality of the paint itself. Unfortunately for paint, “the worst time is the first time.” When paints and primers are applied to new construction materials they are pushed to the limits. Fresh masonry, wood, vinyl, and metal substrates all need time to “cure” and become accustomed to the environment. Different materials expand and contract at different rates and need to learn how to fit together. In addition, the entire home needs time to “settle in” on Florida’s sandy soil, which can take six to eighteen months depending on the geology underneath. All of these factors put a lot of stress on