Painting the House

[Tobra]

You get snow down there?

[daepp]

Has anyone used anymofmthese never-paint-again energy efficient coatings you hear advertised all the time. They claim 40% reductions in energy usage but I'm skeptical.

[Hugh R]

Snows an inch or so about once every twenty years.

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by Hugh R

Snows an inch or so about once every twenty years.

So, Hell does freeze over!

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by jyl

I will need to paint my house in the next year or two. Definitely not doing it myself, afraid of heights. One neighbor spent $40K on a total strip and paint that took three weeks, another spent $6K on a Chinese family business 3 day job. The $40K job looks better, but half is the paint color chosen (more subtle, harmonious). And it doesn't look 8X better. I think I'm leaning toward the Wongs.

I painted my 1870's row house in Upstate NY. I wanted to use a man lift, but there was no room. I think it is $250 for the paint, $200 to rent the ladder and a few brick scraper blades. It took me a weekend plus about 1 hour to do the front.

The top is ~40 above the ground.

[john70t]

Rent an air bag for the fall?

[red-beard]

Since the ladder was darn near straight up and down, I put a rope through an open window upstairs and tied the ladder. The ladder had to be fiberglass since I was so close to the electric lines. I did use a safety belt from an old job and hooked onto the ladder rungs while working.

For painting, I used a power roller. It was battery powered and held 1/2 gallon of paint. The roller was the thickest mat I could find, since the brick is fairly rough.

It really wasn't that bad, except I think it was pretty darn hot for Upstate NY. I'm pretty sure it was over 90 both days.

On a rough guess, I expect that the paint job added $10-15K to the selling price. I bought the place in 1999 for $85K and sold it 2 years later for $149K. I did put $20K into my kitchen (upper 2 floors) and I also put about $5K of materials into fixing up the inside of all three units. Rent from the two apartments were about $950/mth. Mortgage, taxes, ins were less than that!

I only wish I had waited to 2004-2005 to sell! I believe it would have gone for $250K!

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by daepp

Has anyone used anymofmthese never-paint-again energy efficient coatings you hear advertised all the time. They claim 40% reductions in energy usage but I'm skeptical.

There are coatings that do reduce heat gain, but i don't think I'd play around with them on a house. AFA 40% less energy, they should be jailed for saying that. Window companies say the same thing. Windows are 5% of a average house's energy envelope. If you took the window area itself and had poor performing window replaced by a hig performance window, yes, 40% less for that window sq footage alone.

Hugh's red tile and light body color help reduce heat gain by some. The other day I took my infrared temp reader like Hugh bought and took readings off my black truck and nearby light colored stucco and the truck was 146º while the plaster was 117.

[daepp]

It was a radio ad - maybe they said 40 degrees. I copied the next paragraph from their website - I'm still dubious...

"The CoolWall System & Tex-Cote products are engineered to endure years of exterior exposure, eliminate color fade and save energy by reducing heat absorption as much as 38°F when your home is beautified with CoolWall Exterior Coating. The heat reflective technology, the same technology used by the US Military for airborne drones, keeps your home cooler inside and out saving you up to 21.9% on your cooling bills."

[matt f]

Originally Posted by carambola

do you understand that to a guy from south jersey, the title-painting the house, has a whole different meaning

Means the same in NE PA.
"I heard you paint houses" by Frank Sheeran.
First hand account of killing Hoffa.

[Zeke]

Anything that contains the word "Texcoat" is a total scam. the product might have some uses but the typical applicator would just as soon spray your rose bushes and car. I've seen those a-holes paint a steel sectional garage door with it. Might as well spray the door mat too.