St. George Home Services
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Painting · Outside the house

Exterior repaint

The whole envelope, prepared and coated in the order and the conditions the coating manufacturer publishes, not in whatever weather the schedule wanted.

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One flat fee to find out what is wrong. You are told it on the phone before anyone is dispatched, and it comes off the job if you hire us. Read our Plain Terms

What the work is

An exterior repaint is a preparation job with a painting stage at the end. Anything chalking, peeling or loose comes off. Bare areas are primed. Failed caulk at windows, doors and trim joints is cut out and replaced, because those joints are where water gets behind the coating and where the next failure starts.

Almost every exterior failure traces to one of three things: coating applied over a surface that was dirty or chalky, coating applied over a substrate holding moisture, or coating applied outside the temperature range the manufacturer publishes. All three are avoidable and all three are invisible on the day the job looks finished.

So the schedule follows the wall rather than the calendar. On a summer day here the sun moves around a house and a west wall can be far too hot to coat in the afternoon while the north side is fine. Working the shaded elevations and coming back is slower, and it is the difference between a finish that bonds and one that flashes and peels.

We tell you what we find as we prepare. Stucco cracks, rotten fascia, a failed sill: each of those is a repair decision with a cost, and you hear it before we cover it up rather than after.

What is included

  • Washing, and removal of chalk, loose and peeling coating
  • Bare substrate spot-primed before any finish coat
  • Failed caulk at windows, doors and trim joints cut out and replaced
  • Elevations worked by surface temperature and shade, not by convenience
  • Everything not being coated masked: windows, lights, meters, roofs and plants

What is not

  • Coating over active moisture, efflorescence or a stain whose source is still live. We find the cause first
  • Carpentry and stucco repair, which are quoted separately once we can see the extent
  • Roof coatings, which are a different product class and a different trade

What is different here

Southern Utah is one of the harder places in the country to keep an exterior coating on a wall, and it is sunlight rather than heat that does the damage. Ultraviolet exposure breaks down the binder that holds pigment to the surface, which is what chalking is: the powder that comes off on your hand is the coating failing, not dust.

South and west elevations therefore fail years before north and east ones on the same house, and a repaint that treats all four sides as one job is mispricing three of them. We look at each elevation separately and tell you if the answer is a full repaint or two sides now.

What to ask anyone quoting this, us included

  • What are you doing about the chalk, and how are you testing for it?
  • What surface temperature range does the product you are using allow, and how are you measuring the wall?
  • What are you priming, and with what?
  • Which caulk joints are you replacing?
  • What happens to my quote if you find rot behind the trim?

What we can show you in writing

Every line traces to a document we read in full. The number after a sentence points to the research below.

  • Sherwin-Williams states it on its own product data sheet: most coating failures are due to inadequate surface preparation or application. It also warns that any surface preparation short of total removal of the old coating may compromise how long the system lasts.1
  • Dunn-Edwards publishes the rule plainly for hot climates: follow the shade, do not paint in the sun, and paint south-facing surfaces in the morning before the full heat of the day. It defines hot weather as above 90°F up to 120°F, and names the failures heat causes — mud cracking, dry spray, and lap marks where the paint loses its open time.1
  • Sherwin-Williams states that extremely high temperatures, over 100°F, could cause a paint film to dry before it had a chance to properly adhere. St. George recorded 98 days at or above 100°F in 2024, the most on record.1
  • Manufacturers do not agree on how hot is too hot, which is why the product matters here. Benjamin Moore publishes a maximum surface temperature of 100°F for its Aura exterior line, PPG allows an ambient and substrate range up to 100°F, Dunn-Edwards says its Evershield can be applied up to 120°F, and Sherwin-Williams publishes no ceiling at all but warns that above 80°F its Duration sets up quickly.1
  • Chalking is the coating failing, not dirt. Ultraviolet light degrades the resin that binds the pigment, and the loose pigment is the powder that comes off on your hand. You can test for it yourself before anyone quotes: rub a black cloth across the wall and see whether the film transfers.1
  • The USDA Forest Products Laboratory reports that paint on the north side of a building lasts twice as long as paint on the south side, and concludes that different sides of a structure do not need to be painted on the same schedule.1
6 more facts, with sources
  • All four manufacturers agree on the cold end: 35°F minimum air and surface temperature, the surface at least 5°F above the dew point, and standard latex primers no lower than 50°F.1
  • The Forest Products Laboratory identifies chalk, dirt and mildew left on old paint as the cause of intercoat peeling, where new paint separates from old, usually within a year of repainting.1
  • In a Forest Products Laboratory study on western redcedar, how long bare wood sat in sunlight before painting decided how long the paint held: boards weathered 16 weeks first peeled within 3 years, boards weathered 1 week peeled after 13 years, and boards painted without preweathering showed no peeling after 20 years. The laboratory notes the damage is invisible — after 2 to 3 weeks outdoors the wood appears unchanged.1
  • The USDA Forest Products Laboratory reports that if the moisture content of wood exceeds 20% when it is painted, the risk of blistering and peeling increases.1
  • The normal daily high in St. George is 101.9°F in July and 99.9°F in August, on NOAA's 1991 to 2020 climate normals for the city's own station. Benjamin Moore caps application of its exterior line at a surface temperature of 100°F and PPG at 100°F ambient and substrate, so an average July afternoon here is at or past what those manufacturers publish — before anyone measures the wall, which in sun is hotter than the air.1
  • August is the wettest month of the warm half of the year in St. George, at 1.07 inches on NOAA's normals — more than June's 0.16 and July's 0.50 combined. The National Weather Service runs the monsoon season from June 15 to September 30, and every manufacturer in our research says not to apply if rain is expected within two to three hours.1

Where this comes from

Every line above traces to a document we read in full. The number after a sentence points to the research below; hover it for the section. If you find a line wrong, tell us and we will fix it and say so.

  1. Painting research, September 2026 Compiled from Utah DOPL's contractor classification list and Utah Code § 58-55-305, the EPA's Renovation, Repair and Painting rule at 40 CFR Part 745 Subpart E, the USDA Forest Products Laboratory's Wood Handbook chapter on finishing, EPA's asbestos guidance, and the published technical data sheets of Sherwin-Williams, Benjamin Moore, PPG and Dunn-Edwards. 8 sections cited. Hover a number above for the section.

The rest of outside the house

The quote is the number. There is no second number.

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