Okay, my turn to ask the question. Checked back in the archives, but didn't see a real specific Q&A regarding different paint brands, so here goes.

Planning on painting the old homestead this spring. Original flat white paint on house (~20 years) and holding up pretty well. Two questions:

1. Best paint brands considering my location? Sources available would be the Big Boxes, Sears, and S-W at least; not sure what all else might be available locally. Surface is stucco over block. House faces north; east and west sides shaded and south has shade and pool cage, so not a big issue with direct sunlight.

2. I did a down and dirty estimate on surface area. Exterior walls totaled ~1850 sqft with about 350 sqft of window/doors, so ~1500 sqft of surface to cover. Is a 5 gallon container going to do it?

Thanks.

 

Your local paint store's top line of coatings will be superior to anything you can get a big box. Does your Sears still sell paint? ours hasn't in several years.

Masonry paints are generally a cheaper grade of paint. In the greater Orlando area, masonry paints on new construction stucco would usually fade in a few years but upgrading to a decent house paint would double [or more] the life of the paint job. IMO the top of the line for painting stucco is an elastromeric paint but it won't go as far as regular latex paint. It will also hide/seal minor cracks and waterproof the stucco if applied correctly.

How far a gallon of paint will go on stucco depends mainly on how rough the texture is but also how thirsty it is. 5 gallons is in the ballpark but too hard to say for sure without walking around the house inspecting the stucco.

I suspect your existing paint job is chalky. Latex paint won't adhere to chalk! It's best to wash off what you can. Any remaining chalk can be addressed by adding Flood's EmulsaBond to the 1st coat of latex paint. How much to add depends on the level of chalkiness. I don't know if it's still available but we used to spray an oil base masonry conditioner over chalk that would do the same as the EB but at a lower cost.

 

Good question on Sears. Very possible they don't; I haven't even been in Sears lately except to exchange a couple of broken tools.

Was planning on pressure washing prior to starting. Sufficient prep or should I scrub with TSP or equivalent?

Just had a look at CR after reading your response just to see what they say (forgot they might have a review of paints). I've had issues before with some of their recommendations on products, but I like to take a look to see what they say. Their top picks are:

Behr Premium Plus Ultra Flat Enamel $37 (Home Depot) CU Recommended
California Paints Fres-Coat Velvet Flat $44 CU Recommended
Sherwin-Williams Duration Flat $67 CU Recommended
Glidden Spred Flat $25 CU Best Buy
Glidden Premium Flat $22 CU Best Buy (Home Depot)
Behr Premium Plus Flat $26 CU Best Buy (Home Depot)

Of these, the locally-available ones other than the Big Box would be the S-W Duration. Looked up the California Paints and nearest place is about 80 miles, BUT it's up where I have family, so not out of the question to get that. First thing I notice is that the SW runs $67/gal, more than twice the others.

Do you have a rule of thumb or way of determining to roughly what degree of chalkiness there is?

 

Wipe your finger [or thumb ] across the old paint and see if it turns your finger white. PWing with TSP [add bleach if you have mildew] should help remove the chalk. Generally if there is any chalk left aver cleaning, I'll add the EB. Usually there is some left after cleaning although I did paint a MH for a girl who cleaned the trailer herself. I was surprised at how well it cleaned up but found out she scrubbed it by hand, twice with Tide ..... more work than I would have done.

I've never been around any California brand paint although in central fla there is a paint manufacture called Color Wheel that sells decent paint at a very competitive price. I'd only use their best latex paints!
SWP can be pricey but they often have sales that bring the retail price down considerably. You probably have a Glidden store although it might be called ICC. Porter Paints is good, along with Pittsburg Paints, there may be others - check your yellow pages. All paint stores have cheap, decent and best and it usually pays to get the best! I don't have a lot of experience with big box paints but generally they sell coatings based more on low price than quality. If you figure your labor in, the extra paint cost is a small part of the deal.

 

Thanks, Mark. Earlier after posting I went outside and in several places ran the palm of my hand down the wall. I actually got very little rub-off from the paint. If I was to hold my palm 6 feet away from you, I doubt you could tell I had anything on it. Not sure what the original builder's paint was, but must be pretty good stuff.
Appreciate all the info and I'll do some nosing around to see what is available beyond what I already have seen/found. Plenty of time, I'm thinking it's an April project - consistently warm enough and still in the "dry" season.

Color wheel is owned by Sherwin-Williams apparently? Checked Color Wheel website and when you go to the "locations" page, the bottom of the page says
© 2014 The Sherwin-Williams Company. They have a retailer nearby. Also have a couple of S-W places.

Wally World and HD both carry Glidden locally; they are the only sources that come up within 50 miles in a location search. Hadn't thought of Wal-Mart; is the Glidden paint on theirs and HD's shelves going to be the same stuff available at any other paint retailer's?

Local Ace store carries Porter. Also it appears the store locally with the Color Wheel also retails Porter. Porter and Pittsburg same Company (PPG), too, it looks like???

Sure glad this is not an every year project!

 

The last time I went to Color Wheel it was an independent locally owned company but that was over 20 yrs ago. I didn't know that Porter and PPG had merged either. I know the local Glidden store changed the name on the door 10 [?] years ago but still sold Glidden and added a few brands. Glidden has some good coatings but from what I've seen, the big box stores only carry their bottom line coatings which isn't very good.

Assuming you can't find out what brand/line of paint is currently on your house [and if it is still formulated the same] it would be a good idea to talk to friends/neighbors and see what coatings they have good/bad results. Having painted for 14 yrs in the Orlando area I feel like I know what works well in your area but it has been over 20 yrs.

 

Can't tell the players without a scorecard!

 

It's nice to have choices but sometimes too many choices can overwhelm you. The main thing is to use the best paint you can afford ..... along with using the right coating for the job.