I have a professional painting company scheduled to come Monday to wash, and Tuesday/Wednesday to paint the exterior of my house.

A bit of a back story, I had someone painted the house 3-4 years ago and the paint was chalking, peeling prematurely. This painting company I am hiring now told me the problem was that the previous company painted the house when it was wet, and that could cause the paint or primer not to bond.

Now I am looking at the weather forecast, and it says Tuesday and Wednesday have a 60% chance of afternoon thunderstorms. We are in Miami FL winter is usually dry but lately we have had some rain.

I called the painters and asked about it, see if we could hold off because if the last paint job was bad due to moisture, wouldn't this be an issue too? Their response is "it should be OK, we use really good primer and paint".

I am not sure I feel comfortable. I paid them 50% down already.

Now another unrelated story. Several months ago I had a stucco job. I hired a guy to patch some stucco on my exterior walls. That was during the summer when it rained every day in the afternoon, heavy down pours. The guy said he would come early in the morning to stucco, around 7am, because by the time noon rolls around he would be done and the stucco would have set. Well he didn't show up till 9:30, then he had to run to Home Depot as he couldn't find his bonding agent, so he started around 10:30, by the time he's done it's 3pm, I handed him a check, and the rain started to come down then. After an hour I went to check on his work, and three sides the stucco had been washed off and puddled at the bottom of the wall. I called him and he said he can't be responsible for weather related problems, but he offered to come back to do the job for the same amount, again.

So, how do you all suggest I handle this? Put my foot down and say no painting until we have a 2-3 day stretch of good weather? Somehow "should be OK..." doesn't inspire confidence especially if the same guy saying the last time was due to improper painting on wet wall and now he's OK with himself doing that.

 

I thought some chalking is normal. Is power washing an adequate substitute for scraping off old loose paint? Peeling paint means the underneath paint wasn't scraped adequately, I've been told. I'm just an old homeowner, not an expert - but I thought the surface needed to be dry before painting, so I think I'd ask them to wait for better weather which surely shouldn't take long. Dunno - I never had a big company for my big house, just an old solo hard worker (a lucky find).

 

I used to paint in fla and rain is almost always in the afternoon forecast

I don't know that rain played a big part in your previous paint failure, it sounds more like improper prep - mainly paint applied over chalky paint. The chalk needs to be removed! when it isn't feasible to remove it all you need to either add Flood's EmulsaBond to the 1st coat of latex or use a solvent based primer to bind up the chalk. Paint will not adhere long term to chalk!

Whether or not to postpone the paint job depends a lot on how well you can trust your painter. I've painted a lot of exteriors in fla with rain in the forecast - you have to work but on the occasions when rain harmed the paint job, we went back and made things right! IMO it's the contractor's responsibility to stop in time so the weather doesn't negatively affect the job OR accept the consequences. Is your painter offering any type of warranty on the paint job?

 

And: DON'T PAY THEM ANOTHER DIME TILL THE JOB IS 100% FINISHED TO YOUR SATISFACTION--and there's not a lot of paint drops on windows, etc.

 

A sure sign that the painter is not a pro Back in the 70's I bid a job and then heard how hard the couple were to work for so I put the job off as long as I could. When I started painting the windows, the old man asked me for a rag and can of turpentine so he could clean the paint off of the interior wall. I got defensive and told him I was only painting the exterior side of the windows. He said he knew that but wanted to be able to wipe off the wet paint before it dried on the interior walls. He watched me paint the first window and then decided I knew what I was doing and he didn't need to clean up behind me. They wound up being very nice customers .... they had just never dealt with a real painter before!

I forgot to mention earlier but you should never need to give a painter 50% down! If he's an established company he has credit at the paint store and even if he doesn't - the cost of the paint is generally a lot less than the labor cost.

 

If it makes you more comfortable I would tell them to hold off. The contractor may see this as an inconvenience, but they are there for you.
A side note: You said they were coming Monday to wash. What did they do to get the 50% down?
A contractor should never receive 50% payment with no work performed. Maybe 10% down upon contract, 30% more when materials arrive and work commences.
A contractor should always have working capital. If they start asking for payments early, that's a bad sign.

 

I totally missed the wash on monday paint on tuesday IF it's warm and/or windy that may work fine but 1 day isn't always long enough for the house to dry sufficiently. Some houses will dry quicker than others [and I haven't walked around yours] I generally try to find time the previous week to wash the house. I like to know that it's good and dry before I start painting, I don't like to have change my plans because it isn't.

 

MiamiCuse:

I think you're best bet is to simply not pay them any more money until you're satisfied with the work they did.

I think that you're worried that the paint job might look OK when they leave, but that it won't last as long because the paint was applied on a rainy day.

That's simply not how latex paint works. You either get a job that both looks right and is good, or you end up with a job that doesn't look right and is bad.

Let me explain how latex paints work so that you feel more confident dealing with them:

Welcome to Latex Paint 101:

Latex paint is a "slurry", which means there's solids suspended in a liquid, kinda like sand suspended in water is quicksand. But in latex paints, it's a mixture of solids suspended in a mixture of liquids.

The solids consist of:
1. Plastic resins which are clear and colourless, spherical in shape and quite hard if you were to try to squeeze one.
2. Extenender pigments which lower the gloss level of paints and primers. Were it not for extender pigments, all primers and paints would dry to a high gloss finish.
3. Coloured pigments which give paint it's colour and much of it's opacity and hiding power. Stains use dyes for colour. Paints never use dyes for colour, only solid particles called "coloured pigments".

The liquids consist of:
4. Water
5. A low volatility water soluble solvent called a "coalescing agent" or "coalescing solvent", which in most paints nowadays is a chemical made by Eastman Chemical called "Texanol".

Now, when you apply a latex paint to a wall, the first thing that happens is that the water evaporates from the paint. The hard spherical plastic paint resins find themselves surrounded by the coalescing solvent in an ever increasing concentration. As that happens, the coalescing solvent is absorbed into the spherical plastic resins making them very soft and sticky.

At this point, the same forces of capillary pressure and surface tension that cause tiny particles of water in clowds to coalesce into large rain drops occurs inside the paint film and causes all the soft sticky plastic resins to stick to and pull on each other. The result is that these particles transform into a soft sticky plastic film with the extender pigments and coloured pigments suspended inside it very much like raisins in raisin bread.

It's during this time, where the individual plastic particles are sticking to each other and pulling on each other to form a film covering the substrate that the colour of the paint darkens slightly. The reason for this darkening is that as long as the plastic was in the form of individual particles, incident light would be reflected and refracted at every plastic/water interface, and your eye sees all that scattered light as the colour "white", which is why clowds, snowbanks and the head on a beer are all white in colour even thought nothing inside any of these things is actually white in colour. As the plastic particles coalesce into a soft sticky film, there are fewer and fewer of those plastic/water interfaces that reflect and refract light. So, as the wet paint transforms into a soft, sticky film, it's colour darkens slightly as the film produces less and less white light. This is why the people at the paint counter will always dry your paint with a hair dryer to see what colour the paint will dry to.

It is during this time when the water has evaporated from the paint (but not the coalescing solvent) so that the plastic resins are soft and sticky that adhesion of the paint to the substrate occurs. As long as this part goes off without a hitch, the new soft sticky paint film will adhere well to your house, even after it's dried.

Over the next day or two, the coalescing solvent evaporates from the soft sticky paint film, and as it does the plastic in that film hardens back up again to the same hardness the spherical plastic particles were when they were still in the paint can. As the coalescing solvent evaporates, it fills the room (in the case of painting indoors) with that familiar "Freshly Painted Smell".

The wet paint film shrinks in thickness as both the water and coalescing solvent evaporate out of the film, and as the film gets thinner, the amount and coarseness of the extender pigments in the paint film result in the film drying to a smooth or rough texture, and that's what determines how glossy or flat your paint will dry.

So, that's how latex paints work. Oil based primers and paints (if you live where you can still buy oil based paints) form a film completely differently, and I expect I'll deal with that subject in a future post.

Anyhow, how can the possibility of rain result in a ruined paint job?

High humidity in the air will prevent the water from evaporating from the paint, but not the coalescing solvent. The coalescing solvent will evaporate under humid conditions at much the same rate as it would under ideal conditions. The result is that the spherical paint resins won't be immersed in the high concentration of coalescing solvent they need to be in order to become as soft and sticky as they need to be in order to stick properly to the substrate and to form a continuous soft sticky film. The result will be something which, under a microscope, would look much like cooked rice where each plastic resin is sticking to it's neighbors, but those resins are still largely individual and not coalesced into a solid continuous film they way they would have under better painting conditions. The result will be a paint film that doesn't stick as well as it should right from the start, and a paint that's flatter in gloss than it should be, and in a worst case scenario, a paint that has a milky white discolouration to it as a result of each of those individual plastic paint resins reflecting and refracting light at it's surface. If the paint dries to the proper gloss and the proper colour, you most likely have very good film formation and proper adhesion of the paint to the substrate.

But, what's important to note here is that adhesion of the new paint film to the old occurs during that film formation process described above. Your new paint will not "lose it's adhesion" over time because it was applied under excessively humid conditions. No doubt your new paint will eventually crack and peel at some point in the future as the paint deteriorates with age, but that cracking and peeling won't occur faster or earlier because the paint was applied under excessively humid condtions. That is, you either get proper film formation and adhesion right from the start, or you get improper film formation and adhesion right from the start.

Generally, a paint film that's glossy in some places and dull in others is another indication of improper film formation as well.

Another problem that can occur if the paint is applied during humid conditions and the water is slow to evaporate from the paint is that the soaps put into the paint will become dissolved in the water, and remain behind on the surface of the paint film as it dries. This problem is called "surfactant exhudation" and results in a streaky brownish discolouration of the paint. They add "surfactants" (pronounced "soaps") to latex paints so that they wet the substrate better for better adhesion. If the paint dries too slowly because the water isn't evaporating fast enough, the soaps in the paint will remain dissolved in the water. If the coalescing solvents are still in a high enough concentration to result in proper film formation, then the plastic paint resins will form a proper film with the soapy water on top. As the water evaporates, the residual soap will remain behind as a streaky brownish discolouration. In that case, you can simply wash that soap off with a garden hose, and the underlying paint film will be fine.

So, what you should do is wait a few days after the painters finish painting your house, and then look for a consistant gloss and colour in the paint job they did. If it's the right colour and gloss, then film formation occured properly. Confirm by scratching at the paint in several places with your thumb nail or with a popsicle stick or something equally hard.

If you see that the paint film varies in gloss, or in a worst case scenario has a milky white discolouration in places, then take some pictures of the paint film and take your painters to court. If that coat of paint isn't showing proper film formation, then it's not sticking to the substrate as well as it should either, and any coat of paint applied over it won't stick any better. That coat with the improper film formation will be the weak link in the chain, and you'll have to remove the paint that isn't sticking well before you can repaint and expect the new coat to stick well.

Hope this helps.

 

Paint applied over old chalky paint will dry ok and look ok but will not have a good bond with the underlying paint. Since paint rarely peels down to a raw substrate in fla I'm assuming the previous top coat peeled leaving the underlying paint exposed.

 

Handyone, they required 50% on contract signing and balance on job completion. So that's why I paid 50% before they did anything.

 

Nestor, thanks for the education. I had a bad paint job on this house last time. The peeling started 3, 4 months after job completed. Peeling in some places, mini "bubbles" in other places on the lower portions of the exterior walls. Calls to the painter were not answered and they basically ignored me.

I ignored the peeling and waited a few years. Then this company who came out to bid the job, the guy told me the reason the previous paint job was peeling so soon, was because the paint or primer was applied while the wall was wet. It may have rained or they washed and didn't wait till it dry. I hired him as he seemed knowledgeable.

But now come time to paint this is the same guy when I say next few days we will have a 60% chance of THUNDERSTORMS he said "should be OK". It rained Saturday, it rained Sunday, it's raining now.

Just check weather forecast says thunderstorms tonight is 70% chance. So if the building is wet tomorrow morning they shouldn't prime even if it's not raining right?

 

marksr, the previous coat peeled in some areas, and when I pulled off the peeled paint and touch the layer underneath my finger was smudged with a chalk like substance.

 

The substrate needs to be dry before any coating is applied! About the only time it's ok to apply primer/paint over a damp substrate is in hot dry climates where the substrate would otherwise absorb the coating too quickly .... and even then thinning or additives is a better option.

The chalkiness on the underside of the peeled paint is an indication that it was applied over a chalky surface. Latex paints especially are bad to oxidize/chalk when they reach the end of their life in exterior applications [especially from UV rays] I've never liked repainting a house that was previously painted over chalk! Being as diligent as you can, you can never be assured that you removed all of the poorly bonded paint. All you can do is the best you can and pray for the best.

When they come to wash the house today, discuss the weather forecast and your concerns with them. I'd want more than 1 days drying time with those types of weather conditions.

Next time if the painting contractor wants more than a token down payment - look for another contractor! While I have been offered money up front from some customers, I've never asked for any up front money. Locally there is a contractor [don't remember what trade] in jail on DUI charges waiting to be released to another jurisdiction to serve a fraud sentence where he took money but didn't complete the work [more than 1 customer]

 

Mark is correct. The walls need to be dry to paint.

But, as I explained in my last post, painting over a damp substrate will result in the paint not sticking well right from the start. It's not like the paint will stick well initially and then loose it's adhesion prematurely because of the original painting conditions. It either sticks well right from the start or doesn't stick well right from the start.

So, if the painter starts painting over a wet wall, take some pictures of that foolishness in case you ever need them for court, and scrape at the finished paint job in multiple places to ensure the paint is sticking as well as it should be.

 

They came to do the wash today.

I explained to them my concerns and they said the "sealer" they use (they don't call it a primer) is very good and it "sets" in less than 2 hours. They don't think the rain will be an issue.

They will come tomorrow (well today as it's past midnight now) to prime and paint. Right now, it's 1:30am, and there is a heavy downpour and it's been this way for an hour. We are six hours away from them coming again. I think in the morning the rain will reced a bit, and in the afternoon thunderstorms, now the weather forecast says 70% thunderstorms tomorrow. But I bet the wall will be wet in the morning.

 

Some primers [not all] are sealers BUT that doesn't change the fact that the substrate needs to be dry! You can imagine what will happen if they seal moisture in the substrate - while a small amount might get absorbed by the primer, any moisture that doesn't will pop the coating sooner or later.

 

well, good thing is, today it was raining in the morning so they called me at 10am saying they can't do it today because it's still raining. I told them if the walls are wet even if there is no rain it is not a good idea. He said we shall try again tomorrow. I am hoping for clear sky tonight and tomorrow.

 

Woke up this morning, no rain!

weather today "Near zero visibility in dense fog. Use extreme caution."

I touched the walls and they are wet. I can't win!

 

Dense fog is like dew and usually doesn't take long to dry .... if the sun or wind gets a chance. Sounds like it might be a day for a later than normal start. Will you be on site to make sure they don't push the envelope?

 

I was there yesterday. They came in mid morning 10ish, to prep, seal and paint.

They did some scraping, put plastic bags on the lights and taped them off, then they apply with a paint brush some white stuff over some cracks. They told me it's "Filler Caulk". I have not seen this before but it just looks like thick white paint to me. I had to leave after a few hours, but the sky is clear. They will be back today to prime and paint. Keeping my fingers crossed.

 

I've used caulking that came in buckets but normally it's applied with a self loading caulk gun although I suppose it could be applied with a trowel or brush. Elastomeric paint will seal minor cracks so it's possible that is what they used. Hopefully the cracks were dry when they sealed them as moisture trapped inside the substrate will look for a way to escape.

How did the wash job go? Is all the chalk gone?