4 Professional Cold Weather Paint Tips for Protecting Exterior Paint in the Winter

If you’re looking for ways to protect your home’s exterior from the harsh Colorado winter, these paint maintenance tips can help. Just because exterior paint is designed to withstand the elements doesn’t mean it doesn’t need an assist from you. We’ve compiled a list of the best ways to support your house paint’s protective properties. If you know how to maintain your home’s paint, you can squeeze every last minute out of the manufacturer’s promise before your next whole-home exterior paint project. 

• Start with a Great Product: Use the Best Paint for Cold Weather

The adage “start as you mean to go on” certainly applies when considering the best house paint for cold weather. If you want a paint that will last through several winters in the Pikes Peak region, you’ll need to base your decision on quality and longevity. You only paint your home’s exterior once every few years (or more if you don’t start as you mean to go on and pick a lower quality type of paint). You want to ensure that you select the best exterior paint for cold weather and paint that can withstand UV rays, rain, snow and whatever else a Colorado winter throws at you. 

Select a high-quality cold weather exterior paint that has these four qualities to create a great foundation for protecting your home: 

• Warranteed
• Formulated to withstand harsh weather conditions
• Low-VOC
• UV-resistant

• Touch Up Trim and Make Exterior Repairs

Winterizing your exterior surfaces should be at the top of your winter home maintenance checklist. When it comes to paint, that means searching for vulnerabilities and repairing them before they begin to take a beating from the winter weather. 

Look for areas where paint has peeled or is starting to peel. Be sure to scrape, prime and repaint these areas to protect the bare wood. Remember, you are not just protecting your home from snow this winter, but sun damage as well. It can snow for a day or two at a time. By contrast, it is sunny nearly every day in Colorado.

You should also look for peeling caulking. Remove the old caulking and replace with a fresh bead of exterior, paintable caulking. This is an especially important winter tip for homeowners because caulking helps seal joints. You’ll be protecting multiple surfaces with this one fix. 

• Give Your House a Pre-Winter Power Wash

Power washing is often thought of as a summertime task for exterior home maintenance, but it can benefit your home in the winter, too. A clean surface will help minimize dirt build-up, webs and grime that can stain or damage paint. It also allows you to assess the outside of your home and check for damage to the paint, trim, gutters and siding. 

If you power wash your own home, be careful not to damage your exterior paint by using excessive pressure. You could potentially create a problem by blasting paint off of the trim and siding. Be careful with seams, cracks or spaces in the trim and siding. Water can be forced into these areas and damage caulking and/or cause mold. 

• Perform Routine Winter Maintenance For Cold Weather Paint

Routine winter maintenance can help with winter paint protection, as well. Here are a few easy-to-follow winter maintenance tips that will protect your exterior paint:

• Clean out gutters. Build-up can cause gutters to overflow and allow water to leak into protected areas or pool against your siding and trim. 
• Remove snow away from your home. Your garage door is a common problem area, as are decks, window wells, basement doorways and areas where the sun does not melt the snow.
• Carefully remove ice formations that can fall and damage your siding and trim. Most people local to the Pikes Peak region know that icicles can become massive – and dangerous if left alone. Mind your gutters, flashing and trim when removing ice formations. 
• Trim dead branches that can scrape against your siding during windy weather or blizzard conditions. This will also protect your roof. 
• Rinse salt and other corrosive materials off the sidewalk and areas near your home to prevent damage. 
• Remove snow from your deck regularly to protect the finish. Look for a shovel that won’t damage the wood.

Protect Your Asset from Winter Wear and Tear with Winter Paint Maintenance

These four handy tips will ensure your home’s exterior paint can survive harsh winter conditions and last for several years. If your current paint is in need of a little TLC, give AMC Painting a call. We can and will paint your home in the winter and we can also help you touch up peeling trim or winterize your outdoor patio. We have a wide selection of exterior paint for cold weather and we can paint your home in any season. In the meantime, bundle up and get ready for rain, snow or whatever else may come your way in a Colorado winter.