Exterior Painting

Exterior work lives or dies on prep, more than any interior job does, because the surface has been sitting outside taking on sun, rain, and salt air for years. Old flaking paint has to come off properly, timber has to be checked for rot before anyone paints over it, and any mould or moss growing on the surface needs treating, not just painting over. Skip that step and the new coat fails early, usually within a year or two, regardless of how good the paint itself is.

New Zealand's housing stock uses a real mix of cladding: painted weatherboard is still common, especially on older villas and bungalows, alongside brick veneer, plaster or stucco-style monolithic cladding, and fibre cement sheet (often sold under the James Hardie brand). Each one takes paint differently. Timber weatherboard needs a flexible, breathable coating that moves with the board; plaster and fibre cement usually take a masonry or acrylic exterior system. If your home was built before 1980, there's also a reasonable chance some existing paint layers contain lead, which changes how sanding and paint removal should be handled to keep dust exposure safe.

Weather matters too. Most exterior work in New Zealand happens between around October and April, when there's a longer run of dry, mild days for paint to cure properly. Painting in cold, damp, or humid conditions, or right before rain is forecast, is a common reason a coating fails early. Tell us your cladding type, the number of storeys, and how easy the property is to access, and we'll match you with a local painter who scopes exterior jobs to the actual building, not a flat per-square-metre guess.