Buy premium paint: Paint, by its very nature, is a somewhat temporary covering: Eventually, it will need to be redone. The question is how soon. The minute you apply a coat of paint, the sun's ultraviolet (UV) rays start to break it down. Next to the water, where few trees offer shade, UV light is stronger than in wooded areas, and it breaks paint down much faster. The only real solution is to use the best-quality paint you can find. Don't buy an economy, or even a contractor-grade paint if you expect it to last for your exterior. Go with the premium lines.

Extra prep work: Prep work is also key to a quality paint job, especially on the coast. A lot of painters skimp on prep work, but by doing so they reduce the life of the paint job, no matter where the house is located. On coastal homes, the prep work includes a few more steps than it does inland. 

Wash down the surfaces: The most important of these steps have to do with salt and mildew. Mildew, because it thrives in high humidity, is a bigger problem near the water than it is inland. To make matters worse, many of the homes we’ve work on have irrigated lawns and bushes planted close to the house. In this environment, even an acrylic with a mildewcide additive will start mildewing after a couple of years. Salt is constantly attacking seaside homes, too. Fierce winds whip up ocean whitecaps and send spray through the air and right up against the house. Once the spray dries, it leaves a thin coat of salt on the wood. My experience is that any coating applied over salt won't adhere very well or for very long. 

 

Power wash: A good wash will take care of both problems. I wash the salt off of any surface I intend to coat, and I usually figure on coming back to a home a few years after it's coated to take care of any mildew that has started to grow. For both purposes, I dissolve powdered trisodium phosphate, or TSP, in a half-and-half mixture of bleach and water. (How much TSP I add depends on how dirty the surface is. I recommend starting with a small amount, then adding more if necessary.) We coat as soon after the wash as possible — I prime with a durable exterior wood primer the next day if it's new wood, and a second or third coat of acrylic latex. Also, we keep a close eye on the weather forecast: It takes only one good storm to cover the house with a salt film. If there's a blow between coats, I wash before putting on the second/thrid coat.

Seal the cut end: Another problem area is the end grain, which soaks up moisture like a sponge. This is the cut end of the wood. On older homes, I see a lot of trim boards rotting near the end grain. To keep this from happening, I completely seal all end grain on new trim by applying a few coats of exterior wood primer and NP1 oil based caulking to prevent wood from soaking up moisture. Then add your top coat. All this prep adds time and money to the job, of course, but the payoff is worth it: The bottom line is, our paint jobs last longer. I see many new 2-3 year old homes with peeling, blistering paint. Recoating these homes can require a lot of scraping, sanding, and stripping. So while our clients pay a little more the first time, they save over the long run.