Start with the contract, not the color
Most painting conversations begin with a fan deck of swatches. In Burlington it pays to start a step earlier, with who signs the contract with you, because Vermont's residential construction statute names painting in its definition. After that, the work that decides how long an exterior finish lasts is the work done on the gaps and edges where water gets in.
What Vermont's statute says
Vermont law requires a person to register with the Office of Professional Regulation before contracting with a homeowner to perform residential construction for more than $10,000, including labor and materials, and the law's definition of residential construction includes painting. That is the wording of 26 V.S.A. chapter 106, section 5501.
The Office of Professional Regulation adds, in its Residential Contractor FAQs, that a subcontractor hired by another contractor, not directly by the homeowner, does not have to register.
Read side by side, those lines turn on who holds the contract with the homeowner and on the $10,000 figure, labor and materials included. This page draws nothing further from them. Whatever the size of your job, you can ask the person quoting it whether they're registered with the Office of Professional Regulation, and keep the answer with the written proposal. We don't look up anyone's registration for you, and we pass your request to an independent painter.
Burlington's freeze-thaw figure
NOAA's engineering weather data for Burlington lists a 50-year basic wind speed of 90 mph (3-second gust at 33 feet), a 100-year rainfall rate of 2.3 inches per hour and about 58 freeze-thaw cycles in an average year.
For paint, the freeze-thaw count is the one to dwell on. In general terms, each cycle is a chance for water that has found its way behind a coating, through an open joint, a split in old caulk or a bare end grain, to freeze, expand and push the film away from the wood. That is how a small failure at a trim corner turns into curls and blisters by the following spring. The rainfall rate and the wind figure are design values that engineers use for storms, not forecasts. They are a reminder that driven rain will find whatever gaps a paint job leaves.
Where to look before an exterior repaint
A coat of paint is a skin. It works when it is continuous and stuck to something sound. Walk the house and note:
- caulk that has shrunk away from window casings, door frames and corner boards;
- bare or grey wood at sill ends, along the bottom edges of clapboards and at the top of fascia;
- paint that lifts in sheets rather than flakes, which usually means moisture behind it;
- nail heads bleeding rust through the finish;
- gutters that overflow onto the same patch of siding.
Each of those is a doorway for water and, after that, a place where a freeze can do its work. A proposal should say how each will be handled: scraped to a firm edge, sanded, spot-primed, recaulked with a sealant rated for exterior movement, or nails set and primed. Our exterior painting page goes through each step.
Timing the outside work
Every exterior paint and primer lists a minimum application temperature on its label, and many list a minimum for the hours after application as well. Those label numbers, not the calendar, decide which days are workable. A cold night after a mild afternoon can leave dew on a coat before it has set. Ask the painter what the products on your job require, how they judge a morning, and how the schedule absorbs lost days.
Interior painting depends on none of that, so it can fill the stretches when outside work isn't possible. See interior painting.
Inside the house
Indoor walls have their own seasonal movement: hairline cracks in plaster or drywall that open and close as framing dries and swells. Patching those properly, with the right compound, tape where the crack keeps returning and primer over the repair, matters more than the topcoat you pick. Our drywall repair and surface preparation guide explains the choices.
What to put in writing
- Who you are contracting with, and whether any part of the work will go to a subcontractor.
- Every surface, the prep for each, the primer, the number of coats and the product names.
- What happens, and how it is priced, if the crew finds rot under old paint.
- The temperature and weather limits the products set, and how the schedule handles them.
- How peeling old paint will be contained and cleaned up from the ground and walkways.