Old paint tells you what went wrong
Before you choose a color, look closely at the paint you have. Every failure leaves a pattern, and each pattern points to a cause. If the cause isn't fixed, the new coat fails the same way, usually sooner. Shreveport was founded in 1836 by the Shreve Town Company and has been the parish seat of Caddo Parish since 1838, as the city's history card records, so the walls you're looking at may have been painted many times by many hands. Reading what's there is the first job.
Station figures for Shreveport
NOAA's engineering weather data for the Shreveport station lists a 100-year rainfall rate of 4.5 inches per hour, a 50-year basic wind speed of 90 mph (3-second gust at 33 feet) and about 25 freeze-thaw cycles in an average year. They describe how hard rain can fall and how often the station sees a freeze followed by a thaw, not what any season will bring. The card below gives the source.
A field guide to failures
- Peeling down to bare wood. Usually moisture coming from behind or below: a leak, a missing caulk joint, or water wicking up from a sill. Fix the water first.
- Peeling between coats. The new coat never bonded to the old one, often because glossy paint wasn't scuffed or a dirty surface wasn't washed.
- Blistering. Bubbles that hold water point to moisture in the wall; bubbles that are empty usually mean the paint went onto a surface that was too hot.
- Cracking and alligatoring. A pattern like reptile skin means layers that move differently, such as a hard oil coat under a flexible one, or many coats piled up over the years.
- Chalking. A powder that rubs off on your hand: the old film has broken down in sunlight. It needs washing and the right primer.
- Dark spots. Often mildew, which has to be killed and rinsed, not painted over.
What the station's freeze-thaw count adds
About 25 freeze-thaw cycles a year means water that gets into a crack can freeze and push the crack wider, again and again. On a house with open joints, paint loosens first at board ends and along the lower edges of trim. That's where a good painter spends extra time scraping, priming and caulking.
Heavy rain and the wall's weak points
A 100-year rainfall rate is a design figure for intense storms. In daily terms it's a reminder that the places where water lands hardest, such as the bottoms of siding boards, window sills and the tops of trim, need the most careful preparation before a new coat.
Louisiana's home improvement wording
The state card prints R.S. 37:2150.1, which ties a $7,500 project value to home improvement contracting on an existing residence, and the contractors board's line about its residential license and home improvement projects over $50,000. We give it exactly as the card shows and don't extend it.
Questions for the estimate visit
When the painter walks around your Shreveport house, ask them to point out each failure and say what caused it. Then ask:
1. Which areas will be scraped to bare wood, and which only to a sound edge? 2. Will any wood be repaired or replaced before painting? 3. Which primer will go on bare spots, and which on chalky areas? 4. How will you deal with the cause, not just the symptom?
A painter who can explain the failures is more likely to prevent them. The exterior painting page and the pricing guide cover the rest of the job.