Toronto Exterior Painters Keeping Your Home Looking Good

Consumers have a lot of choice when searching for Exterior Painters in Toronto. Painting is a major part of exterior home maintenance. This is especially true in climates with cold winters and hot summers. Unlike Interior Painting it can be challenging to paint outdoors. With exterior house painting, the company you hire will determine how long the paint will last. Every contractor wants your business and with all that choice out there, how is someone supposed to choose? Consumer groups and review sites have some of the answers as long as you see through the marketing hype. At the end of the day it’s up to you to perform due diligence. Ask your exterior painters questions about their warranty, insurance, paints and if they have references. The most important question is about the painters themselves. Who will do the actual painting? The majority of Toronto painters work as subcontractors, without safety training and certifications and are likely not protected by WSIB.

Climbing tall ladders and walking on rooftops without proper safety training and certifications is dangerous and now illegal. Here is some information about Working at Heights Training Standards and Requirements for Construction Projects

Exterior Painting in Toronto

Why is Ecopainting a Good Choice to Paint your Home Exterior?

Ecopainting is an established house painting company in the Toronto area. We have painted thousands of homes of different sizes and condition and have the necessary experience. We even painted the exterior of large housing complexes throughout the GTA.

When you call our office we will set an appointment to see your home. We prefer that you are there to meet with us, but if you can’t make it, we can still see your home as long as you provide us with access. We will analyze the condition of your home, the siding or brick, your doors and trim. We will propose a detailed scope of work and the best possible paints and primers for the job.We want your home to look good for a very long time. Afterall, your home becomes our showpiece to your friends and neighbours and helps with our reputation.

Toronto's Annex exterior painting

What Colour Should You Paint your House?

There are many television shows and magazines dealing with interior decorating. Unfortunately the exterior of a house does not garner as much attention by the decorating industry. The outside of a home is what everyone sees first. The exterior look of our home is the first impression we make to our guests and visitors. Everyday we make a statement to our neighbours about our colour preferences and the upkeep of our home. If you intend on maintaining the same colour scheme, picking colour is easy. If you are changing the look and need to see some colours, we can assist by bringing colours samples to your door. If you are after a more complex look and have difficulty deciding, we can suggest a colour consultant. The colour consultants we work with are certified and most likely have experience with your type of home.

In our blogs you can find handy colour tips about selecting Exterior Painting colour.

The Exterior Paints and Primers of Today

All good quality paints today are 100% acrylic. It is a good idea to use a top of the line paint from a well known manufacturer. They spend millions researching and testing their products and coatings. When you hire exterior painters you are paying mostly for labour, why not use the best paint your money can buy? A good paint applied over a quality primer will have better ingredients and will last longer. Ask the estimator what paint they intend to use and why. They should be able to provide you with technical data sheets so that you can do your own research if you are so inclined.
Ecopainting has a preference of Benjamin Moore products such as Aura and Regal Select. If you have another preference we are familiar with most manufacturers offerings.

Exterior House Painting is all About the “prep”

Today’s paints are better and the primers and filling materials are vastly improved. Materials alone will not make the paint job longer. Detailed surface preparation will make the paint adhere better and last last longer. The following are some of the prep and procedures that Ecopainting uses:

  • Scraping & sanding of loose and peeling paint down to a sound surface
  • Spot priming of all bare surfaces with sufficient primer
  • Washing or pressure washing chalky areas and mildew
  • Caulking windows and door frames with acrylic siliconized caulk
  • Removal and masking of hardware to protect it from paint
  • Priming of wood knots and “saps” with shellac to prevent “bleeding” through the finish coat.
  • Spot-priming of rust with rust primer
  • Sanding of glossy surfaces, to help the new paint adhere better

Semidetached exterior painting

The closing of the job and the warranty

Just before the paint job is completed, the job manager will do a walk-through with you. If there are any issues or any feedback, this is the perfect time to bring them up. Ask the painters about the proper maintenance and washing of freshly painted surfaces. After the job is done to your satisfaction, we ask you to complete our completion form. After signing the form and full payment, the warranty is activated.

Within that form, there is space for comments. Over the years our painters have collected hundreds of handwritten testimonials. The type of comments we receive are typical to these two:

“We were extremely satisfied with the Ecopainting team. They were professional, prompt, reliable and the quality of their work was high. We would recommend Ecopainting to anyone for interior or exterior work” Bruce R. Interior and Exterior House Painting in Riverdale.

“Karon and George were pleasant, patient and helpful. Rachel, Lennox, Carlos and the “gang” were pleasant and quiet. Everyone was truly wonderful under very hot and difficult conditions. I appreciated Lennox’s carpentry skills and everyone’s attention to detail” Mary Jane O’Brien. Exterior Painting of a Danforth area home.

The Different Homes and Surfaces Ecopainting Services

There are different types of materials found on a typical Toronto House. A newer subdivision home in the suburbs is built with maintenance free materials such as brick or vinyl siding. The typical windows are also vinyl and maintenance free. What gets painted on a suburban home is usually the doors, garage doors and the windows if they are made of wood. A number of homeowners have installed decks and porches to extend their living space. Decks are usually made of wood and require periodic maintenance and staining, sometimes annually. Ecopainting provides limited deck staining services during the painting season as time and the summer weather permit.

Older homes in downtown Toronto have a variety of surfaces to paint. Brick, siding, concrete, wood, and shingles require periodic maintenance. Pressure washing before priming speeds up the prepping process and helps the paint adhere better to the surface. Some downtown homes in older neighbourhoods, display ornamental trim and detail. Sometimes the condition of the wood trim is not in good repair and requires carpentry work. Ecopainting offers light carpentry services and has contacts with more experienced carpenters.

2017 Exterior Project – Painting the Stucco to Update the Look

Painting of home stucco exterior in 2017

We have a few customers in the York Mills area of North York. On Cotswold Crescent this was the 4th project. Earlier this year we painted the exterior for a repeat customer, moved next door to paint a large interior and now some interior and exterior for this home.

This beautiful home was finished in DuRock Finecoat in a beautiful colour, blending perfectly with the street and surroundings. What necessitated painting it, was some unsightly staining on the surface that was not possible to clean. It was from water stains from the eavestroughs. The recommended colour from Durock was tinted to match the house and work with the trim. The customer supplied the product and experimented with it at the side of the house before we used it at the front. More often than not, specialty products usually have special instructions to make them work well. This Durock product was surprisingly easy to apply and worked flawlessly with a 20mm roller nap. In fact it was no more than a very good quality, acrylic flat.

The painters spent about half their time prepping and masking before applying two coats of the paint. The paint dried well within two hours and the home looks beautiful.

Our painters hard at work

You may have seen our vehicles, signs, and painters on your street. Ecopainting works in the following neighborhoods:
High Park, The Junction, Bloor West Village, Roncesvalles, Parkdale, The Annex, Rosedale, Forest Hill, Summerhill, Lawrence Park, Leaside, The Danforth, The Beaches, Riverdale, Cabbagetown, Leslieville, etc.

Call us at 416 733-7767 to book an estimate.