Exterior prep is the part of a paint job nobody photographs, and it is the part that decides whether the finish lasts. In Dallas–Fort Worth, where the south and west walls take the afternoon sun most of the year, it is also where most of the labor goes. This article covers both halves of it: what you can do before a crew arrives, and what the crew should be doing before the first coat goes on, so you can tell a thorough job from a quick one.
What you can do before the crew arrives
None of this is technical, but it saves a morning and keeps your things out of the overspray.
- Move patio furniture, grills, planters and anything else sitting against the house out into the yard or the garage. Anything that cannot move gets covered, but a clear perimeter lets the crew work faster.
- Trim back shrubs and branches that touch the walls or trim. A few inches of clearance means the wall can be washed, dried and painted without a hedge pressing wet leaves into it.
- Keep pets inside or away from the side of the house being worked on, for their sake and the crew’s.
- Point out anything delicate on the walls: a camera, a doorbell, an irrigation controller. These get masked, not painted around.
- If you have an HOA, have the written color approval in hand; crews cannot start without it.
You do not need to wash, scrape or fill anything yourself; those steps are the painter’s job and part of the price, and they are the steps worth watching.
Wash first, and let the house dry
Everything starts with a wash. Sherwin-Williams’ exterior guidance puts pressure washing first, to remove dirt, mildew and loose paint, and then says to let the house dry before anything goes on it. In North Texas the mildew usually sits on the shaded north side and under the eaves; the chalky residue sits on the sunny sides, where the old paint has broken down. Both have to come off; paint applied over chalk bonds to the chalk, not the wall.
Drying time depends on the surface and the weather. Siding may be ready the next day; wood trim, brick and stucco hold water longer. A crew that washes and paints the same afternoon is skipping a step.
Scrape, sand and prime where paint has failed
Peeling, cracking and blistering paint does not get painted over. It gets scraped back to a sound edge, and the edge is sanded so the new coat does not telegraph a ridge. Sherwin-Williams’ guidance is to remove failed paint, sand rough spots to an even surface, and apply an exterior primer to any bare wood, brick or stucco before the finish coat. On DFW houses the bare spots cluster on the south and west elevations and along the fascia.
If the house was built before 1978, the old layers may contain lead. Ask how the crew handles that; the answer should involve containment and cleanup, not a dry sander and a shop vacuum.
Repair wood before anyone paints it
Paint does not fix rot. Fascia boards, window sills, trim returns and the bottoms of garage door jambs are the usual soft spots in DFW, because they are end grain, they face the weather, and the caulk around them failed years ago. Press on them with a screwdriver during the walkthrough; if it sinks in, the board gets replaced, not filled. Smaller holes and cracks in sound wood are filled with an exterior-grade filler and sanded flush, as the Sherwin-Williams guidance describes.
Caulk the joints the sun has opened
Texas heat cycles expand and contract trim every day, and the old caulk at window frames, corner boards, siding butt joints and the trim-to-brick line splits. Those gaps are where water gets behind the paint. The old caulk is cut out where it has pulled away, and a fresh bead of exterior sealant goes in before priming, so the paint film bridges a sealed joint instead of a crack.
Brick, stucco and surfaces that take different prep
Not every surface wants the same treatment. Raw brick is cleaned but not sanded, and it takes a masonry coating rather than house paint; if it has been painted before, removing old paint from brick has its own method, since aggressive stripping damages the face of the brick. Stucco gets its hairline cracks sealed before priming, and it drinks more primer than a smooth wall. Each should appear as its own line on the proposal.
Timing the prep around North Texas weather
Prep has the same weather limits as paint. Manufacturers publish an application temperature range, and a cold, damp night after a wash means a wet house in the morning. Spring brings the storms, so washing and scraping days get scheduled around them; late summer means early starts and following the shade. Expect a full exterior, prep included, to run several days, and expect the prep days to look like nothing is happening. That is the job.
Alliance Painting’s exterior process starts with the wash, caulk, scrape and carpentry described here, and every exterior carries a 5-Year Exterior Guarantee. The same sequence applies whether the house is in Dallas, Keller or Southlake; the Exterior Painting page explains what a written proposal includes.