Boy is it Hot! I’m currently painting the exterior of a home built in 1938 in the historic Butler-Tarkington neighborhood of Indianapolis.  It is my first exterior paint project on an older home since the new EPA guidelines for repair, renovation and paint (RRP) came into play.  These guidelines have slowed me down by about 30%. Although I am not doing any sanding, this particular exterior requires a ton of scraping. There were lots of paint chips to account for, lots of plastic sheeting and lots of sweat. The afternoon highs have been hitting 90 degrees with 70 to 80 percent humidity.  A house DOES have four sides so in theory, you can always work in the shade. When painting an exterior with temperatures above 80 degrees, you never want to apply paint in direct sunlight. The paint will quickly “skin” over, trapping gasses underneath which will cause the paint to blister.

The weather has definitely slowed me down. There have been a few days when I have had to stop working at 1:00 pm because it was just too hot…heat index was around 110 degrees. Throw in a few pop-up thunderstorms in the mix and its easy to see how a schedule can get thrown off. When I am hired to do a painting job, I have to take the good with the bad. This job is going to take about 40% longer than expected because of a combination of weather conditions and following the EPA guidelines for repair, renovation and painting. The good news is that the house is looking great, and I know the paint job will last. That is something both the customer and I want.

Greg Mrakich Painting is an EPA lead-safe certified firm. For more information about Greg Mrakich and Greg Mrakich Painting, click here. Or, if you live in the metropolitan Indianapolis area and would like to contact me, click here.

Tags: EPA Renovation Repair and Painting RRP Rule, Exterior Painting, indianapolis area painting companies, Indianapolis area painting contractors

Posted on Tuesday, August 10th, 2010 at 7:09 am under EPA rule for renovation, Exterior Painting, Indianapolis Painting Contractor, Painting for do-it-yourselfers. Follow any responses through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.