On almost every house we see, the south and west walls are in worse shape than the north and east. That is not a coincidence. Intense prairie UV and surface heat break down a coating faster on those exposures, and the peeling you see is the end of a process that started with the prep. Here is how to stop the cycle.
Why south and west fail first
South and west walls take the most direct sun, and on a clear day the surface temperature can be well above the air temperature. UV breaks down the binder in the paint, and the heat cycles the coating through expansion and contraction. Over a few seasons, the adhesion fails and the paint peels.
Scrape to sound edges
We scrape the loose and failing paint back to sound edges. Painting over peeling paint just postpones the failure, the loose film lifts the new coat with it. The scraping is the step that decides whether the next coat holds.
Prime bare surfaces
Bare wood and bare stucco get primed for adhesion before any finish goes on. The primer is what bonds the new coating to the surface, and skipping it is the most common reason a repaint fails on a sun-exposed wall.
Paint when the surface is not too hot
On a south or west wall in summer, the surface can be too hot to paint by early afternoon. We paint those walls early in the day or shade them, because paint applied to a hot surface dries on the brush before it flows out, leaving lap marks and poor adhesion.
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