Painting Contractor - Kansas City
Met our paint supplier rep this week. He tells me there’s going to be a price increase effective early next year – 5-6% for paint. We’ve had steady increases for at least the last 5 years.
Here’s what’s going on: titanium dioxide is a key ingredient in paint. Or, at least, high quality paint. TiO2 is a naturally occurring, mined product – just like the gypsum used in drywall. It looks a lot like baking soda. It’s used in sunscreen (the white paste on your life guard’s nose) and also in paint.
Home builders are notorious for using “builder grade” (poor quality) exterior paint. Paint so bad that it starts to deteriorate after the last check clears. Here’s what’s going on and what can be done to remedy the situation.
Builders (and some homeowners) apply poor quality paint because it simply costs less. Then the homeowner finds that their new house doesn’t look so good after a couple of years – the paint film breaks down from weather and the sun’s UV rays – even bird poop. It loses sheen, the surface gets chalky and you can often see the substrate right through the paint film.
“Builders’ Paint” is any low-quality, poorly-applied paint (either outside or inside) that fails to hold up. Usually in the very dull gray and tan families, it is favored by Kansas City rehabbers and new construction builders.
Poor quality paint can’t really be “fixed”, only covered by a better product. And a better product means it will hold up to the bumps and bruises of daily life.
Builders paint is used because it costs less. It costs less because, very simply, there is more water in the can and less “stuff”. So, when it dries there is a much thinner and less-durable film of paint.
