Category Archives: Blog

Research shows that three-fourths of businesses in this country are small proprietorships or partnership-owned. These are companies that have become successful through the sweat, hard-work and dedication of the owners who often started out with only an idea. Indeed, small and medium-sized businesses have a lot to be proud of and part of this pride should show through in their building’s presentation. You want the outside of your company to be inviting and offer a professional appearance.

As a result, you may include building and grounds maintenance and upkeep as part of your annual budget. This may encompass regular painting to ensure the business always gives a fresh and inviting presentation. If so, there are certain steps that should be taken to keep that exterior pristine. While you may have heard some of this advice before it is valuable to revisit certain issues to ensure you are addressing them in a timely manner.

One way to avoid having to redo the paint job on the exterior of your building is to address maintenance on a regular basis. Begin by keeping the building’s exterior clean. Have your business pressure washed on a regular basis. This will remove grime, dirt and the dozens of other types of pollutants from the surface that tend to cause paint to crack and fade over time.

Regularly walk the grounds of your building all the way around. Look closely for maintenance issues that can cause problems with your paint job. For example, there may be small areas in which the paint is stripping or fading. Sooner rather than later is the best time to address these issues. Call in a professional painter to refresh these small places.
Keep the surfaces caulked and sealed. If you allow caulk and sealant to crack, it opens the door for a variety of problems with the paint job. First, it looks unsightly to see cracked caulking and sealant. Second, unaddressed issues can allow water to leak in and air conditioning or heat to leak out of the building and increase the cost of your utilities and maintenance down the road.

Your business’s exterior look is a reflection on you! Keep it maintained and you could be saving yourself hundreds if not thousands of dollars in the end. Contact the experts in building exterior maintenance at University Painters, Inc. It is our pleasure to partner with companies in their quest to look good.

If you have just invested in an exterior residential painting job, you want to enjoy it for as long as possible before it needs repair. But that can be tricky because your home’s exterior is subject to the natural elements as well as other pesky problems that can quickly cause the pristine look to disappear. Here are some great ideas for keeping that paint job looking new for as long as possible!

• Keep the home’s exterior ‘clean’. That means washing it down regularly. Some options for washing can cause the paint job to deteriorate more quickly. For example, although power washing is effective it is also harsher and may harm the fresh paint. Remember, that jet is designed to be powerful and is strong enough to even damage bricks. Choose a garden hose for cleaning and avoid harsh chemicals. Plain old soap and water should do the trick.
• If you have sprinklers in your lawn be sure their nozzles are turned away from the home’s exterior. The constant assault of sprinkler water can leave water patterns on your home and clogged sprinkler heads can have the same concentrated effect as a power washer. In fact, keep your sprinklers and their heads in good working condition for the sake of your plants, yard and home.
• Set some ground rules for children. For instance, they should not bounce balls or other items on the sides of the house. Set up a play area far enough away from the home to prevent marks from play items that could inadvertently hit the house. And, of course, no coloring or marking on the walls either.
• Although everyone loves the look of lush greenery and flowers adorning their homes, they can also damage the paint. The best advice is to keep an eye on your trees, bushes and flowers and cut them back if they begin to touch the home’s exterior. Many plants and bushes can leave marks on a paint job that are more difficult to remove than other dirt. As much as you may enjoy the look of ivy and vines crawling up the side of a home, be prepared to redo the entire exterior of the wall where the vines grew and perhaps the entire house to ensure it presents in one color.

Are you in the market for professional residential and commercial exterior painters? Contact University Painters, Inc. for a paint job you can be proud of!

If you have recently painted your home or business exterior or had a professional paint company perform the job, it should not be surprising that the occasional touch up may be required. Unfortunately, exterior surfaces of any structure are under constant assault by the weather and even the best paint jobs will need the occasional touch-up to keep them looking great. Let’s talk about touch-ups in this blog.

First, let’s agree that ‘touch up’ means to perform a quick restorative job or improvement to the appearance of something. In this case we are talking specifically about the outside of a structure. The first thing to determine is when the original paint job was completed. If your home or business was painted several years ago, then a touch up might be obvious because the color of the exterior may have faded from the weather. As a result even the tiniest addition of new paint can be obvious, creating a sheen that reflects the light differently than the paint around it.

One way to minimize this is to do a thorough annual inspection of your home or business exterior in search of areas that show signs of wear that would benefit from a touch up. Of course, this is best done in the spring or early summer in most climates but fall and winter are optimum for homes in the extreme southern climates.

Take into consideration whether the paint job or home itself is still under warranty and determine how this information can be useful in the touching up process. If the paint itself has a warranty you may contact the company for proper remuneration and satisfaction. If the company that did the painting offers a warranty, then they would be the next choice for contacting and addressing your concerns.

If you decide to undertake the touch up process yourself keep a few things in mind. First, lightly scrape any areas that you intend to touch up and make sure the surfaces are free from any debris. You may want to wash down the areas you are repairing and let them dry. Also do not overcoat the areas with the fresh paint – this will make the touch up more obvious. Finally, make sure your colors match as closely as possible.

Looking for a paint company to touch up the exterior or interior of your home or business? The professionals at University Painters, Inc. are at your service!

Summer is one of the best times to refresh the exterior of your home by adding a new coat of paint. It’s dry for longer periods of time, the sun helps to dry the paint more quickly and you have extended time frames where inclement weather won’t prevent you from working. Even so, there are some tips that will make summer painting more worthwhile and help to get more bang for your painting buck.

• The paint you are using will be exposed to the sun and heat throughout the painting process. When paint is open for any length of time the liquid within will begin to evaporate and the paint will feel thicker and be less likely to apply smoothly. As a result, you will probably need to ‘reconstitute’ the paint to keep it fluid. This means adding water to the paint itself. The formula is about 10% of the paint volume to keep it viable. When reconstituting it is also better to do this in ‘batches’ or smaller amounts of paint than putting the water directly into the gallon paint cans. The latter may cause your paint to become too watered down over time. Fortunately, there are products on the market that take the guesswork out of reconstituting.
• We cannot remind you often enough that the outcome will only be as good as the surface the paint is applied to. In other words, prep your surfaces in advance. Take the time to scrape off peeling paint, repair holes in the siding or wood, and wash down the exterior – giving it plenty of time to dry before applying that first coat of paint.
• Layer ice in your paint trays to help prevent evaporation when you are painting. Put a layer of ice in the bottom of the tray and then cover it with a disposable liner before pouring in the paint!
• Paint in the earlier hours of the day – after the dew is gone but before the sun is beating down!

If you need more advice or are looking for a paint company to complete your job, contact the professionals at University Painters, Inc.

Your home’s exterior is going to be subject to the ravages of weather no matter where you live. If you reside in the Northern, Eastern or Midwest states you are likely going to have evidence of snow, sleet and hail damage to the house as winter comes to an end. But, if you think that people who live in the sunny southern states don’t have their fair share of weather problems wreaking havoc on their homes, then you are mistaken. The unrelenting sunshine can cause just as much damage to a home as any of the elements.

The heat and sunlight that beats down on homes in Arizona, New Mexico and adjoining states can quickly degrade the variety of materials that makeup the exterior of the home. For example, plastics that comprise parts of the windows can crack, and the paint itself will wither and peel. Of course, there are many other issues that come with owning and maintaining a home in places where the sun always shines.

Southern states may receive as many as 300 days of sunshine out of 365 days in the year. At least five of those months also average temperatures well into the hundreds so that it is nearly as hot in the middle of the night as it is in the middle of the day! In these circumstances it doesn’t take long for the sun and heat to cause weather damage. The important thing to note about this is weathering does not just affect the home’s appearance – it compromises the home’s structural integrity as well. Even the most advanced plastics will become brittle and wood will succumb to warping. And no matter how high-quality the paint you apply, it will also degrade, particularly if it is a south or west-facing wall that gets the most exposure.

One way to combat these problems is to purchase paint that has UV-resistant qualities. Be proactive in walking the house and checking for areas that may need to be refurbished with new paint, caulking or other materials. Also it’s a good idea to speak to an architect and/or landscaper to find places where the roofline can be extended, awnings added, and trees planted that will all help to prolong the pristine exterior of your home.

Need some updating to your home’s exterior? Contact the professionals at University Painters, Inc.