Can You Paint Vinyl Siding? Tips and Tricks on Painting Vinyl Like a Pro!

this paint live tv i'm christy idaho painter in this video i'm going to talk about painting a vinyl i get a lot of questions can i paint my vinyl house well you can that's the short answer i've been painting vinyl homes for over 22 years but you can really destroy your vinyl home you can warp it and ruin it or you could void the warranty of vinyl because a lot of vinyl homes come with a lifetime warranty so if you want to know you know if you can paint your vinyl house or how to go about painting your vinyl house stay tuned for this video [Applause] [Music] all right here we go we're going to talk about pinning uh your vinyl house so um let's get on with that but don't forget if you haven't hit the subscribe button subscribe to our channel hit the notification bell it's free it's always been free it's never going to cost you a dime it's just a simple way to help support us making these free videos now let's talk painting vinyl like i said i've been painting vinyl houses for over 22 years with success i've never ruined one the short answer is yes you can paint it and um you know one of the things is say we'll just talk about a white vinyl house if you have a white vinyl house and you paint it black you will warp the vinyl because what happens is the black paint absorbs a lot more heat than the vinyl can withstand and it warps the vinyl it gets all warpy and bent and that is irreversible you will damage the vinyl one thing before you do any painting of a vinyl house make sure if you have any type of warranty if you're the original owner that you look at your warranty because most warranties will be void if you do paint the vinyl house so um but you can paint it now you know when it comes to the painting process you know if you are gonna paint it you know what painting your house you know increases the value of your house so you do want to paint it in vinyl you know degrades over time it gets chalky it fades so you do want to paint it and give it a fresh look so let's talk about you know the painting process and how we go about painting it we're going to also talk about colors you can paint it because you are limited to a certain extent of what colors you can't paint your house all right let's take a step back because i know somebody's going to probably say well why not just replace my vinyl siding instead of painting it because you know the painting bit could be somewhere you know five six thousand dollars well replacing vinyl sided siding on average is going to be about 20 to 30 dollars a square foot so compared to painting it it's going to be about a 50 to 60 cost savings by painting your vinyl siding now when it comes to painting your vinyl siding i mean is it ready to be painted is it necessary to paint it like i said vinyl siding does fade it does get chalky or you just may want to change the color of your house so you can paint your vinyl siding so you just got to make sure you do the prep process you choose the right paints now there are paints that are designed to go on vinyl siding on houses so you want to make sure you're not using a cheap paint take the can of paint read the can campaign the paints i use on the back of it specifically say they can go on vinyl siding now paints that can go on vinyl siding usually have urethanes and acrylics that help them bond a lot better on a plastic substrate or a vinyl substrate on the home so make sure you're choosing the right paint for the project or you could have an adhesion pro adhesion prop adhesion problem and now if you do have a chalky surface on the vinyl siding so just and if you're not under if you don't understand what that is you can wipe your hand on the vinyl siding if you've got some chalkiness on your hand or some of the color of chalky residue of the vinyl siding on your hand that's an indication of a chalky surface and paint will not bond to that so now you've got to clean that off you're going to power wash it scrub it get it off there are times in circumstances where you can't get it off a hundred percent you can add emulsifone to your paint and that will help your paint bond to a chalky surface emulsifone is specifically designed um as an additive to go into paint to help it adhere to chalky surfaces and i've used it with uh with really good success on vinyl siding with uh chalkiness where we couldn't get all the chalkyness off the vinyl siding so a mulcibond is something you want to look into if you've got really chalky siding now when it comes to the colors i'll get back to it and i'm just going to use just hypothetically if your siding is white and you paint it black you're probably going to permanently damage it but what if it's you know some color in between as a general rule of thumb you can typically paint your siding a lighter color if you go darker what happens is the tent the in the paint that makes a dark cloth color actually absorbs more heat and that heat is what causes the siding to warp so you want to look for colors that are lighter and not darker now what was is actually a lot more safe to do is choosing vinyl safe colors so i'm going to talk a little bit about vinyl safe colors and here's a foldout of a benjamin moore fold out and this is a foldout of vinyl safe colors now i'm not sure how many colors there are sherwin-williams also has vinyl safe colors i think they've got a hunt a palette of a hundred vinyl safe colors now vinyl safe colors are colors that the paint manufacturers have developed and added tints to the paints that absorb less heat now you could even choose colors that are darker because they've made these dark colors using colorants that absorb less heat so one of the great things about this is if you've got white vinyl siding you can choose one of these colors off a vinyl safe palette and still paint your house a darker color but it's really highly recommended you stick with vinyl safe colorants or colors when it comes to painting your house now i'm going to leave a link to benjamin moore's vinyl safe colors and sherwin's vinyl safe colors that you can choose from so you are you are limited there's not a ton of options here but there is quite a few from you got reds to blues to grays earth tone greens and tans and yellows and so there are some great colors on this palette benjamin moore's vinyl safe color palette is absolutely amazing so the answer is i i keep getting on my social media a lot can i paint my vinyl siding on my house and yes you can you paint your vinyl siding and yeah you can actually paint your metal siding also but once again you know proper prep so the paints i use they don't require a primer so i might get that question you know here and there also do i need to uh prime my vinyl siding no you do not need to prime it if you're using a paint like i use um that goes on vinyl siding you can use a product from benjamin moore aura and that product will go on vital siding it's self priming it's a one coat product absolutely amazing pick color off of the vinyl safe palette and you're good to go make sure you do any your proper washing i would highly recommend that um if you've got a really chalky surface add a mulcivan to the paint and then i would also recommend spraying vinyl siding i wouldn't brush and roll it because it's going to rope it leave brushstrokes all over it you're going to paint it a lot faster using an airless sprayer and it's going to look a lot more natural and like like the vinyl was originally coated um that color so an airless sprayer i typically i'm gonna be using any um depending on you know if i'm spraying large areas or small areas probably a 515 tip spraying it you could also use like fine finish tips like a 310 tip a lot of that is going to determine your siding how much area you've got to paint and what type of sprayer you are using i do got a video on tip sizing and what tips to use when where you can refer to a little more in depth on you know how to spray your vinyl siding all right there you have it there's a kind of an in-depth discussion of can you paint your vinyl siding if i didn't answer anything just um of all your questions just leave a comment or question down in the comment section below and we'll try to get out to your question or comment as soon as we can don't forget hit the subscribe button hit the notification bell that way you get notified next time i come out with a new video you just get notified by email that's all it does if you've enjoyed this video if it's helped you at all please consider giving us a thumbs up we really love the thumbs and we love the encouragements and next time we come out with a video hopefully we'll see you right here on paint life tv out [Music] you