Pros and Cons of Painting Brick Exterior in Ottawa, Ontario

In the course of updating the look of your home exterior, one thing you might consider doing is the painting of your home — of course, if your home has a brick exterior, the painting of it is more questionable – it’s not always advisable to do so.

There are some ways that you can know if painting the exterior of your brick home is appropriate for you — given the nature of painting brick, it’s important to be responsible about the decision.

Let’s now look at the pros and cons of painting brick exterior in Ottawa, Ontario

Pro : Better Protection Against Rain

Unpainted brick is rather poor compared to painted brick — unpainted brick is quite absorbent, whereas the process of painting brick makes it considerably less so.

This is because the paint that is used to paint brick is resistant to water and thus will make your brick exterior resistant to water.

The surface of a painted brick is smooth and water beads on its surface, unlike unpainted brick that just allows water to be absorbed.

Con : More Easy To See Dirt

When you look at an unpainted brick surface, it’s a lot more difficult to see that it is dirty — that is because a lot of the dirt will work its way into the crevices of the brick and so it’s not as easy to see it.

Once you have painted the exterior of your brick home, however, it becomes considerably easier to see the dirt — the painted brick exterior is smooth and often lighter in color than unpainted brick — so the dirt on the exterior is that much easier to see.

Pro : Easier To Clean

Conversely to the above point, it is considerably easier to clean a painted brick surface than it is to clean an unpainted brick surface.

The reason that this is the case is that the typical brick surface will be highly porous and thus will take dirt and grime right into it, and will lock it all in and be quite difficult to clean.

A painted brick surface, on the other hand, is smooth and does not take nearly the same amount of effort to clean.

Con : Cannot Be Easily Undone

The typical paintwork that is done to the surface of a home exterior can be stripped off of the home exterior if need be — this is the case for just about every kind of surface with a few exceptions, brick being one of them.

When you paint brick, the paint gets absorbed into the extremely porous brick surface, and this is not conducive to trying to undo the paintwork later down the line.

Indeed, even if you are able to get the paint off of the brick exterior, it will not quite be the same as it was before it was painted.

Pro : Gives Variety In Appearance

A nice aspect of painting the exterior of your brick home is that you can give it a number of different colors — the color that you choose is entirely up to you of course — and if the whim strikes you later, you can change the color.

This is much different than not painting the exterior at all, in which case your home exterior will pretty much stick to just one color — whatever color it already is, that is.

Con : May Trap Moisture

Lastly, consider this negative aspect of painting your home exterior that is brick in nature — that if you use an older sort of paint for your brick painting, you will have to face the possibility that moisture might get trapped under the surface.

This is because these older paints do not ‘breathe’ in that moisture can not get out — and if moisture gets under the surface through a small crack in the paint, you may end up with brick that rots under the paint and is not discovered until years later.

Newer paint tends to be breathable and will not have this issue.

If you need help choosing the type of paint and painting the exterior of your home in Ottawa, Ontario, our team at Millers’ Painting Company can help.

We offer free paint consultancy alongside high-quality residential and commercial painting services in Kanata, Nepean, Barrhaven, and Westboro areas of Ottawa, Ontario.

To get started with us, book a FREE estimate or call us on 613-979-5435

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