Painting Your Garage Door
Painting can be extremely difficult, especially exterior, and even more difficult, painting an exterior metal door. Everything from color selection to executing the job can be hard so please weigh the costs of benefits of painting on your own before you make a decision.
When it comes to painting your home,
you may be debating on whether or not to treat the garage doors as well. In most applications painting your door not only helps achieve the desired look, but can also really make it pop. In this article, we will outline the steps to painting your unit.
Step 1 – To begin, you will want to wash the door with a garden hose or sprayer in order to remove any dirt or loose paint. Many professional painters use a pressure washer, however if you cannot afford one, a common garden hose will do the job just fine for cleaning garage doors.
Step 2 – Once you’ve finished the initial wash, scrub the surface with a home cleaner. One with a bleach activating agent is preferable due to the fact that it will act to soften and clean any lingering paint.
Step 3 – Next, you will need to wirebrush and scrape the door. While it may be time consuming, this is a step which is required in order to obtain the best results. Keep in that the your new paint will only be as good as the surface it sticks to.
Step 4 – Allow a good 48 hours for the door to dry. It may require more time depending on the weather conditions. More moisture = more time to dry.
Step 5 – Once your door has dried, use caulk to fill in the cracks. This will help in keeping water out of the door, while also helping to to appear much newer and smoother. Check the directions on the caulk for dry times.
Step 6 – The next step is to prime with a quality exterior primer. Allow to dry for at least a good 24 hours.
Step 7 – Apply your first coat of paint over the top of the primer. Once again, you must allow a good 24 hours to dry.
Step 8 – Add your second layer to the door. This is extremely important, due to the fact that the door is outside and will likely deal with it’s fair share of weather. A second coat adds more protection to the door and ensures your paint job lasts.
Step 9 – If your unit has windows, they may need to be scrapes clean. Simply take a razor and cut around the border of the window. Once this is done, it is easy to scrape the paint from the glass underneath.
Step 10 – And that’s it! Congratulations! You now have a professionally painted garage doors!
