Wintertime might not be the most typical time to paint your house, but it certainly can be done. Whether you're renovating your home's exterior or reworking its interior, the winter months can offer opportunities for painting. However, there are some unique complications that you need to account for.
Winter is different in various parts of the country. December in Florida might provide optimal conditions for outdoor painting, while in North Dakota, temperatures may be too low for paint to cure. Brian Morgan, the president of 360° Painting , a painting company with locations across the U.S., filled us in on how best to ventilate in the winter months to keep your family safe from VOCs , minimum curing temperatures for exterior house paint and more.
Here's what you need to know about painting your home in the wintertime.
Tips for interior painting in the wintertime
While the interior of your home will often be warm enough for paint to dry effectively, fresh paint can flood your interior space with dangerous fumes. For this reason, anyone considering painting inside should take air quality seriously.
1) Ventilate your space
"You can’t just throw open the windows when it’s freezing," Morgan said, "so our team gets creative. Ceiling fans and portable fans help circulate air without letting in the cold."
Circulation can only do so much when fumes aren't vented out of the home. "In kitchens or bathrooms, we rely on range hoods or exhaust fans to pull fumes out — making sure they’re venting outdoors, not into another room."
2) Purify the air
Another approach is to find a good air purifier and use that to eliminate fumes. Not every air purifier will eliminate paint fumes, however. HEPA filters are only designed to clear particles from the air, so you'll need a purifier with other filter stages as well. "Air purifiers with activated carbon filters also help reduce VOCs," Morgan said.
If you're buying an air purifier specifically for paint fumes, it's smart to research how well it will eliminate VOCs — as well as the types of VOCs it handles. Just because a filter has an active carbon filter stage doesn't mean that it will catch significant amounts of formaldehyde or other chemicals used in paints. Look for a filter that is especially designed to remove aldehydes and other chemicals that are off-gassed by drying paint.
3) Pick a safer paint
Some paints are inherently safer. "Honestly, the best step is beginning with low-VOC or zero-VOC paints, which dramatically cut fumes from the start," Morgan said. LEED-compliant, Green Seal and Greenguard labels all signify that paints are safer and off-gas less, so look for any of these products when you're selecting a paint.
While these paints are broadly safer than their alternatives, they are pricy. If low-VOC paint is too expensive, it is a good idea to at least choose latex for indoor painting in the winter. Latex paint is significantly less toxic than oil-based house paint.
Regardless of your choice, ventilation remains important. "Even with those products, we still recommend ventilating for at least 48 to 72 hours after painting and cracking windows when temperatures allow," Morgan added.
4) Keep it heated properly
With windows cracked for ventilation, your home can lose heat. However, for paint to cure, you can't let temperatures drop too low. If you're painting your home in an especially cold area, you might need to budget for increased heating if you decide to paint during the winter.
Tips for exterior painting in the winter months
Outdoor painting in cold weather presents several challenges. These will vary substantially based on your region. "In some regions, particularly in the South, winter is actually peak painting season," Morgan said. "However, in northern areas with short daylight hours and frequent freeze/thaw cycles, you'll have much smaller windows of opportunity to work with."
Here's what Morgan recommends:
1) Pick a cold-weather paint
While low-VOC paint is a priority for interior painting during winter, you should choose a paint that's optimized for curing in cold weather for exterior painting. "For cold-weather projects, we use 100% acrylic latex paints specifically formulated for low temperatures, typically rated for application in the 35–40°F range," Morgan said. "These paints are designed to cure properly even when it’s chilly out."
Morgan recommends Benjamin Moore Aura Exterior and Behr Marquee for low-temperature painting. Both of these paints are formulated to cure correctly in lower temperatures.
2) Wait for the right weather
Morgan said that while painting exteriors in winter is absolutely possible, you'll need to wait for the right conditions. "The key is finding the right weather windows when temperature, dew point, and surface moisture are all in the proper range. We don’t paint when temperatures drop below 35–40°F. That’s where even cold-weather paints start to struggle."
Remember that just because it might be warm enough for paint to dry properly in the day, conditions change at night. "If it’s going to freeze overnight, the paint won’t cure correctly, so we wait for a better forecast."
He also reminded us that in colder temperatures, "drying times are gonna be longer. In winter, patience is part of the job."
3) Stains can be trickier
Deck stains behave differently from regular exterior house paint, so exterior stains have their own specific requirements in the winter.
"You shouldn’t stain below 50°F," Morgan said, "and freezing overnight will disrupt the curing process. The wood has to be completely dry — no frost, no moisture."
He recommends that if you're going to stain in the winter, you pick an oil-based stain . "Oil-based stains perform better than water-based ones in cold weather, with some rated down to about 35°F. But drying times can stretch from hours to days in colder temps."
You can certainly get away with staining a deck if you're in a mild part of the country and you're sure you'll have steady weather for a few days. "Otherwise," Morgan said, "waiting for spring is usually the better choice."
4) Schedules shift due to the weather
With so many requirements for proper painting and staining outside in winter, it's important for homeowners to be patient when they hire a painting company. "If we're doing exterior work, weather windows are everything, so the schedule might shift if conditions aren't right," Morgan said.
If you hire a company to paint your home's exterior and it has to reschedule due to weather, be patient. In fact, this is usually a sign that the company is planning to do the job right.
Is painting in winter a bad idea?
Since painting in winter requires lots of considerations, you might worry that you should wait until spring to paint your house or fence. However, painting in the winter can be a good choice under the right circumstances. In fact, it's often easier to hire a good painter in winter.
"Winter's actually the offseason," Morgan said, "so you'll usually get better availability and pricing than you would in spring or summer when everyone's trying to book painters."
That's good news, because with so many places for a painting job to go wrong, painting a fence , home exterior or staining a deck in winter might not be the best idea for the average DIYer.
