Liberty's Siding & Painting Contractor

The gutter line is where I look first

On most Liberty exteriors the first thing I check is the fascia behind the gutters and the trim above any deck or porch. Those are the places water gets held against wood instead of running off it, and they're where rot on Kansas City homes usually starts. A gutter that overflows in a heavy spring rain runs water down behind the fascia board, and the paint on the face of that board can look intact while the back of it is going soft.

So the walkaround is a water inspection: gutters and downspouts, where roof water actually lands, flashing above windows and where a roof meets a wall, caulk joints that have split, nail heads that have backed out and rusted through the finish, and siding sitting in contact with grade. Anything soft gets cut back to solid material and replaced with new primed lumber before a drop of paint goes on — see wood rot repair for how that work runs.

Prep depth, and why it decides how long the job lasts

After repairs, the sequence is washing, scraping, feathering, caulking, and priming — in that order and without compressing it. Everything gets washed, because exterior surfaces carry chalk from the old finish and mildew on shaded elevations, and paint over that is bonded to dirt. Failing paint gets scraped and its edges sanded so no ridge telegraphs through the new coat. On homes with several layers of old paint, feathering those edges is slow work, and it's the main difference between a repaint that looks smooth and one that looks like a map.

Caulk goes where it belongs: vertical trim joints, window and door casings, and where dissimilar materials meet. It does not go along the horizontal underside of lap siding, because those gaps are how the wall drains and dries. Sealing them is a common, expensive mistake.

Then two finish coats, worked around the sun so a hot elevation isn't painted at its hottest, and inside a temperature and dew window that lets the coat set properly. Late in the fall that window gets narrow, and I'd rather move a day than lose a wall's adhesion to overnight dew.