Exterior paint costs in Asheville

Walk through Montford and you'll see why painting an Asheville house can be fussy. The neighborhood's National Register nomination says weatherboard and German siding abound, but the materials that keep coming back are wood shingles, natural or painted, along with rubble stone, stucco and pebbledash. On more than half the houses, the builders combined at least two materials, and wood shingles were usually one of them. Each surface takes paint, stain or nothing at all in its own way, and a painter has to sort out which is which before opening a can.

The mountains add water. Close to 50 inches of precipitation falls on Asheville's airport in a normal year, spread over more than 80 wet days. Shingles and trim that stay damp under big trees and deep porch roofs are where paint gives out first.

About a third of Asheville-area homes are pre-1980 and nearly four in ten post-2000. If yours is one of the older ones, find out which surfaces were always left natural before anyone puts paint on them, because stripping it back off shingles and stone is slow work.