Exterior paint costs in Honolulu

Honolulu never takes a break from paint weather, and that cuts both ways. The typical high never leaves the 80s: about 80°F in the coolest months and 88°F in the warmest. There's no frost to wait out. There's also no season off from sun, salt and damp.

A preservation group's guide for owners of older island homes names the problems plainly: rain, humidity, strong sun, salt air, mildew and algae. Its yearly checkup asks whether it's been more than ten years since the house was last painted, and whether the paint is cracking, peeling, flaking or blistering. On a single-wall house, with board-and-batten or tongue-and-groove boards, the boards you see are the wall. Their paint takes everything the weather throws at them.

Rain sets the easier months. May through September stays under an inch a month, while November through January runs closer to three. Showers still pass through, so a crew watches the sky even in summer.

Roughly a quarter of the homes here are 1970s builds, with five decades of the same sun and salt behind them. That guide's advice fits any Honolulu house: deal with small cracks and peeling early, before water gets behind the paint.