Exterior paint costs in Huntsville

Huntsville's historic districts care about paint color only when you change it. Under the city's historic preservation regulations, painting a building in colors that differ from its prior colors needs a certificate of appropriateness, and so does painting a surface that was never painted. Repainting in the same colors needs none.

The commission's design guide adds advice for owners of old wood houses. It says wood is the most common siding on Huntsville's historic buildings, from plain lap siding to beaded siding and shingles. Surfaces should be prepared by hand: scraping, sanding, a careful heat gun or a stripper that won't harm the wood. Power rotary sanders aren't appropriate, and any washing should stay between 20 and 100 psi. Bare, unpainted wood isn't appropriate on a main elevation unless records show it was that way.

Winter is a real factor here. Huntsville International logs something like eight weeks' worth of nights below freezing, so the comfortable painting days cluster in spring and fall.

Outside those districts, most of the metro is much newer. More than one in nine homes are brand new, built in 2020 or later, and half date from 1996 or later. On a house that young, a repaint is mostly about fading and wear, not stripping.