Exterior paint costs in Minneapolis

In Minneapolis, a lot of peeling paint starts in winter. A Purdue extension bulletin on paint failure explains how. Snow melts on the warm upper part of the roof, refreezes at the cold eaves and builds an ice dam, and the water that backs up behind it can soak into the walls. Moisture from inside does damage too. Steam from showers, cooking and laundry moves into a wall with no vapor barrier, condenses in the cold and pushes the paint off from behind. The bulletin says that kind of peeling is often worst around bathrooms, kitchens and laundry rooms.

If paint keeps failing in the same spots, a fresh coat won't hold for long. The bulletin's advice is to stop the moisture first, with things like attic venting and fans that vent the kitchen and bath outdoors, and that's work a photo can't show.

Age adds to the prep. Inside Minneapolis itself, about two homes in five are older than 1940, and close to half across the metro predate 1980. The same bulletin warns that paint built up too thick cracks across the grain, often on older homes painted many times. Once that happens, its fix is to take the old paint all the way off and start fresh.