Exterior paint costs in San Antonio

San Antonio's property maintenance code has a rule about paint. Section 304.2 says exterior wood, other than decay-resistant wood, has to be protected from the weather by paint or another coating. Trim, porches, cornices and door and window frames have to be kept in good condition, and the joints in siding and around windows have to stay watertight. So peeling paint on a wood house here isn't only a looks problem. It can turn into a code problem.

The weather keeps that rule busy. The city spends about a third of the year at 90°F or above, and long, hot summers bake old paint until it turns brittle. Brittle paint is what cracks and lets rain into the wood the code wants protected.

Older houses feel it most. Roughly one home in eight across the metro predates 1960, and a few in every hundred predate 1940. Wood siding and trim that old often carry many coats. Once the top coat starts to lift, the layers under it can come off too, and the job turns into scraping, sanding and priming before any color goes on.

If a neighbor or the city has flagged peeling trim on your house, a paint job that includes scraping and priming the bare spots is the fix that answers the code, not just a fresh color.