Painting is one of the jobs which give your house a brighter, more delicate, and more beautiful look. This work may look simple, but if you are not well-prepared and fully understanding, you may ruin the whole thing. We are here to give you an overview of the paint’s lifespan so that you will know how long the paint lasts.
So how long does the paint last outside and inside your house? If you want to paint your room or house by yourself, you must answer this question. Knowing the lifespan of the paint helps you choose the right type of paint for each room in each condition. You will also know when you should repaint your apartment or house.
How many paint types are there in the market? How long can they survive under conditions of the environment around? How often should we apply a new coat to the old layer of the paint? Let’s find out the answers to the questions above in the following parts.
Types of the Paint
In general, there are two types of paint: water-based and oil-based paint. In spite of being used for different purposes, they have the same essential components: pigments, resin, and additives.
The pigments bring color to the things we paint and are bound by the resin. The resin might come from acrylic, silicone, or epoxy, which make it sticky and adhesive. What about the additives? What do they do? There are some functions of the additives that bring lots of benefits depending on the types of paint.
The additives often make a protective shell for the paint to face against the negative factors from the environment around. Paint can resist the mold, mildew, fungi, and the impact of weather by the time such as rain, sun, storm, or dry. The additives also help you apply and remove the paint more easily.
There comes a couple of questions: what do you know about exterior paint and interior paint? What are their differences?
Two types of paint have the same components, but their resin and additives have different natures. Exterior paint is often used outside the house, so it is made to survive under severe conditions. The resin inside is so flexible that it helps keep the right color of the finish.
Moreover, the additives from the exterior paint could withstand the mold, mildew, and protect the paint from the changes of the temperature.
Interior paint is usually for indoors work, so it doesn’t need flexible resin. In contrast, the resin of interior paint is harder and more rigid because it doesn’t face any adverse conditions or weather outside. Also, this type of paint is water-based, so it doesn’t have any odor or smell on a wet day, which is comfortable inside.
How Long does Paint Last Inside a Gallon?
Why must we be aware of the expired time for the paint? Because we will know if we can still use it or not. In painting work, we cannot avoid leftover paint after finishing our job. Often, we will store it at the garage or basement, and get it back to use once we need it. So how long does paint last inside a gallon with or without a seal?
The Lifespan of Paint: With Seal
According to the manufacturing instruction, a sealed gallon of paint could last for a long time, which is more than ten to fifteen years. For water-based type, if you preserve correctly, you can still use it after ten years. For oil-based one, the lasting time is about fifteen years, which is an impressive number. How can it last for that long?
When sealed tightly, the air, dust, and impurities cannot get inside the can of paint to affect the quality. So, the paint remains fresh, colorful, and pure to be used as the new one. Also, you will need to avoid the sun, snow, too hot, and cold temperatures to keep the paint qualified. It will be damaged when facing severe conditions of the environment surrounding it.
However, preserving too long will influence the combination of the components inside. To make sure if the paint is in good condition, let’s have a quick trial on an unused wall.
First, use a brush and stir well the paint. You can see in healthy eyes if the color, softness, and smoothness remain good. Next, swipe a thin layer on the wall and check the result. If there are some lumps on the surface, the quality has been affected severely. On the contrary, if you brush smoothly and softly, the paint is still usable.
The Lifespan of Paint: Without Seal
There comes a time you take out a leftover gallon of paint to repaint your room or house, but don’t know if you can use it. Now we will share some essential information to make sure if the leftover paint is still usable.
Where has the paint been stored? Have you put it under the garage, basement, or outside your house? Are those places cold or hot? Answering these questions will help you much when reusing the paint.
If the unsealed can of paint was placed outside the house, there might be no hope for it. In this case, your paint gallon might be ruined by dust, impurities, air, and other bacteria. It could also be frozen when the weather gets cold or damaged by the heat of the sun. In short, you cannot use the unsealed paint exposed to the air and the weather outside.
So where should you preserve the leftover paint? The gallon of paint without seal must be kept in a dry, cool place and away from hot or freezing conditions. If protecting the leftover paint the right way, you can use it within two years after opening the seal.
How to test with unsealed paint? In common, there will be a layer or coat when the paint contacts the air. So, has the paint under this layer been affected much? The answer is NOT. You can remove this coat, then stir the rest of the paint well before using it. Remember to remove lumps inside the gallon, too.
More: How Much Area In Square Feet Can A Gallon Of Paint Cover?
How Long does Paint Last on Walls?
As mentioned above, exterior and interior paint are made with different properties of the resin; the lasting time of it is also different.
Exterior Paint
Because this type of paint is made for outside structure, it’s created with strong resistance against the dust, impurities, bacteria, and the weather conditions surrounding. This paint type is often oil-based, which has flexible resin to keep the color from fading out.
Subject to the kind of paint and the conditions around, exterior paint can last on the walls for about five to ten years. The duration may decrease in the areas of severe conditions, which have many storms, snow, or boiling temperature. However, if you paint with proper preparation, it will last longer than you think.
The initial thing to do is to remove all the lumps, old paint, and make the surface flat. Provide a thorough clean and wash on the surface so that you can get rid of dust, impurities, mold, fungi, and mildew. Also treat and fill the cracks, gaps, and holes to make the wall smooth.
Next, cover a coat of primer on the surface. In this way, your wall will get more smooth and softer, while the paint will be well adhesive. Finally, apply the suitable exterior paint on the walls after researching carefully.
Before buying a gallon of paint, you should especially consider the environment surrounding the areas you want to paint. Make sure your paint type matches with the conditions there so that the paint will last long as you wish. Also, ask for the consultant to make your choice.
Interior Paint
This paint type doesn’t face the same issue as the exterior one because it is for indoor uses, so can you use it longer than the exterior paint?
Interior paint’s lasting time is also about five to ten years, depending on the quality of paint and the traffic of your rooms. In painting, the more expensive it is, the higher quality it gets. The one with high price tends to have stronger resistance against dust, dirt, and stains, while it is also easy to clean.
Although oil-based paint has a long-lasting time, people don’t often apply it for rooms. Accordingly, it doesn’t have a pleasant smell and mainly has a significant amount of VOC, which is not suitable for our health. Instead, we have latex or water-based paint which has a rich scent and is environmentally friendly.
How do you know about the traffic in the rooms? You can understand that is the number of times your family spends in those rooms. For example, your children spend the most time in the playroom, while you are often in the living room or kitchen.
As a result, you must take care of the wall in the children’s room because this is where they play, draw, paint, and create stains on the wall. The lifespan of the paint in this room is also low that you should have the room repainted after a specific time.
The bathroom should also be put into consideration as it is where mold and fungi like to grow. Just a little warmth and humidity are enough for the mold to grow and spread widely, which causes a terrible look to the room. Knowing the different conditions of the rooms will help you choose the right type of paint to apply.
Read More: Best Indoor Paint Sprayer for Interior Walls
How Often Should Walls be Painted?
After you are aware of the paint’s longevity, you will want to estimate the time your room should be repainted. Below are some types of rooms to consider.
- Playroom: as mentioned above, kids are naughty and always full of energy. They can use the wall as a big plain paper to create their colorful paintings and drawings. Moreover, kids are so careless that they can make a stain of food and drink on the surface of the wall. Paint can resist all of these factors within two or three years. After that, you must cover this wall with a new coat.
- Bathroom: due to the growth of mold, mildew, and fungi, you should repaint the bathroom and other rooms with high humidity after three or four years. The mold causes a terrible effect on your family, and it is so inconvenient to live with it.
- Living Room: this is the place where you meet your guesses, or where people gather, so it needs to be recoated. However, this room is clean, bright, fresh, and dry so that we can put a new cover after five to seven years.
What about the walls outside your house? Different materials of walls need different time to repaint. Below are some of the material you need to know.
If your wall is made of wood, you should cover a new coat after three to seven years. Paint on brick walls takes longer to be repainted, which is about fifteen to twenty years. Concrete material has a relative durable time and requires up to fifteen years to recoat.
The durability of exterior paint depends on the conditions surrounding, so whenever the paint is damaged, you should put it into consideration. The walls need repainting when the color is faded, peeled, or scratched on the surface.
In conclusion
Above are all the things you need to know about the lifespan of the paint. Now you can answer how long the paint can last both inside and outside the house. The period time is subject to many factors such as weather conditions, storage place, and the traffic of the locations.
This information will be helpful when you are going to paint and repaint the room or wall by yourself. If you find any difficulties with the type of paint, a sign of damaged paint, or anything else, comment below for more support.
Peter Levick
ArchitectI am a licensed architect who is passionate about all things home improvement industries, I have been doing DIY painting projects and have developed lots of experience around home improvement over the 10 years.
