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ServicesExterior Painting forGreenwood and Indianapolis Homes
Exterior paint almost never fails because of the paint. It fails because of what was under it. We wash, scrape, prime and caulk first, then put two coats on a surface that can actually hold them.
The Central Indiana painting window is closing, and that is worth being honest about
Exterior paint in this part of Indiana goes on roughly April through October. The limit is not the calendar, it is the surface. Most exterior acrylics want a surface temperature of at least 50F, and they want that surface to be at least 5 degrees above the dew point when the coat goes on. They also need to stay in range for about 48 hours afterward while the film forms. Some modern acrylics carry a label rating down to 35F. That is a laboratory floor, not a number a working painter should bet a whole house on in November.
Late September through mid October is genuinely the best stretch of the year here. Humidity is down, the paint is not flash-drying on a 92-degree south wall, and the color goes on evenly. What ends the season is the overnight low. Indianapolis normals put the average first frost around October 17 and the first hard freeze around October 26, with real frost risk starting the first week of October. Once nights are dipping into the 30s, a wall that was warm at 2pm is below dew point by 9pm, and that is how you get blushing, poor adhesion and a coat that starts peeling in year two.
It is early September as we write this. That means there are usually five or six workable weeks left. Days are also shorter, so a shaded north or east wall may not clear 50F until mid-morning, which compresses the actual painting hours on a job. We plan around that instead of pretending it does not exist.
Prep is the job. The paint is just the last day.
Two crews can put the same premium paint on the same house and get results seven years apart. The difference is entirely in what happened before the first coat. Here is the sequence we work through on a residential exterior, and none of it is optional if you want the finish to last.
- Wash. Every exterior collects chalk, pollen, spider webbing and mildew, and paint will not bond through any of it. We wash the whole envelope and then let it dry, usually 24 to 48 hours depending on siding type and the weather that week.
- Scrape and sand. Loose and blistered paint comes off. Hard edges get feathered so the new coat does not telegraph a ridge everywhere the old paint stopped.
- Prime bare wood. Any wood that got exposed by scraping gets spot-primed the same day it is exposed. Bare cedar in particular will bleed tannin straight through a latex topcoat if it is not sealed with the right primer first.
- Caulk. Window and door casings, corner boards, trim joints, and the seam where trim meets siding. This is where water actually gets into a wall, and fresh caulk does more for the house than the paint does.
- Spot-repair the wood. Soft or rotted trim boards, window casing, corner boards and door surrounds get replaced before anything is painted. Painting over rot just hides it for a season.
- Mask and protect. Windows, light fixtures, meters, AC condenser, landscaping, driveway. Downspouts come off where we need to paint behind them and go back up when the wall is dry.
What we paint, and what each surface needs
Johnson and Marion County housing stock is a mix. A 1978 ranch in Southport, a 1994 two-story in Center Grove and a 2015 build in Bargersville are three completely different prep jobs even if they all get the same color. The table below is how we approach the surfaces we run into most often around here.
| Surface | Prep it needs | What to watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Vinyl siding | Wash, scuff chalked panels, vinyl-safe 100% acrylic | Stay at a light reflectance value of 55 or higher. Dark colors absorb heat, and vinyl starts to soften and deform around 165F. |
| Aluminum siding | Wash off the chalk, spot-prime any bare metal | Heavy chalking needs a bonding primer or the topcoat will lift off in sheets a year later. |
| Engineered wood (LP SmartSide and similar) | Wash, caulk butt joints, prime any cut or damaged edge | Water gets in at unsealed joints and along bottom courses. Seal those before the finish coat. |
| Hardboard / Masonite (common on 1970s to 1990s homes) | Wash gently, scrape swelling, prime bare board, replace what has gone soft | Swollen, crumbling bottom edges mean board replacement, not paint. We will tell you straight if that is what you are looking at. |
| Fiber cement (Hardie board) | Wash, re-caulk joints, spot-prime | Factory finishes commonly run 10 to 15 years before a repaint is due. Do not repaint early just because a neighbor did. |
| Cedar, wood siding and wood trim | Scrape, sand, feather edges, oil or stain-blocking primer on all bare wood | Bare cedar bleeds tannin through latex without the right primer. This is the single most common callback cause we see. |
| Brick and masonry | Wash, masonry primer, breathable masonry-rated finish | Painting brick is close to permanent. Failing mortar has to be addressed by a mason first, and that is not our trade. |
| Doors, shutters and garage doors | Degrease, sand, prime, then finish coat | Steel and fiberglass doors need surface temps well clear of the dew point or the finish blushes and stays soft. |
Trim and doors only: the cheaper version that often makes more sense
A lot of newer Greenwood, Center Grove and Bargersville homes are vinyl or engineered-wood sided with wood or wood-composite trim. On those houses the siding is fine. What actually looks tired is the trim, the shutters, the front door, the garage door surround and the porch posts. That is 10 to 20 percent of the paintable area doing 80 percent of the visual damage.
A trim-and-door package costs a fraction of a full-house repaint and can buy you several more years before the body needs anything. It is also the usual answer when an HOA sends a letter about peeling trim or a faded front door, and it is a job that fits in the tail end of the season when a full repaint no longer does.
We also stain and paint decks, porch rails and fence sections, and clean gutters while we are already set up on the house. We do not replace gutters, and we do not do roofing beyond patching one or two shingles on a walkable roof.
Pressure washing: the prep step, and a service on its own
Pressure washing is how almost every exterior paint job starts, and we do it in-house rather than subbing it out. That matters, because washing for paint is different from washing to make a house look clean. Pressure that is too high driven up under the laps forces water into the wall cavity and behind hardboard, and then you have trapped moisture under a fresh coat of paint. Siding gets a lower-pressure wash with the right detergent and a rinse pattern that runs downward, not up.
Plenty of homeowners call us for the washing alone. A house, driveway, sidewalk and patio wash is often all a place needs to look presentable again, particularly on the north and shaded sides where green algae builds up on vinyl. If you are on the fence about repainting, washing first is a reasonable step. Sometimes the paint underneath turns out to be fine and you have just saved yourself several thousand dollars.
What makes one quote different from another
Two houses of identical square footage can be 40 percent apart on price, and it is almost never the paint that did it. These are the things that actually move a number:
- Height and access. A single-story ranch you can reach from a 24-foot ladder is a different job from a two-story with a walkout or a steep grade on one side.
- Condition. A house that needs six hours of scraping and priming and one that needs sixty are not the same job. This is the single biggest variable.
- Number of colors. Body, trim and an accent door is three cut-ins instead of one.
- Amount of bare wood and rot. Carpentry repairs are quoted separately from painting so you can see exactly what you are paying for.
- Color change versus refresh. Going from tan to charcoal usually means an extra coat. Going tan to a similar tan usually does not.
- Chalking on older aluminum. Heavy chalk means an extra bonding primer step across the whole body.
- Deck, fence or detached garage included in the same trip.
What it typically costs around here
Published 2026 figures for the Indianapolis market put exterior repaints somewhere between about $1.20 and $6.00 per paintable square foot depending on who is reporting and what is included, which works out to roughly $3,200 to $8,500 for a typical 1,600 to 2,200 square foot two-story. That is a wide band because condition genuinely varies that much. Most of the full-house residential exteriors we quote in Greenwood and the south side land inside that range, and trim-and-door-only work comes in far below it.
We are not going to give you a firm price over the phone, and you should be skeptical of anyone who does. What we will do is walk the house with you, tell you which walls are the problem, put a number on the carpentry separately from the painting, and give you a written quote. We carry a $150 trip minimum on small jobs. The site visit for a quote is free.
Everything gets photo-documented before and after, which is a habit that came out of our commercial facility maintenance work and turns out to be just as useful on a house.
Scheduling in September, and where we work
If you call now, we can usually get an exterior on the calendar for this season. If we look at your house and do not believe we can finish it before the overnight lows turn on us, we will say so and put you in the spring queue instead. There is a real option in between that we like: do the washing, the carpentry, the scraping and the priming this fall while the weather still allows it, then come back in April and put the finish coats on a house that is already prepped. It spreads the cost and it protects bare wood over the winter.
We will not rush a finish coat onto a wall we do not think will cure. A coat that goes on in cold November and fails in eighteen months costs you the whole job twice, and it is not worth the booking to us.
We are based in Greenwood and work Johnson County and the south side heaviest: Center Grove, Bargersville, Southport, Homecroft, Beech Grove and Indianapolis. We also serve Carmel, Fishers, Westfield, Noblesville, Zionsville, Brownsburg, Avon, Broad Ripple, Meridian Kessler, Castleton and Geist. Hours are Monday through Saturday, 8am to 6pm. We are licensed and insured, BBB A+ accredited, and hold a 4.9 star Google rating across 73 reviews. Call 317-893-3717 to get a walk-through on the schedule.
Common Questions
Is it too late in the year to paint my house exterior?
Not if we start in September, but the window is closing. Indianapolis normals put the average first frost around October 17 and the first hard freeze around October 26, and paint needs the surface to hold above about 50F and above the dew point for roughly 48 hours after it goes on. Realistically that leaves five or six workable weeks from early September. If your house needs heavy scraping and carpentry, we would rather do that prep now and put the finish coats on in April than rush a coat that fails in two years.
How long should an exterior paint job actually last in Indiana?
Seven to ten years is a fair expectation on properly prepped wood, engineered wood or fiber cement, and vinyl and aluminum often go longer. The south and west walls always go first because they take the most UV and the most freeze-thaw cycling, so it is normal to touch those two elevations once in the middle of that span. Jobs that fail at three or four years almost always failed at the prep stage, not at the paint can.
Can you paint vinyl siding, or will it warp?
Yes, vinyl can be painted, as long as you stay inside the color rules. We use a 100% acrylic labeled vinyl-safe and keep the color at a light reflectance value of 55 or higher, which generally means not going darker than what is already on the house. Darker colors absorb significantly more heat, and vinyl starts to soften and deform around 165F, which is reachable on a sunny wall. If you have your heart set on a dark color on vinyl, we will tell you honestly what the risk is before you commit.
Do I have to paint the whole house, or can you just do the trim and the front door?
You can absolutely do trim and doors only, and on a lot of newer Greenwood and Center Grove homes that is the smarter buy. On vinyl or engineered-wood sided houses the body is usually still fine while the wood trim, shutters, porch posts, garage door surround and front door are what look worn. That package is a fraction of a full repaint, it fits in the tail end of the painting season, and it is usually what satisfies an HOA letter.
Do you pressure wash before painting, and can I hire you for just the washing?
We wash every exterior before we paint it, and yes, you can hire us for washing on its own. Paint will not bond through chalk, pollen or mildew, so the wash is not an upsell, it is the first step of the job. For washing-only work we do house, driveway, sidewalk, patio and deck. If you are undecided about repainting, washing first is a reasonable move, because sometimes the existing paint turns out to be in better shape than the dirt on top of it suggested.
What happens if you find rotted wood once you start scraping?
We stop, show you the photos, and quote the carpentry separately before we go any further. Rotted trim boards, window casing, corner boards and door surrounds we replace ourselves. If we open up a wall of swollen hardboard and find the failure runs across whole elevations, that is a siding contractor's job, not a paint job, and we will tell you that instead of painting over it. We do not do siding replacement, gutter replacement or roof replacement.
How much will my exterior repaint cost?
Most full-house residential exteriors in this market land somewhere between about $3,200 and $8,500 in 2026, and where you fall in that range is driven mostly by condition and height rather than square footage alone. Trim-and-door-only work comes in well below that. We do not quote a house over the phone. We walk it, price the carpentry separately from the painting so you can see both numbers, and put it in writing. The site visit is free, and we carry a $150 trip minimum on small jobs.
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