Painting Aluminum Siding

Get tips on painting aluminum siding. Find out which type of paint to use and how to prepare your aluminum siding for a new coat of exterior paint.

LESLIE: Beverly in Indiana needs some help with a painting[1] project. What can we do for you?

BEVERLY: Yes, thank you for taking my call. I’m dealing with an old frame house that has aluminum white siding[2] on it and it is faded out and it just looks bad and I want to know if I can paint it and what would be the process.

TOM: Hmm. Well you certainly can paint it and aluminum does start to fade, of course, over the years. What you’re going to want to do is you’re going to want to pressure wash that house to get as much of the loose paint off as possible. The next thing you’re going to want to do is prime it. Now priming is the most important step, Beverly.

BEVERLY: OK.

TOM: If it’s not primed properly the paint is not going to stick. I would use an oil-based, high-quality primer that’s designed to stick to aluminum and then I would put a topcoat over that.

Now the best way to apply both a primer and the paint when you have aluminum siding is to have it sprayed.

BEVERLY: OK.

TOM: Because it can flow on much nicer than you can possibly brush it and get into all those nooks and crannies.

BEVERLY: Oh, OK. Well, I thank you for taking my call and I had been told that I could not paint it because the paint would not adhere.

TOM: Oh, no. That’s not true at all.

LESLIE: The only thing you need to be concerned about is with latex paint because latex paint contains ammonia and sometimes when the ammonia comes into contact with the aluminum it can create a gas and then the gas causes bubbles and then that causes air to get underneath and then that sort of causes the whole thing to crack from underneath itself.