Garage doors set the tone on newer Johnstown homes
On a lot of the houses built near the interstate in the last couple of decades, the garage door is the biggest single painted surface you see from the street. Two- and three-car steel doors face south or west on half the lots, and they fade, chalk and take hail dents before anything else on the front of the house. A tired garage door makes fresh siding look unfinished.
We clean steel doors, scuff the glossy factory finish so the new coat can grip, spot-prime any bare or rusted metal, and roll the panels in a direction that follows the embossed grain. Dents stay dents; paint doesn't fill them. If a door has been badly hailed, it's worth asking whether replacement is on the table before we paint it. Trim, doors and fascia details are covered on our trim and fascia painting page.
New subdivision or original town: two different jobs
| Newer subdivision homes | Older homes in the original town | |
|---|---|---|
| Typical siding | Engineered wood or fiber cement lap, stone accents | Wood lap siding, some aluminum or steel siding added later |
| Main prep | Washing chalk, recaulking joints, edge sealing | Scraping, wood repair, priming bare wood |
| Lead-safe practices | Not required by the EPA rule for homes built in 1978 or later | Assumed for pre-1978 paint unless testing shows otherwise |
| Color approval | Often through an HOA | Usually up to the owner |
| What fails first | South and west walls, garage door, caulk joints | Sills, lower siding courses, porch and step edges |
If you're in a subdivision with an HOA, plan the color submittal before booking a start date. Older homes in the core need a longer walk-through, because the repair list sets the price more than the square footage does.
Newer streets also have very little shade yet. Young trees don't protect anything, so every wall gets its full share of sun at nearly 5,000 feet, and the chalk that builds up on fiber cement and engineered wood has to be washed off completely before primer or paint will hold. Rub a dark cloth on your south wall; if it comes away colored, that's the chalk we're talking about.
Hail on open ground
Johnstown sits on open plains east of Loveland, and summer storms that build over the foothills in the afternoon often strengthen as they move out over the plains. Hail here does a predictable set of things to a house: dents in aluminum gutters, downspouts and garage doors, chips and spatter marks on the windward siding, and cracked caulk or punctures in thinner siding boards. Window screens and vinyl window frames take hits too.
How the season runs this far east
April and early May bring warm afternoons along with cold nights, heavy wet snow and gusty days. Every paint has a minimum air and surface temperature on its product data sheet, and we go by that, not the afternoon high. Summer is the reliable stretch, with work starting on the east and north sides in the morning and following the shade. Afternoon thunderstorms mean we watch the radar and stop exposed coats in time to dry. Fall is often calm and dry here, though nights cool fast after the equinox and the working day shrinks.
Before you request an estimate
Walk around the house once with the garage door closed and note dents, rust spots, swollen siding edges and gaps at window trim. Check whether your HOA needs a color form. Find out if any hail repairs are still pending. Johnstown neighbors Milliken to the east and Loveland to the west, so our Milliken exterior painting page may also be relevant if you're near that side of town. Then request an estimate and we'll go over the house in person.
