House Painting & Exterior Repair in Knoxville, TN

Old houses need a different approach

Knoxville has neighborhoods that most cities this size would envy. Old North Knoxville and Fourth & Gill are full of Queen Anne cottages, Folk Victorians, Craftsman bungalows, American Four Squares and shotgun houses, most of them wearing wood weatherboard, wood double-hung sashes and deep front porches with tongue-and-groove floors and beadboard ceilings.

None of that behaves like modern siding. Old-growth wood is more stable and more repairable than what you would buy today, which is worth knowing before anyone talks you into replacement. But it is also soft where it has been wet, and it will not tolerate the treatment a hardboard-clad 1990s house shrugs off.

Why we go easy with the pressure washer

This is the single most common way an old Knoxville house gets damaged by a contractor. The city's own historic design guidelines, drawn from the Secretary of the Interior's Standards, put it bluntly: “Chemical or physical treatments, such as sandblasting, that cause damage to historic materials, shall not be used. The surface cleaning of structures, if appropriate, shall be undertaken using the gentlest means possible.”

A pressure washer turned up high will strip a hundred-year-old weatherboard of more than dirt. It drives water behind the siding, tears up soft grain, blows out old glazing putty and forces moisture into the wall where it has nowhere to go. On houses of this age we wash at low pressure with the right cleaning solution and let the chemistry do the work, or we hand-clean. It is slower. It is also the difference between preparing a surface and destroying one.

Porches, and where old houses actually fail

Almost every house in these neighborhoods has a porch, and the porch is where the wear shows first. Tongue-and-groove floors sit under an overhang that keeps most rain off but traps humidity underneath. Beadboard ceilings peel where moisture gets in behind. Turned columns and balustrades rot at the base where they meet the floor, because that is where water sits.

Those are all repairable, and repairing them is almost always better than replacing them — both for the house and for your budget. The guidelines for these districts say the same thing: deteriorated features should be repaired rather than replaced wherever the condition allows.

Homes built before 1978

A great deal of Knoxville's housing predates 1978, and the EPA estimates that around three-quarters of American homes built before that year still contain some lead-based paint. The EPA's Renovation, Repair and Painting rule sets requirements for paid work that disturbs painted surfaces in pre-1978 housing. If your home is from that era, ask any contractor you are considering — including us — how they intend to handle it. It is a fair question and you should get a straight answer.

And the rest of Knoxville

Not every job here is a Victorian. West Knoxville, Bearden, Hardin Valley, Powell and the newer subdivisions are a large part of our work too, and those homes get a straightforward, efficient approach — the careful stuff is reserved for surfaces that need it.

Call (865) 291-7089 for a free estimate anywhere in Knoxville.