21 Apr Interior Vs. Exterior Paint: A Complete Guide For Ottawa Homeowners
Understanding Paint Fundamentals For Ottawa Homes
You need different paint for different jobs. You might think that’s obvious—you probably wouldn’t use the same paint colours for your bathroom as you would for your kitchen.
The distinction goes deeper than colour, though. Your home’s exterior and interior are going to face very different challenges; your exterior paint will have to stand up to sleet, snow, rain, and sun, while your home’s interior paint may have to stand up to stains, moisture, and some UV exposure.
Professional painters use very different paints for interior paint jobs than they do for exterior ones. Things get even more interesting than that, too—painters will actually use different paints for different rooms within your house.
That’s a lot of different types of paint—and this article is a deep dive into the differences between them. We hope it will paint a pretty clear picture of why different paints are important—let’s get started!
Key Differences Between Interior And Exterior Paint
Chemical Composition
To understand the differences between interior and exterior paints, it’s important to know what paints are made of.
All paints are made up of four essential ingredients:
- Pigments (what gives your paint colour)
- Resins/binders (what keeps your paint together)
- Solvents (what carries everything and keeps your paint wet and ready to apply)
- Additives (various chemicals that impart different properties to your paint)
Interior and exterior paints often use different pigments, resins, solvents, and additives. By changing the chemical composition of your paint, you can change how it looks, how it feels, and what it protects against best.
Durability Factors
The last thing we mentioned—protection—speaks to the durability of your paint. We most often think of durability as a paint’s ability to resist wear and tear—heat, cold, moisture, impact, and more.
Interior paints have very different durability requirements than exterior paints. With interior paints, it’s far more important to stand up to grease stains and scrubbing—that’s still a form of protection and durability but it looks a lot different from the durability of weather-resistant exterior paints.
In short, different paints need to stand up to different things, so you really shouldn’t swap exterior and interior paints; neither works well in the other’s environment.
Interior Paint Considerations For Ottawa Homes
VOC Levels And Indoor Air Quality
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are chemicals emitted by paints (and a huge range of other products and organisms). They’re what gives paint its distinctive smell—unfortunately, they can cause dizziness, nausea, headaches, and a whole range of other health problems.
You don’t want paints emitting high levels of VOCs into your home—it’s not healthy. Fortunately, paint manufacturers have caught on. All of the major paint companies have released low to zero-VOC paints for indoor use.
They’ve accomplished this through the use of additives, and by using water as the primary solvent in indoor paints. Exterior paints, on the other hand, have a lot more VOCs.
Finish Options For Different Rooms
In high-traffic areas like hallways and kids’ rooms, painters will often opt to use harder finishes—satin and semi-gloss are great options because they’re easy to clean and highly stain-resistant. This can make them a good choice for kitchens, too.
In rooms where stains are less of a concern, matte paints can be an excellent choice—though if you like the shiny look, you can still opt for satin or semi-gloss.
Aside from finish options, you’ll also want to think about the additives that are used in your paint. Paints that are used in bathrooms and kitchens will typically feature anti-microbial and mildew-blocking additives; they’ll also be water-resistant.
Exterior Paint Requirements For Ottawa’s Climate
Weather Resistance Features
When you’re using exterior paint, VOCs aren’t a problem—they dissipate into the open air. This is a huge advantage because it means you can use all kinds of additives, including UV blockers and mildew inhibitors. The formulation of exterior paints is designed to withstand precipitation, high winds, and other harsh weather conditions; it’s incredibly durable but may lack the feel of interior paints.
Temperature Considerations
The resins in interior and exterior paints are also very different; while 100% acrylic and elastomeric polymers are common in exterior paints, harder, more scuff-resistant binders are more common in interior paints.
Softer binders are essential for exterior paints because they give them the flexibility needed to expand and contract as temperatures rise and fall.
Choosing The Right Paint For Your Ottawa Project
You just learned a lot about paint—knowledge that will help you when it’s time to apply a fresh coat. What we’ve covered is just the tip of the iceberg—there’s a lot of science that goes into formulating the perfect paint for everything from your wood siding to your kitchen drywall.
You don’t have to memorize any of this though—for your next painting project in Ottawa, all you have to do is call the pros at Pinnacle Painting. Our painting company will give you a free painting estimate and consultation; we can even tell you which paints we’ll use for each part of your project.
Whether you need interior or exterior painting—whether you’re painting your front door, your vinyl siding, your kid’s room, or anything else—give us a call.