The Best Paint for Winnipeg

The Best Paint for Winnipeg

Winnipeg is a unique, wonderful city, and our architecture is a reflection of our idiosyncrasies. Our oldest building is over 150 years old, the Gray Nuns’ Convent (now the Musée de St. Boniface), while new developments like Bridgwater are springing up near the outskirts almost every day. This makes picking the best paint for Winnipeg a bit of an arduous task; the real answer is that the best paint will vary from home to home, but there are a few considerations that apply for every Winnipeg home.

Exterior Winnipeg painting must necessarily account for temperature extremes and snow. That means you’ll need paint that’s extremely flexible; your home will expand and contract over time, and temperature extremes exacerbate these movements. You’ll also need paint that’s extremely durable; we’re buffeted by all kinds of inclement weather, be it blizzards in the winter or thunderstorms and hail in the summer. The best solution we’ve found to hold up against all of these extremes is elastomeric paint, a type of acrylic paint with a high-build; that is to say, it’s thicker than other conventional paints. Elastomeric paint has high elasticity and durability, so it can stretch as your home moves. The thickness allows it to endure the worst of weather conditions. Additionally, elastomeric paint can be applied in fewer layers than traditional paint, owing to its relative thickness. While this is our most recommended paint type for most Winnipeg exteriors, we’ll need to do an evaluation of your home before giving elastomers the thumbs-up; wood exteriors might not be well suited to elastomeric paint, while the stuff is great for the stucco exteriors you’ll often see on houses in the suburbs.

Winnipeg’s bad weather happens outside, so once we’ve recommended an exterior paint type, we’re done, right? Well, not quite so fast. You see, Winnipeg’s exterior weather will affect how long you’ll be in your house after painting is done; after all, if you get your interior painted in December, you’re probably going to be sitting around the house for long periods of time post-paint. That’s why for interior painting, we recommend products with low or no VOCs. VOCs are volatile organic compounds, and they can have a wide array of health impacts, especially on people with pre-existing medical conditions like asthma. We also recommend using an acrylic paint with decent flexibility; Winnipeg homes can become quite dry in the winter, and low-quality paints could crack and peel as a result.

There you have it! Different types of paint for the interior and the exterior, depending on what kind of materials were used in your home’s construction, but all with unique attributes to deal with Winnipeg’s unique climate. Of course, there’s a lot more to painting your home than just the type of paint you choose; there’s the colours, the techniques, the preparation, the temperature, and a whole lot more! Stay tuned for more blogs where we’ll explore paint trends, techniques and tips that matter to Winnipeggers.