Question 1

What wood moisture content is safe for painting exterior surfaces in New Brunswick’s humid climate?

Accepted Answer

Wood must be at or below 15% moisture content before you apply any primer or paint to exterior surfaces in New Brunswick. This is not a guideline — it's a hard threshold. Paint applied over wood with higher moisture content traps that moisture inside, and as the wood dries and the trapped water tries to escape, it lifts and blisters the paint from underneath.

Wood moisture content is measured with an inexpensive pin-type or pinless moisture meter, which you can find at hardware stores in Moncto

Question 2

How do I remove mildew from exterior wood before painting a home in coastal New Brunswick?

Accepted Answer

Mildew on exterior wood must be killed and removed before painting — never simply painted over. Paint applied over mildew creates a sealed, warm, slightly moist environment that mildew loves, and it will grow right through the new paint within a season, leaving black or grey stains on your fresh finish.

This is an especially important issue for homes along the Bay of Fundy coast, around Shediac, Bathurst, and the Saint John harbour area. The combination of salt-laden air, prevailing moisture of

Question 3

What is the best stain-blocking primer for covering knots in spruce and cedar trim in NB homes?

Accepted Answer

Shellac-based primer is the gold standard for blocking knots in spruce and cedar — nothing else reliably stops the tannins and resins that bleed out of wood knots from staining through finish paint. Zinsser BIN is the most widely available product in New Brunswick and the one most professional painters reach for first.

Wood knots contain concentrated resin pockets and tannins that are highly soluble and remarkably mobile. When you paint over a knot with a water-based primer or even a quality la

Question 4

How do I caulk gaps between trim and walls before painting for a clean professional look?

Accepted Answer

Caulking the gap between trim and walls before painting is one of the single most effective things you can do to make a paint job look professional. That thin line of shadow between a baseboard and a wall, or between door casing and drywall, is the most visible sign of an amateur finish. Filled and painted, those transitions disappear completely.

The right product for this application is a paintable acrylic latex caulk — sometimes labelled "painter's caulk" or "siliconized acrylic caulk." Do no

Question 5

How do I prepare and prime a water-stained ceiling before repainting in a New Brunswick home?

Accepted Answer

Before painting over a water stain, fix the leak — always. Painting over an active water stain is a temporary cover-up that will fail within months as moisture continues to push through. Once the source is repaired and the ceiling is fully dry, a shellac-based or oil-based stain-blocking primer is the only reliable solution for permanently sealing water stains.

Water stains are stubbornly persistent because the minerals and organic compounds deposited by evaporating water are highly water-solub

Question 6

What is the proper way to sand between coats of paint for the smoothest finish?

Accepted Answer

Sanding between coats is what separates a truly smooth professional finish from a paint job that looks acceptable from across the room but rough up close. The process is straightforward: let each coat dry fully, sand lightly with fine-grit paper to remove texture, dust, and imperfections, wipe clean, and apply the next coat.

The first thing to understand is grit selection. Between coats on walls, 220-grit sandpaper is the standard — fine enough that it smooths without cutting too aggressively i

Question 7

What type of primer should I use on new drywall before painting in a New Brunswick home?

Accepted Answer

For new drywall, use a PVA drywall primer — it's specifically formulated to seal the porous paper face and the absorbent compound used to finish joints and screw holes. Skipping this step on fresh drywall is one of the most common and costly mistakes homeowners make.

New drywall has two very different surfaces: the paper-faced gypsum board itself, and the joint compound applied over seams and fasteners. These two surfaces absorb paint at completely different rates. Without a proper primer, you'

Question 8

How do I prepare exterior wood siding for repainting when the old paint is peeling badly in NB?

Accepted Answer

Badly peeling exterior wood siding requires thorough and patient preparation — this is 80% of the entire job, and skipping or rushing any step guarantees the new paint will fail in 2-3 NB winters. Done correctly, a full exterior repaint with proper prep lasts 8-12 years on quality NB housing stock.

Start by identifying why the paint is peeling. On most New Brunswick homes — particularly older clapboard siding common in Moncton, Saint John, and Fredericton — peeling comes from moisture migrating

Question 9

Should I skim coat my walls before painting if they have minor imperfections in my Moncton home?

Accepted Answer

Whether to skim coat depends on the severity of the imperfections and the sheen level of paint you plan to use. For minor dings, small nail holes, and hairline cracks, spot-filling with joint compound is usually enough. For walls with widespread texture, numerous repairs, or if you're planning a satin or semi-gloss finish that will highlight every flaw, a full skim coat gives dramatically better results.

Paint sheens are brutally honest about wall imperfections. Flat and matte paints hide surfa

Question 10

What should I use to clean walls before painting in a kitchen that has years of grease buildup?

Accepted Answer

A kitchen with years of cooking grease on the walls needs TSP (trisodium phosphate) or a heavy-duty degreaser before any paint will stick — regular dish soap and water simply does not remove the fine oil film that coats kitchen surfaces and causes new paint to peel or crawl.

Cooking grease is invisible as a uniform film but very much present on every kitchen surface near the stove, on cabinet faces, and across walls up to a metre from the cooking area. Over years, it builds into a sticky, tacky

Question 11

How do I deal with peeling paint on drywall before repainting in my Fredericton home?

Accepted Answer

Peeling paint on drywall is almost always caused by a moisture or adhesion problem — and you have to identify and fix the root cause before repainting, otherwise the new paint will peel in exactly the same way within a season or two.

The first question to ask is why the paint is peeling. In Fredericton homes, the most common culprits are bathroom moisture penetrating through walls (peeling in the bathroom itself or on the other side of a shared wall), condensation on cold exterior walls in wint

Question 12

How do I prepare walls for painting in an older Moncton home with plaster walls and cracks?

Accepted Answer

Plaster walls in older Moncton homes can be beautifully smooth and durable when properly repaired, but they require more thoughtful preparation than modern drywall — especially when hairline cracks and impact damage have built up over decades. The good news is that patient prep work produces a surface that takes paint exceptionally well.

Most older Moncton and Fredericton homes built before 1960 have three-coat plaster over wood lath, while homes from the 1960s and 70s may have two-coat plaster

Question 13

What is the best way to fill nail holes and small cracks before painting interior walls in NB?

Accepted Answer

Lightweight spackling compound is the go-to product for nail holes and small cracks in interior walls, applied in thin layers, sanded smooth, and primed before painting — and the process takes 10 minutes per wall if you do it right.

For a standard nail hole in drywall — the kind left from a picture frame or shelf bracket — a finger-applied dab of lightweight spackle (brands like Polyfilla or DAP Lightweight Spackling, available at any NB hardware store for around -12 per tub) is all you need. P

Question 14

How do I prepare a previously glossy surface for repainting without sanding everything by hand?

Accepted Answer

Liquid deglosser (also called liquid sandpaper) lets you chemically etch a glossy surface for repainting without hand-sanding every square centimetre — it's a significant time-saver on trim, doors, and kitchen walls with a semi-gloss or gloss finish.

Glossy surfaces — semi-gloss or gloss trim, old oil-based painted walls, bathroom tiles, or any surface with a hard sheen — need to be dulled before new paint will adhere properly. Fresh paint doesn't chemically bond to a slick surface; it needs mi

Question 15

Do I always need to use primer before painting walls in my New Brunswick home?

Accepted Answer

Not always — but skipping primer on the wrong surfaces is the single most common cause of painting failures, and in New Brunswick's older housing stock, priming is necessary far more often than many homeowners expect.

There are genuine situations where you can skip a separate primer coat. If you're repainting a wall that's already in good condition — the existing paint is adhering well, the surface is clean, the colour change is subtle (say, a medium grey over a similar shade of beige), and you

Surface Preparation