Serving Clients Since 1977
Exterior Painting in Wallingford, CT
Gagnon Painting & Decorating has been painting Connecticut exteriors since 1977. Wallingford asks for two different exterior specifications in the same town: one for the eighteenth and nineteenth century houses on and around South Main Street, another for the post-war capes and ranches that make up the bulk of the housing.
In New England an exterior generally wants repainting every four to six years. Fully licensed and insured.
Our Exterior Painting Services Include:
Surfaces and substrates
- Exterior Repainting and Staining
- Aluminum Siding Painting
- Masonry Painting
- Concrete Sealing
- Deck Refinishing
- Fence Painting
Repair and project types
- Carpentry Repair
- Caulking
- New Construction or Repainting Work
- Condominium Painting
What is actually standing on South Main Street?
Some of the oldest domestic fabric in Connecticut still in ordinary use. The Wallingford Center Historic District nomination records six eighteenth-century and twenty nineteenth-century houses still standing on South Main Street, in a district of 66 contributing buildings on the ridge above the Quinnipiac.
The three best-preserved of the eighteenth-century group were built in 1759 and 1760 and are all gambrel-roofed — among them the Samuel Parsons-Caleb Thompson House of 1759, now the Wallingford Historical Society, and the Augustus Hall House of 1760. Greek Revival arrives with the Benjamin Foote House of 1835. The nomination also notes something that matters a great deal on site: later Italianate and Colonial Revival porch additions layered onto earlier fabric.
That layering is the practical problem. A single elevation can carry original eighteenth-century clapboard, a Victorian porch added a century later, and twentieth-century repairs — three substrates with three different paint histories and three different rates of movement. Treating them as one surface with one specification is how the finish fails early on one part of a house that looked uniform from the street.
A gambrel roof adds the second issue: two pitches, and a lot of wall surface sitting directly under the break where run-off concentrates.
Wallingford exterior painting questions
Does the town restrict what colour I can paint a historic house?
Not on colour. Connecticut law is explicit — CGS section 7-147d(c) provides that local historic district rules shall not be construed to extend to the colour of paint used on the exterior of any building or structure. Wallingford does maintain a Historic Properties Commission, and work that alters architectural features rather than colour is a different conversation, so ask them first if your project goes beyond a repaint.
Do you paint aluminium siding?
Yes, aluminium siding painting is part of what we do, and it comes up often in Wallingford's post-war belt where a lot of original wood was covered in the 1960s and 70s. Painting aluminium is a preparation and primer question rather than a paint question — chalked, oxidised siding needs to be washed and properly primed or the topcoat will not hold.
Will power washing strip the old paint off first?
No, and on an eighteenth-century house you would not want it to. We do not strip paint with pressure washing. Washing removes dirt and contaminants so the new coating can bond; failing paint comes off by hand and tool afterwards, at the pace two-hundred-year-old clapboard can take.
Planning exterior work in Wallingford?
Call for a free estimate and a written summary quote on your first visit.