House Painters In Central Auckland

If your home was built before 1980 there is a good chance it does, and if it is a villa or an early bungalow from before the mid sixties it is close to certain. Lead was used in exterior enamels and primers for decades, and on most Central Auckland villas it is sitting under later coats rather than on the surface. Intact, well adhered paint is not the problem. The risk comes from dust and chips, which means the danger point is preparation, not the paint itself. Dry power sanding, aggressive scraping or blasting an old villa without containment spreads lead dust across the site, into the soil, through open windows and onto anything underneath. Most homeowners never know it has happened. We test for lead paint as part of our site inspection on older properties. Where it is present we work to the Guidelines for the Management of Lead-based Paint, which in practice means containing the work area with ground sheets, using wet methods and hand preparation rather than dry sanding, collecting and disposing of waste properly, and keeping residents, children and pets clear of the area while we are working. We will also let you know if you should keep windows closed on particular days or move anything out of the way first. It matters most where there are young children, anyone pregnant in the house, or a vegetable garden below the walls we are working on. If you would rather know before you commit to anything, we can test at the inspection stage and talk you through what the result means for the scope and the cost, so there are no surprises once the job starts.

In almost all cases, no. Repainting surfaces that are already painted is treated as maintenance, and the Special Character Areas Overlay is mainly concerned with demolition, alterations to building form and changes to street facing facades rather than what colour you paint your weatherboards. If you are simply washing, prepping and recoating an existing villa or bungalow, you are very unlikely to need anything from council. There are two situations worth checking before you start. The first is if your property is a scheduled historic heritage place, which is a different and stricter classification to a special character area, and can carry controls that extend further than the character overlay does. The second is if the work goes beyond painting. Replacing weatherboards, removing or altering decorative detail such as fretwork, bargeboards or finials, or changing joinery can all be a different conversation to a repaint, even when the finished result looks similar. If any of that is likely on your job, it is worth confirming with Auckland Council first. The easiest way to find out what applies to you is to look your address up on the council GeoMaps viewer or check your property file, which will tell you which overlays sit over the site. We work through Ponsonby, Grey Lynn, Herne Bay, Mt Eden and Parnell regularly and we know these areas well, so if we see something on your property that we think needs checking we will tell you at the site inspection. What we will not do is give you planning advice we are not qualified to give. We are painters, and where there is any doubt the right answer is a quick call to council before work starts rather than a problem afterwards.