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FAX: 703-550-3755
EMAIL: contact@bluedoorpainters.com
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“Blue Door Painting was professional and punctual in all aspects of the job. The estimator and crew were there when they said they would be there.”
Alexandria, VA
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What Can I Do About Ice Dams?
Pretty icicles? Yes. Problematic ice dam? Also yes. (photo by Suat Eman)
What is the most beautiful feature of a winter landscape? Many people would answer that the long, elegant icicles hanging off of a house are. And what is the most common cause of interior paint failure during the winter? Same answer.
“Ice dams” are rims of ice along the outside of your roof that are formed by the differential heating created by your house’s microclimates. In short, warm air from your climate-controlled home rises out through your roof, warming and melting the wintry precipitation that has collected there. That melted snow and ice runs down your eaves and collects around your gutters and the rims of your roof. Since the heat is concentrated in the center of your roof, the water that runs down your eaves tends to freeze again once it gets to the gutters, creating a rim of ice known as an “ice dam”. As more and more fluid gets added to the ice dam, it runs over the sides and creates the beautiful hanging draperies and icicles that enchant the imagination. It also adds weight to the edges of the roof, tearing down gutters and shingles, and in some cases causes the water to back up into the house, causing a signature pattern of water damage, mildew growth, and general paint failure. Paint failure caused by ice dams is so common and so distinct that the trained eye can diagnose it within seconds.
If you suspect that you have paint failure caused by ice dams, or if you notice ice dams on the rims of your roof and are concerned that water damage might soon follow, Blue Door Painters estimators are thoroughly trained in spotting and mitigating this unique problem. In addition to repairing any existing water damage and repainting the problem area, there are certain steps you can take to prevent damage from ice dams in the future:
1. Check the insulation in your roof. Improperly insulated roofing is a leading cause of ice dams, because the snow will only melt if a sufficient amount of your household’s heat escapes to melt it. Ensuring that your roof is properly insulated is a wise idea anyway, because it will impact your heating bill.
2. Consider adding a roofing ventilation system. Soffit-to-ridge ventilation systems are some of the most effective additions to a roof that keep it cold enough to avoid snowmelt, although retrofitting existing roofs with this kind of surface can be challenging.
3. Reinforce the waterproofing around the rims of your roof. This can be done from the interior or the exterior, and will prevent the water from entering your house even if an ice dam does form (although it won’t save your gutter and shingles from the mechanical damage caused by the weight of the ice dam). Just be aware that the water will collect and rise above the waterproofing section if it is not escaping into your house, so you should waterproof a larger area than you expect to see damaged.
Managing Snow Removal
Three words: Winter Weather Plan. (photo by Maggie Smith)
Winter storms can be absolutely beautiful. Overnight, your neighborhood is transformed from a mundane grid of streets lined with houses to an ethereal, inhuman landscape of delicate white and silver. All the children are outside laughing, and you see more of your neighbors than at any other time (except for maybe the beginning of Spring barbecue season!), as they emerge from their homes to inspect the drifts in their driveways and icicles hanging down off the power lines.
Unfortunately, winter storms can also be one of life’s greatest hassles. Because at some point, as much as you might want to prolong the moments where you get to play in the snow and sit by the fire drinking cocoa, your regular life’s responsibilities demand you return your attention to them. Groceries need to be purchased, you need to get back to work, the kids need to be reminded that they need to get their project done because school won’t be closed forever. And when you do start plugging back in, the snow that initially protected you from having to deal with life’s responsibilities now becomes an extremely tedious obstacle that makes all of those responsibilities infinitely more complicated.
So it’s a good idea to have a plan for dealing with large volumes of snow in place before that snow actually hits. Thinking about all of the things you’re going to need, and how you plan to get them if the roads are blocked and the power goes out, makes the transition from winter wonderland to real life go much more smoothly.
Blue Door Painters Suggestions for a Winter Weather Plan:
1. Decide where you are going to leave your car, and park it there before the storm hits. Leaving your car on the side of the road makes it harder for the snowplows to get through, and it also makes it so that your car gets buried under a tough, compressed wall of plowed snow. Park your car in a driveway if you have one, or up on the sidewalk. If you’re particularly clever, you’ll find a place to park your car on a more major road that is within walking distance of your house, because that road will probably get plowed before yours will.
2. Pick your route through your yard, and prepare to keep it cleared. Outdoor landscaping features, like decks and patios, should suffer no harm from being covered with snow – but it is important to have a safe, clear route from your door to your sidewalk, and to keep that route clear. Once you decide on your route, shovel it (and your sidewalk!) regularly as the snow is falling, and treat it with environmentally friendly ice-melting chemicals so that your shoveling job never gets too burdensome, and your route isn’t too slippery.
3. Hire a snow removal company. Blue Door Painters, as well as many other snow removal companies in the Washington, DC area, can offer you a contract at the beginning of the winter to come by your house and shovel you out whenever there is a major storm. The benefit of contracting at the beginning of the winter is that you don’t have to wait until a storm actually hits – when your phones might be down, and you without power – to call somebody up.
4. Get your interior ready. If you lose power, how are you going to stay warm? How are you going to see at night? How are you going to communicate with the outside world? For warmth, whether your solution is a fireplace, a generator, or a whole bunch of blankets, you want to make sure that you are stocked, and you know where everything is, before the storm hits. For light, you want to make sure that your flashlights have fresh batteries and are handy, and that you know where your candles and lanterns are, so you aren’t fumbling for them in the dark. And for communication, you should make sure your mobile devices are fully charged before the storm hits, and keep them off when not in use so that you can keep the charge. It is also sensible to fill your car(s) with gas prior to a storm hitting, as cars can be used both for heat (though make sure the exhaust pipe is clear of snow!) and for power (if you have a car charger), provided they are full of gas. Finally, hit the grocery store before the crowds do, and focus on things you can make even if the power goes out and you lose the use of your microwave.
5. Communicate your plans. You want to tell anyone who matters what you plan to do if you’re snowed in; your boss, your lunch date, etc., so that you don’t have to spend a lot of time scrambling around to reach them if the power goes out and correspondence becomes difficult.
Challenges and Benefits of Remodeling in the Winter
There are some benefits to remodeling in the winter. (photo by Simon Howden)
There are many reasons not to remodel in the winter. The harsher the elements, the more environmental challenges are posed to an exterior job. Exposure to extreme winter elements makes new coatings and other work so vulnerable to failure that most contractors (Blue Door Painters included) postpone exterior projects until mid-March, when temperatures become more stable. Interior projects, though protected from the elements by climate control, require you to give up some of your indoor space – and in the winter, when the outdoors isn’t a nice place to be, losing access to a portion of your interior space can be extra stressful. Added risk, added inconvenience: the challenges of remodeling in the winter provide such a clear and obvious deterrent that it is no surprise that very few people take on a remodeling project during this season.
So what are the benefits? In a nutshell, the benefit is that very few people take on a remodeling project during this season.
What this means for your project, is that you will get more attention – and more opportunity for savings – from everyone involved, all along the supply chain. The stores selling supplies will be doing less business, and may be running slow seasonal sales. The contractor working on your project will undoubtedly be running fewer jobs, and will be available to focus only on you, therefore ensuring that you get maximal attention. For remodeling projects that involve complex supplies, there is likely to be a much shorter wait time to order the necessary parts in the winter versus in the other three seasons (when everyone else is remodeling). Finally, many contractors, Blue Door Painters included, offer special discount incentives for customers willing to offer work during the slow season.
In addition to saving money and benefiting from the special care that comes from being the center of attention, you will have your space all ready to enjoy when the warm weather finally hits. While it is certainly a trade-off, since you have to spend some time being less comfortable indoors during the winter (when you can’t go anywhere else), when the warm weather hits and you want to start focusing on other things (like throwing barbecues and going camping), you won’t have your remodeling project hanging over your shoulder anymore. It will be all over and done with – with extra care and at a fraction of the cost – for you and your guests to enjoy. Which is enough of a reason to balance all the downsides.
How Can I Tell if My Wall is Insulated?
An example of the many areas insulation is used when sealing a typical building hallway.
How to Check for Insulation In Exterior Walls From Washington, DC Area Drywall Experts
It’s February 8. It took a while to get cold this winter – back in November, it was balmy enough that you started to wonder if maybe there was something to the whole global warming theory. But by February 8, it has officially been cold for over a month and a half. You haven’t spent much time in either of your downstairs bedrooms for about as long. Never mind that the larger of the two bedrooms is supposed to be your office; you’ve been finding yourself curled up on the couch in the living room with your laptop on your days to work from home. The other bedroom – a guest room with beautiful windows that you like to read in during the summer – is basically a glorified closet at this point, the bed piled with extra toilet paper from the Costco sale and unwanted Christmas gifts that you haven’t found happy homes for yet.
The problem is that those two rooms are just impossible to get warm. Never mind that your gas bill is over $200, and the upper floor of your cape cod is unbearably hot unless you dress like you’re at the beach; those two bedrooms linger in the low 60s/high 50s no matter how hard you crank the heat.
If you live in an older home, your problem may very well be that the exterior walls aren’t insulated. Ideally, in between the exterior particleboard and the interior drywall, you should have a layer of insulation. It could be batts of fiberglass (the fluffy pink stuff) or rock wool, or it could be loose fill – a kind of confetti of paper, fiberglass, or rock wool that fills up all the cavities in between the “bread” of the interior and exterior boarding – or it could be sprayed-in foam. With something other than dead air in between the layers of wall, your rooms should hold their heat even against the coldest weather. Without such a buffering layer, however, your rooms are probably doomed to stay chilly until the earth circles around its orbit far enough to make the warm weather come back.
How can you tell if your walls have insulation in them? The way your room holds heat can give you a strong clue (i.e., if it doesn’t hold its heat, it’s probably not insulated), but if you want to know for sure, the only way is to open the drywall and take a look. Ideally, you want to remove drywall in a space where it will do the least damage to the look of the room; around a piece of window trim or a light fixture. If you remove only a small amount of drywall, it will be tricky to get a good look, but if you remove a larger piece, you will need to have it replaced. Obviously, only the exterior walls need to be checked; there is no purpose to insulating the interior walls, unless you are concerned about soundproofing. If the insulation is in there, you will be able to see it.
And if it isn’t? You might want to consider adding insulation. It can be blown or sprayed in through small cracks cut in your drywall, or your drywall can be removed completely so that batting insulation can be installed. It all depends on how much of a procedure you are willing to go through, and how efficient you want your newly insulated walls to be – batting insulation tends to be more efficient, but it costs more and takes longer to install. The crew you hire to install your new insulation should be certified and trained to work with both insulation and drywall, and should be able to advise you on your options. And when your new insulation is finally installed (or when you cut a hole in your drywall and find that there’s already some in there, and that your room is cold because there’s something wrong with your HVAC), and you decide you need some patching up and a new paint job, give Blue Door Painters a call. That freezing cold bedroom could turn into your new favorite winter den.
How Can I Protect My Deck From Snow?
Protect your deck and beware of rime ice!
Tips for winter deck care from Washington, DC / Northern Virginia area painting and deck staining contractor.
Early in the morning, you peak out the window to behold a winter wonderland. Your front lawn is a pristine sea of sparkling white. Your sidewalk is a pristine sea of sparkling white. Your back deck is a pristine sea of sparkling white….
Wait a minute: Is that okay?
Without protection, decks take a beating from the elements. Heat and cold, sun and rain, will all weather your deck at an accelerated rate. All four seasons bring unique challenges to exposed wood: summer brings heat and sun, spring brings excessive rain and drastic temperature changes, and fall brings the tannins of all the fallen leaves. Winter brings frosty cold – and with it, the great array of cold-weather precipitation: snow, ice, and sleet.
Of these, ice rime is the only one that you really need to worry about. Snow and sleet will add moisture to the deck, and cold temperatures will take their toll, but nothing acute will go wrong during a snowstorm, no matter how many inches of snow you get. Decks are very strong, and can survive even a serious blizzard. Ice rime is a different creature, however. Without proper finish to the wood, a solid layer of ice can work its way into cracks and pores in the wood, and the expansion and contraction that comes with freezing and thawing can lead to splintering. A good deck sealing job in the fall can go a long way to protect against this situation. If sealing or resealing your deck is a job that you put off for the spring, however, and you look out your window and want to clear a layer of ice from your deck, (or if you would like to be able to safely traverse it), you should follow these tips:
1. Do not chop ice with a shovel; the blade of the shovel can damage the wood
2. Melt the ice with rock salt, calcium chloride, or an environmentally friendly alternative
3. Shovel any snow, slush, or other wintry debris with a plastic shovel, using strokes that move along the boards, not cutting across them (the edge of the shovel may catch on the edges of the boards and damage them)
Generally speaking, unless you get a large tree trunk coming down, a single winter weather event will not be sufficient to damage your deck, so if you want to leave it as a pristine winter wonderland, go ahead. It is the cumulative effect of all four seasons that wears out a deck that hasn’t been properly stained and sealed. If this is something you find yourself worrying about this winter, why not consider staining it when the weather gets better in the spring? It might do wonders for your deck’s beauty and durability – and, next winter, for your peace of mind.
Winter Decoration
Full-spectrum lights mimic sunlight, covering the electromagnetic spectrum from infrared to near-ultraviolet.
Environmental psychologists and Feng Sui practitioners, coming from two extremely different intellectual traditions, tend to agree on two things:
1) the winter is the most challenging season for human psychology, and
2) the way that an interior is designed can play a strong role in mitigating the impact of this difficult season.
What makes the winter so hard? Two factors seem to contribute: first, that special brand of claustrophobia known as “stir-crazy”; and second, the lack of sunlight. It’s not the cold that truly unsettles us, according to recent medical research – it’s the darkness. The human tendency to get depressed and lethargic in the winter has been studied extensively under the diagnostic name Seasonal Affect Disorder (SAD), and psychologists have had some success in treating SAD with prolonged exposure to full-spectrum light. At the same time, practitioners of the ancient Chinese art of Feng Shui, which is the careful arrangement of interior environments to maximize personal success and fulfillment, have developed techniques to bring what they call yang energy (warm, lively energy) into an interior to balance out the surplus of yin energy (cool, introspective energy) that occurs during the winter. Using the combined wisdom of these two traditions, Blue Door Painters has assembled some simple decorative tips for weathering the winter.
1. Change your interior decor to match the season. Both practically and aesthetically (not to mention energetically, if you’re a Feng Shui enthusiast), arrangements that are designed for the summer -harmonizing with the intense light, warmth, openness, and activity of the long days and sticky heat – will clash with the needs of the winter. In the summer, you want coolness to balance the warmth; in the winter, you want the opposite, and if you keep the exact same decor all year round, you will feel the tension. Even if you only make minor changes in your interior decor to acknowledge the changing seasons, you will benefit psychologically.
2. Maximize light. Now is the time to bring out a few more lamps and mirrors, and to mix in some light-valued colors that will capture and enhance the visible light in your interior spaces. Focus on full-spectrum lights for your primary illumination, because they interact differently with your body’s physiology and protect you more thoroughly against SAD. For corners and nooks in your home that tend to stay in shadows, now is a good time to bring out small lamps, candles, and mirrors, so that the whole of your interior can come alive with light. And never underestimate the power of a skillfully placed mirror, or light-colored, lively painting or wall hanging: direct light sources aren’t the only way to spread light around a room. If you are considering a repaint in the winter, focus on the light-valued colors that will capture and hold whatever natural light the room collects.
3. Maximize warmth. Adding warm-colored accents helps the yang energy circulate in your interior, which is a good antidote to winter’s lethargy. Red, orange, yellow, tan, and brown (provided the brown has more red than blue mixed in) have all been demonstrated to give a psychological impression of warmth, regardless of their actual, physical temperature. Pillows, rugs, draperies, bedcovers, artwork, and even wall and window trim in warm colors can bring life into a room in the heavy winter months.
4. Make it cozy. While you want to maximize light, you also want to make the home feel secure and protected against winter’s cold. This might mean adding some extra layers between your interior and the outside world; heavier draperies, thicker rugs, comforters draped over couches and loveseats, can all enhance the impression of warmth and protection. Having a window open while the sun is shining enhances the light in the room, but having it framed in thick, warm-colored curtains, which can be drawn shut when the light outside grows weak and starts to fade, creates a subtle sense of security.
5. Incorporate nature. We miss the outdoor world when we’re stuck inside, even if we aren’t big outdoor enthusiasts. A few extra houseplants, or skillfully placed paintings or photographs of natural settings, can help us feel more connected to nature and to the coming activity of spring. If the pictures depict winter landscapes, all the better; that way the beauty of winter can be celebrated from the warmth of the indoors.
Warm Colors for the Cold Season
Winter Color Consultation Advice from Northern Virginia / Washington DC Painting Contractor
Pop quiz: what color makes a space warmer? Black, or red?
If you answered “black”, then you have a good understanding of basic optical physics. Dark colors absorb more heat than light colors, and therefore make a space physically warmer.
If you answered “red”, however, then you are tapping into a much more subtle, psychological concept of ‘temperature’. In study after study, it has been discovered that the colors at the long end of the spectrum – red, orange, and yellow – seem “warmer” to the majority of people, while the colors at the opposite end of the spectrum – green, blue, indigo, and violet – seem “cooler”. Although the hue doesn’t have any actual bearing on the physics of heat absorption, the psychological impact of a color’s ‘temperature’ can play an important role during the winter season.
Using warm colors in your interiors can go a long way toward warming up a space and raising spirits during the long, dark, cold months. Red is a hot, feisty color that raises energy, encourages liveliness, and stimulates the appetite. Orange is fun and wild, invoking playful scenes from the hot months of summer and similarly raising the energy in the room. Yellow is sunny and cheerful, mimicking the expansive feel of a sunny day. All three colors can slightly increase heart rate, making you feel warmer even when the physical temperature stays the same.
Where do these temperature associations come from? They probably come from our ancestral experiences in nature. Red, for example, is typically used as an attention-getting signal in the animal kingdom, whether the attention is sought in order to attract or to warn. Many poisonous creatures are red – but so are delicious, edible berries. Red (along with orange and yellow) is also the color of fire. So the human instincts are designed to sit up and take notice around the color red – which feels exciting and therefore ‘warming’. Orange has a similar set of natural associations, and yellow has an even more direct connection to feelings of heat: it is the color of warm sunlight. Black, on the other hand, although it is physically the best heat absorber, is paradoxically associated with night, which has dark, mysterious, and cool connotations, rather than invoking warmth.
How can you use a warm color palette to warm your spirits? Use warm colors to paint kitchens, dining rooms, sun rooms, and family rooms – social areas where people gather to eat, drink, talk, and while away the cold hours of winter. Even on the coldest day, a warm color scheme will enliven your space and create a sensation of heat and comfort even on the darkest, coldest nights Old Man Winter has to offer.
Tips for Exterior Holiday Decorations
Tips on Hanging Exterior Christmas/Holiday Lights from Washington, DC Contractor
Let’s face it; December is a difficult time of year. The days are extremely short, the weather has finally quit the glorious crisp coolness of fall and has settled into the ugly, cold, soggy slog of winter. You have to cram yourself back into old coats, hats, slippers, and gloves, and the worst part of it is, you know you won’t get a break from all the extra gear for months. Darkness and coldness stretches before you.
Even if you find the holidays stressful, you have to admit that driving up your street in the evening and seeing all of the beautiful creations your neighbors have made out of holiday lights sparkling on your street brings a little bit of cheer into the bleakness. Especially when it starts to get dark around 4:30 in the afternoon, as it does in December in the Washington, DC/Northern Virginia area, the extra light and beauty makes a big difference.
If you want to add to the holiday cheer with your own seasonal decorations, but don’t know where to start, take heart. We have provided a few tips from our reservoir of expertise. Blue Door Painters offers a full service holiday decoration procedure, so we can take the more complicated aspects of your projects off your hands for an affordable price – but in the mean time, consider these five tips and you are sure to have a front yard that will wow and warm the hearts of your neighbors.
One: Review your home and landscaping for its decorative potential. Every style of architecture and landscape lends itself to a unique form of decoration, and you should bring out the strengths in your exterior with your holiday decorating in the same way that you would bring out the strengths with a new paint job. That means that you should check all the surfaces of the face of your home, and determine what would look beautiful when covered with lights. Any structural lines are natural candidates for adornment: eaves, windows, porches, handrails, and gables all provide interesting planes for the eye to follow when decorated with twinkling lights. Height is an important consideration, as any holiday decorating will look more sophisticated if reaches high. Consider height both in your architecture and in your landscaping; are there any high trees that can be decorated? Are there any interesting lines in the landscaping that can be emphasized, like walkways, repeating shrubbery, small conifers, or exterior lights? If there are large expanses of lawn, you might want to consider creating a winter or nativity scene.
Two: Pick a color palette. Holiday lights look beautiful in all colors, but if you want to have the most sophisticated composition, you should pick a color combination and keep it constant. You could use all multicolor lights, all white, or pick a few solid colors or patterns and alternate where you string them so that you highlight important aspects of your architecture and landscaping. Remember that with light, “cool” colors like blue, green, and violet tend to come to the foreground, while “warm” colors, like red, orange, and yellow tend to fade to the background. You want to bring out the clean lines of your architecture and landscaping the most prominently, and then create intricate detail in the spaces in between.
Three: Plan the project out and gather the necessary equipment. Hanging holiday lights is not complicated, but it can be frustrating and tedious if you are unprepared. Here is what you will need:
- A good ladder, that reaches to the appropriate height
- A large bucket with a handle, to carry the strings of lights up high
- A tool belt equipped with hammer, long, thin nails, a coil of florist’s wire, wire cutters, duct tape, and insulated gloves.
You will also want to make sure that you have all of the lights you need before you start the project, and that you have a clear plan for your composition. That will eliminate the frustration of getting halfway through the project and then having to go back out to the store.
Four: Hang the lights. Figure out where you will be plugging the string of lights in, and make sure that your outlet has the capability to run power through your entire string. Start at that side, with the lights not yet plugged in, and move methodically through your composition. Put up nails on smooth surfaces where you can’t find anywhere to hook them, and use the florists wire to secure them. Do not reach too far to either side of the ladder, because it isn’t safe; go down to the bottom and move the ladder over to get those hard-to-reach areas.
After you are done decorating the face of your house, move out into the lawn, keeping track of how all the lights will ultimately connect to the power source. Once you are all finished, you get to do the fun part: pull the ladder away, clean up any debris, and plug your lights in! Voila! Holiday cheer for the whole neighborhood.
