Is There a Quick and Easy Fix for My Paint-Chipped Porch?

June 11, 2012 1:36 PM

I need to paint my previously painted cement block porch while putting in the least money, time, and effort. What can be painted over a chipped paint job without it chipping again?

I live in a house where the previous residents painted the front and back porch a terrible light green color. Not only did I want to paint it a neutral tan color just to look better, but I was hoping that it would seal up the chipping that was occurring. I even took some time to try to scrape up the chipped parts and I put down some heavy duty plaster to help seal some of the really bad sections. I did that during the summer of 2009 and, to my chagrin, I noticed that the painted started to chip and peel just that winter when there was a lot of boot and water traffic on the porch. Argh!

I rent my house, but I like to do home improvement projects (and, also, I have a fair amount of pride of place). I want to paint my porch again without having to sand blast all of the old paint off of it or get on my hands and knees and scrape it all off. I just don't have the time or energy.

What I want to know is this: what will stick to chipped paint and not chip itself in just a few months? I am absolutely not averse to mixing up some cement and "painting" it on the porch. If it won't crack or chip, then I'll do it. I just want to know if something like that would work. Do any of you know what I could use? Would anything seal in chipped paint?

I have some before and after photos of the porch that I took in 2009. I put them on a Flickr site made specifically for my home projects so I could show my landlord what changes I made. (I hope it is okay for me to put the link in for the photo album.) You can see how the old green paint was chipping in the photos and how nice it looked after I painted it beige. Well, now the beige paint is chipping and it looks so bad because it's revealing the awful green paint underneath!

What would be the easiest solution? I honestly don't want to spend more than $40 on this (if I owned the home, it would be different story -- plus, I don't want to send my landlord a big bill for home improvements). I'm a grad student, I work, and I have about 83 other projects in the pipeline, so I am a little limited on time. Is there some quick and easy cosmetic solution for this?

Thanks so much!

posted by paperclip2000 to Home & Garden (5 answers total)

Anything you do on a $40 budget is going to be just as temporary as the work you did in 2009, if not more so. If the paint you already put down isn't sticking to the old paint beneath it, another layer on top of it isn't going to make it stick any better. Plaster wasn't a good idea if you were hoping for durability, and "painted on" cement isn't either.

Just roll on a quick coat of porch paint every year or two and call it done. If a neighbor has a pressure washer sitting around, borrow it and blow the loose stuff off before painting.
posted by jon1270 at 1:57 PM on June 11, 2012 [3 favorites]

They make clear and tinted epoxy for concrete floors - they can even go on top of paint even, although I'd clean up any chipped bits first (with a scraper and elbow grease, or a powerwasher).

It's going to be more than $40 though. To cover my 10'x40' porch cost about $200.
posted by muddgirl at 2:08 PM on June 11, 2012 [2 favorites]

Echoing jon1270, you need to use a pressure washer, or something similar to remove the chipped stuff. If you don't have access to one you could probably strap a couple of large metal bristled brushed to your shoes with some duct tape or something and shuffle across the whole thing for an hour or two. After all the chipping paint is removed, you NEED to use a paint formulated for concrete. If you don't count the cost of your shuffling/labor you can probably get this done for about $60 which is pretty close to your budget. A pressure washer will do the work for you though...
posted by Bohemia Mountain at 2:18 PM on June 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

I got that as advertised on TV pressure wand for $14 and it worked pretty well. I got some sanded cement floor paint and re-painted my cement walkway. I had two layers of awful paint on it. It looks gray and has lasted for two years now with no chipping.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 4:05 PM on June 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

The quick and easy fix is just to repeat what you have done in the past. Otherwise, you need to strip the painted surface back to bare concrete and start again, probably with an epoxy finish. For a rented home, better just to slap a coat of paint on every few years and save yourself a lot of cost and work. I note that there is at least one join in the concrete surface and you are gong to have a lot of trouble stopping paint from peeling along that crack.
posted by dg at 12:14 AM on June 12, 2012