School Paint Maintenance: Why You Need It And How To Do It

Pristine paintwork says a lot about a school. It’s a sign to parents that their children are in safe hands, and a sign to teachers that their skills are valued. It also lowers the risks of emergency maintenance costs and the litigation that can follow quickly after. 

A school building maintenance plan that covers paintwork can boost the return on any general maintenance investments. 

Here’s why a school painting maintenance schedule is essential, and how to manage one efficiently:

Ignoring Your School Painting Maintenance Can Cost You Money

You’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone who admits to being shallow, but the way a school looks can impact the attitudes of students, teachers, parents and investors. The appearance of your school building directly impacts whether or not a new patron invests, a top-achieving student enrolls, or an outstanding teacher applies for a position. After all, it’s the first thing they see when arriving for an on-location visit.

But up-to-date school paint maintenance offers more than just potential profit, it also safeguards against higher maintenance costs. Ignoring painting maintenance can lead to moisture build-up, leaks or damp taking hold. It can also exacerbate wall cracks, making building crack repair an unpleasant and potentially costly priority if left unattended for too long.

Key Benefits Of School Painting Maintenance

Let’s dive a little deeper into the benefits of proactively maintaining the paintwork of your school buildings:

• Slows building deterioration. Paint is a building’s first barrier of defence against environmental damage. Regular school paint maintenance can slow natural deterioration through sun or moisture exposure.

• Saves your team time. You’ll save time on all the maintenance that regular painting can help reduce or avoid altogether. Further, being proactive means you can plan and work more efficiently when it is time for a fresh lick of paint. 
• Minimises health and safety risks. A proactive school painting schedule ensures you can safely get the job done outside of school hours. This reduces the health and safety risks to staff and students, without disrupting the teaching and learning day. 

Related: Been meaning to clean up some peeling paintwork? Some school painting just can’t wait. We share seven simple solutions to fix your peeling paint problem in this blog post. 

Check out our guide to school maintenance programs here. 

How Often Your Buildings Need Painting 

A wide range of factors govern how often you need to repaint your school buildings to maintain the integrity of the finish. Generally, you can follow the below guideline:

• Exterior walls. The plastered exterior on average size buildings, with average weather exposure, should be repainted every 5–7 years.
• Interior walls. School walls withstand extraordinary amounts of wear and tear. That’s why they should be repainted at least every 2–3 years.

However, a building’s age, substrates and location all play a role and may affect this schedule. A no-obligation site assessment or quote is the most reliable way to determine how often you need to paint (and if you need to start work immediately). 

Signs It’s Time To Repaint Your School Buildings, Immediately

Sometimes it’s unwise to wait for a painting maintenance schedule to kick-in. If you spot any of the following signs around your school, schedule painting maintenance as a priority:

• Fading colour
• Mildew and mould growth
• Cracking and blistering
• Persistent stains or dirt (not removed through pressure-washing) 

How First Response Maintenance Solutions Can Help

A sure-fire way to stay on top of your paintwork is to outsource it to professionals. While your in-house team could do a fantastic job, building a long-term relationship with qualified contractors can relieve you of the planning work (and even the litigation risks) as well. 

We offer proactive school maintenance programs that do more than just take the stress of painting maintenance off your hands. Find out what they entail, and how to make a smooth transition to a managed program, on our free resource page, The Quick Guide To School Maintenance Programs.