Can I Paint PVC Trim

So when we when we start this conversation about PVC, PVC trim, and painting, immediately every person I've ever talked to, even reps at the major manufacturers have said, no don't paint it, just find an application to use it white. And that was until we started working with Versatex. And that's what I have here is I have their cellular PVC board. It's never going to be affected by water. It's never going to swell in a way that we can't account for and design our trim for. And it really is kind of a pinnacle product for durability and exterior applications. Until you have black on the outside of the house or until you have basalt gray from our Schuko windows that we're trying to match. And so we had a little bit of a moment of panic where like we have a trim that we like using, but we normally use it in a white application. I'd like to use it here at our Spring Valley Aero project. What are we going to do? So I called the manufacturer. I called Versatex and our rep said, you want to buy AquaSureTech paint. And this AquaSureTech paint, it comes in two different products. It comes in a brushable or rollable and it comes in a sprayable. They do recommend you spray it. You're going to get a better product. But what manufacturer doesn't recommend that you spray their paint rather than roll it? Like you always get a better product if you spray it. It's going to lay out flatter. It's going to cover more evenly. The interesting thing about this paint versus a regular latex or a regular oil-based paint that we might use on the outside of the house is this paint does two things that are special over a latex paint. Number one, it adheres to the PVC, not in the film layer application that most latex paints would create, where you have a substrate and you lay on a layer of paint and they bond to each other, not a physical bond, but a chemical bond rather. So if you think about that, when you put the paint on the PVC, you're taking the PVC that's one thing, the paint that's another thing. You're putting the two together and they actually leave the process a third thing. They're chemically bonded together. It doesn't mean that it's not an unscratchable, durable, forever paint, but it does mean that you won't have the same issues that you might with a latex where you can get a scratch in it and that paint just seems to peel right off because you're dealing with a film layer finish versus a chemical bond. So that's like, for me, that's the number one most important thing. I don't know if you can see it here. This is actually a color that's light enough that we didn't need this paint on the color spectrum, but we still chose to use it because it bonds chemically to our PVC trim. So this is our lap-siding color and we have our outside corners painted with this light mist from James Hardy. This is a color match to James Hardy that AquaSureTech was able to provide us with. The other exterior color that we have here besides our basalt gray windows is black and this is our aluminum soffit black. So we have some metalwork, we have some Versatex trim, and we have some exterior doors that are steel that are all getting painted with this color. And again, we have that chemical bond that we're able to create between the substrate and the surface. And that chemical bond is going to keep this paint from just chipping off if it gets nicked or something like that. But the really cool thing that we're going to show you today is kind of the reason that you can't buy vinyl windows that are black. PVC windows that are black don't exist. Hey guys, I have to interrupt real quick. That's right, I'm interrupting my own video. When I shot this video about AquaSureTech paint, I misspoke. What I'm actually trying to say when I say in the past you haven't been able to buy black PVC windows, what I'm trying to say is before this company started making this paint, PVC windows that were black would be a very difficult challenge. You actually can buy black PVC windows now and a lot of them are painted with this paint. So you can thank AquaSureTech for making this paint and providing you with design choices for vinyl windows as well. So I just wanted to clarify, I felt like maybe I misspoke there that it sounded like you just flat out couldn't get black PVC windows. What I'm trying to say is prior to this paint existing, it wasn't a reliable product and now they are. So back to the video. The PVC gets too hot and it warps, it can distort and the same will happen with any of the major manufacturers of PVC today if you're just going to paint them black with an oil-based or a latex paint. And so therefore, we're going to use AquaSureTech paint. It has a really high emissivity, meaning it is going to get rid of as much temperature as possible. I'm told that this paint was developed for marine applications by the military so that they can put a boat in the middle of the ocean where there are no trees to shade that boat and keep it cool, paint that boat a dark color and it not get hot to the touch so that the sailor or the seaman that is on that boat can put their hand down on the rail and it not be like one of those burn you type moments. So the interesting thing here is what are we going to get with this IR thermometer when we point it at our PVC? So let's do that now and we'll come back and talk about why it is, what it is and how we got to our results. Okay, so we set up a sample test here that we just went outside and shot. We laid these out in the sun. I have five different boards here. These are all Versatex PVC. They're all leftover off cuts from the Spring Valley Aero project here. First, we have a plain piece of PVC that has had nothing done to it whatsoever. This would be our control group if you remember middle school science class. Next, we have a board that has been painted with the latex paint that James Hardy Corporation provides as a color match. Then we have the AquaSureTec in that light mist color match color. We have our Benjamin Moore latex that we would use on exterior that we're actually using on like our metal columns here and things like that. And then we have our SureTec's color match black for that. They all have two coats. They all were applied by me. They were applied relatively close to the same time as each other. They've all been drying the same amount of time. So you'll notice that the first thing that we did was we set these out in the sun and we shot every one of them with the infrared thermometer. And we were getting readings that do show that the AquaSureTec paint is a couple degrees on average less than what the other paint is. And that couple degrees may or may not be, may or may not seem like a big difference. But in reality, all it takes is a couple degrees. If our board can run a few degrees cooler, and that decreases the likelihood of it ever having any warping or twisting issues, that's all we can ask for. We're never going to get the, well, let's look at the black. When we did the black, we were about a five degree difference. And the black with the AquaSureTec was only a few degrees warmer than our control white group. So, I mean, we're running at a temperature that hopefully is fine. We don't know until the system sits out in the sun, but we've yet to have any problems yet. And we've had stuff painted for a few weeks now, and it's been in the 195 to 100 degree range here. And they've been in direct sun, so we haven't had any problems yet. The interesting thing, though, is I sent these, and I sent this product to a friend the other day. And that friend happens to be Peter Yost. If you don't know Peter Yost, look him up. Because when it comes to building science, he knows his stuff. And he explained to me that we can't just use the infrared thermometer to take a surface temperature reading of this item because the emissivity of the surface is different in each paint. Now, it works in our favor to reflect more heat. But to get an accurate reading, we took regular old 3M masking tape. We stretched it across all five of the boards here. And then we retook their temperature. And that gives us a control that we're then taking the temperature of something that reflects the heat in the same exact way on each board. So we have to leave the tape on there long enough that the temperature of our hand pushing it on is gone. But then after that, we're reading the temperature that this tape has been able to absorb. And a similar surface with a similar emissivity. So think of it as if we were to shoot this at a piece of glass versus a piece of drywall, if they were the same temperature, they would actually give us different readings because the glass emits the heat differently than the drywall or a piece of stone might. So you have to have that control of that piece of masking tape is the cheapest and easiest way we can do it on a job site. So what did we find? We found that the paint operates as claimed. That it is a chemical bond. It doesn't scratch off as easy. We actually didn't show that, but I can't scratch it with my thumbnail. I bet I could scratch it with my knife. Let's just test it and see if we can. I can, but it's not necessarily easy. If you're grinding on your house with a key or a knife or a rock like that, I'm guessing whatever surface you have is not going to last. And that it does run cooler as advertised than the latex or oil-based paints that aren't made for this. And our black was only a couple degrees warmer than our unpainted white. So I think that this paint, this company, Aqua Sure-Tex, specifically paired with the Versatex stuff that we like. So I'm going to say Versatex. That opens up a whole lot of possibilities. I will say from a production standpoint, it does take two to three coats. Just like any other paint, it is a little more runny and it is a little more challenging. But if you have an adequate painter, you're not going to hear any complaints. You might hear a complaint the first time. Okay, it's a little runny. We liked it. I didn't have any problems with it. I'm really pleased with it so far. So this is one of those things that not very many people know about. Aqua Sure-Tex paint, when you're painting PVC, a dark color. And I'm going to say, even when you're painting it a light color, something that's going to give you that chemical bond rather than just a film finish. Why not? It's a little bit of money. You got to special order it. But better things cost money and better projects have more planning. So until next time, don't forget to check out the rest of the week. Every week, Matt Reisinger, Steve Basic, Wade Paquin, and Brent Hull, they're all putting up amazing content on The Build Show Network. I'm really happy that they still let me be involved every week. I'm really happy that we get to share cool and unique stuff like this with you. Don't forget to check me out on Instagram. It's jake.bruton on Instagram. Until next week, thanks for watching The Build Show.