Services
The four mountain systems
01
Cedar & shake, oiled not filmed
Mountain cedar wants to breathe: washed bright, never film-forming, then flooded in penetrating oil with UV blockers built for altitude. A plastic film on sun-beaten cedar is a peeling schedule you can set your watch by — oil is the maintenance, not the mistake.
02
Steel & fibre-cement, grip-primed
Siding that shrugs off wildfire season still needs the chemistry: zinc-rich primer at every bare patch, an epoxy bond coat, and a finish sprayed and back-brushed into the profile. Hail-tested film, valley-tested adhesion, colour held against the thin-air sun.
03
Stucco & render, elastomeric
Hairline cracks are the mountain’s signature on render; we chase them, fill them, and bridge the whole elevation in an elastomeric system that stretches with the freeze-thaw instead of cracking across it. Up here, elastomeric is the one coating that pays for itself.
04
Decks, rails & the west wind
Everything on the windward face takes four coats where the leeward takes three, post tops sealed twice against end grain, and rails brushed by hand — a sprayed rail at altitude mostly repaints the aspens. Slow-drying oils that a sub-zero night cannot shock.
The painting window runs June to September and the July board fills by April — snow-damage triage slots are held open all winter. (555) 715-8033 reaches the yard before it reaches a menu.
How a job runs
The rig, the crew, the system
One crew per house, start to sweep-out — the person who quoted your elevation is on the rig for it, and the day sheet records every coat the weather allowed.
The wash & the scrape
Every exterior starts with two days nobody photographs: pressure-washing to kill the UV-chalked film, scraping to sound coating, and rot-prone joints opened and dried. Nothing gets primed the day it got wet — the moisture meter, not the sunshine, says when.
The prime, tinted
Spot-priming in a tint close to the finish colour, so a January hail chip shows primer, not measles. The bond coat follows full-coverage, and the windward elevation gets its fourth coat written in — the system is priced for the weather it will actually meet.
The finish & the sweep
Finish sprayed and back-brushed at the wall’s pace between the afternoon thunderstorms, then a lamp walk of every elevation, the yard power-swept, and the two-winter warranty left on paper rather than as a promise.
Rates
The surface sheet
Priced by what we measure at the survey — surfaces, not square-footage guesses. Travel inside the valley is on the sheet, and the windward extra coat is a line, not a surprise.
Cedar & shake, per face$3.60 / sq ft
Wash, brighten, two floods of UV oil
Fibre-cement or steel siding$4.90 / sq ft
Zinc prime, epoxy bond, sprayed finish
Stucco, elastomeric system$5.40 / sq ft
Crack chase, fill, two-coat bridge
Trim, soffits & fascia$38 / linear ft
Scrape, prime, two topcoats; lead-safe
Deck, per square metre$71
Brightened, four coats windward, in oil
Rails & spindles, brushed$24 / linear ft
Hand work only — the gun stays home
Snow-damage triageby survey
Tarp inside 24 hours, primed inside the week
The two-winter warrantyincluded
On every system above, in writing
How it goes
Prep is the warranty
The same sequence on every elevation — the mountain sets the pace, and we learned decades ago not to argue with it.
Day 0
The altitude survey
Moisture meter on every elevation, chalk test on the old film, aspect noted — the west face is a different climate to the east, and the quote prices them differently.
Days 1–2
Wash & correct
UV chalk washed off, failing coating scraped to sound edges, and any rot opened, dried and quoted before a primer moves. Snow damage found here is priced here, in daylight.
Days 3–4
Prime & seal
Tinted spot-prime on every bare patch, frame joints sealed against driven snow, and the bond coat full-coverage. The windward elevation takes its extra coat now, written on the day sheet.
Final days
Finish & walk
Finish coats between the weather windows, a lamp walk of every elevation, and the yard swept. The warranty card is signed on the tailgate before the rig rolls.
Three painters before them painted over the mountain instead of for it. Clearlight oiled the cedar instead of filming it, and the gable that used to peel every third spring has now outlasted the neighbour’s newer paint job twice over. The two-winter card is in the drawer with the deed.
The wall
The valley, kept weatherproof
The two-winter guarantee
Any system we apply that fails inside two full mountain winters — peeling, chalking past spec, or cracking across our elastomeric — is redone in materials and labour, with no weather arguments. Winters up here are among the harshest tests any paint gets on this continent; the card would not say two if the system did not owe us five.
Fair questions
Why does altitude change the paint?
UV intensity rises roughly ten per cent every thousand feet, and the tins are tested near sea level. Up here pigments chalk and binders die early unless the system is chosen for it — UV-blocked oils, grip primers, elastomerics. The tin that lasts a decade on the plains flakes in four on a Sawtooth gable.
Oil or film on cedar — which, and why?
Penetrating oil, always, at this altitude: film-forming coats trap the sun’s heat against the wood and lift at the grain. Oil soaks in, protects from the inside, and re-coats in a day without scraping. The maintenance coat every four to six years is the cheapest exterior schedule in the valley.
Can you work in the shoulder seasons?
To the meter and the forecast: bond coats need dry substrate, finishes need surface temperature and a gap before the overnight freeze. We move days rather than trap damp under a film — a coat rushed ahead of a mountain night is a coat the freeze-thaw takes as an invitation.
What about ember-resistant finishes?
We specify and spray the ignition-resistant coatings the valley’s codes increasingly ask for — siding, soffits and decks alike. Same three-coat discipline, different chemistry, and the survey flags which surfaces your insurer cares about before you have to ask.
How fast is snow-damage triage?
Tarped within 24 hours of the call, all winter; substrate dried and assessed on the second visit; bare timber primed inside the week. A winter-exposed gable is how a paint job becomes a carpentry bill — the triage slots exist to stop that clock.
Tell us what the mountain did.
The survey is free out to the valley rim, the sheet prices every surface we measure, and the two-winter card is signed before the rig leaves the yard. crew@clearlightpaint.example