Who does exterior painting in Stow, MA?
EA Paint & Light Carpentry, Inc. does exterior painting in Stow, MA, from Northborough, about 10 miles away. The median Stow home was built in 1975 and 58% predate 1980, so the preparation drives the price more than the square footage. One insured crew paints and replaces rotted wood on the same written estimate. Call (508) 466-5846.
What Stow houses are built out of — and why it changes the price
Stow has about 2,613 homes across 17.3 square miles of Middlesex County, and the median one was built in 1975. That makes it a largely seventies and early-eighties town: splits, raised ranches and garrison colonials, with rough-sawn cedar or T1-11 plywood siding and the first generation of pressure-treated decks. 58% of the housing here went up before 1980 and 83% of the buildings are detached single-family homes.
That is not trivia. It decides which products go on the wall, how many hours the preparation takes, and whether the job is governed by the federal lead rule. An estimate for exterior painting that does not start from the age of the house is a guess with a number attached.
Exterior Painting on a seventies and early-eighties house
Chalk has to be bound, not painted over
Run a hand down an old oil-based wall of this age and it comes away powdery. That chalk is a release layer — paint over it and the new coat is stuck to dust. It gets washed back and then sealed with a penetrating bonding primer, which is a step that costs money and is invisible, and is exactly why a cheap exterior fails in year three.
T1-11 and rough-sawn cedar
Plywood siding of this era delaminates along the grooves and swells at the bottom edge where it was cut short of the flashing. Rough-sawn cedar drinks two to three times the paint a smooth board does, and any estimate that prices it the same has not looked at the house.
Decks that were new when the house was
The first generation of pressure-treated decking is now fifty years old. Sound framing under failed boards is common and worth keeping; failed framing under sound boards is common too, and more dangerous. Both get checked before anything is quoted.
Free on-site estimate in Stow, with the prep itemized rather than assumed.
Lead paint in Stow
About 58% of Stow's homes predate 1980, so on most jobs here the age of the house decides how the work runs before anything else does. Federal law treats housing built before 1978 as lead-bearing, and disturbing paint in one means contained prep, HEPA extraction and wet methods rather than dry scraping. It is slower and it is not optional. Ask any contractor bidding your job how they intend to handle it — the answer tells you a great deal.
What is included
- Clapboard, cedar shingle and shake siding
- Vinyl and aluminum siding (paintable formulas)
- Trim, corner boards, window casings and sills
- Soffits, fascia, rake boards and frieze
- Front doors, storm doors and shutters
- Porches, columns, railings and ceilings
- Garage doors and overhangs
- Foundation, bulkheads and lattice
How far Stow is
Stow is about 10 miles from Northborough — about 25–30 minutes out. That is inside the radius the whole company is built around: close enough that the crew starts on time, comes back the next day, and can stop by after the job to look at something. Estimates here are free and there is no minimum.
Written, itemized, fixed price. Nothing discovered in week three.
The rest of what we do in Stow
- Interior Painting in Stow
- Light Carpentry & Wood Repair in Stow
- Cabinet Painting & Refinishing in Stow
- Power Washing & Deck Staining in Stow
Or see everything on the Stow page, and the full exterior painting page for how we work generally.