Resource
House painting glossary
The vocabulary that shows up in painting quotes and product sheets, defined plainly, including the Utah-specific terms around licensing, lead rules, and historic districts.
- Acrylic latex
- The standard water-based exterior and interior house paint. Modern 100 percent acrylic formulations flex with temperature swings, resist UV better than older vinyl-acrylic blends, and clean up with water. The default body and trim paint for Salt Lake Valley exteriors.
- Alkyd (oil-based) paint
- Solvent-based paint that cures to a hard film. Largely replaced by waterborne alkyds and acrylics for house painting, but still relevant when repainting surfaces that already carry old oil paint, since water-based coats need a bonding primer to stick to them.
- Waterborne alkyd
- A hybrid paint that handles like latex but cures hard like oil. The current standard for doors, trim, and cabinets: smooth leveling, tough film, low odor. Often specified for kitchen cabinet refinishing.
- Elastomeric coating
- A very thick, flexible coating for stucco and masonry that stretches across hairline cracks as the wall moves. Applied at several times the film thickness of ordinary paint. The trade-off is low breathability: on walls holding moisture it can trap water, so the wall condition decides whether elastomeric or a breathable masonry paint is right.
- Masonry paint (breathable)
- Acrylic paint formulated for stucco, brick, and concrete that lets water vapor escape the wall while shedding liquid water. The alternative to elastomeric when a stucco wall needs to dry outward.
- Primer
- The preparatory coat that bonds to the substrate and gives finish paint something to grip. Spot priming covers bare or repaired areas; full priming covers everything. Bare wood, chalky surfaces, stains, and glossy old finishes each call for a specific primer type, which is why quotes name the product.
- Bonding primer
- A primer engineered to grip difficult surfaces: glossy factory finishes, old oil paint, chalked aluminum siding, thermofoil cabinet doors. The difference between a cabinet or siding repaint that lasts and one that peels in sheets.
- Stain-blocking primer
- Primer that seals wood tannins, rust, smoke, and water stains so they cannot bleed through the finish coats. Cedar and redwood trim, common on mid-century Salt Lake homes, bleed tannin through ordinary primer.
- Chalking
- The powdery residue on old paint, visible when you rub a hand across it. UV breaks down the paint binder and leaves loose pigment. Salt Lake City's altitude accelerates it, especially on south and west walls. Chalk must be washed off and often primed over, because new paint applied over chalk sticks to the powder, not the wall.
- Efflorescence
- White mineral salts that migrate to the surface of brick, stucco, or concrete as water moves through the material. It signals moisture in the wall and must be removed and the source addressed before coating, or the new finish gets pushed off from behind.
- Freeze-thaw cycling
- The repeated swing of temperatures across the freezing point. Salt Lake City sees well over a hundred such swings in a typical winter. Water in caulk joints, paint film cracks, and masonry expands as it freezes, opening the gap a little more each cycle. The main reason caulk and film maintenance matter more here than in mild climates.
- UV degradation
- Sunlight breaking down paint binder and pigment, causing fade and chalking. Intensity rises with altitude, and at 4,300 feet Salt Lake City surfaces take a meaningfully higher UV dose than sea-level cities. Deep, saturated colors show it first.
- Back-rolling / back-brushing
- Following a spray application with a roller or brush while the paint is wet, working it into the surface texture. On rough siding, stucco, and fences, spraying alone leaves paint sitting on the high points; back-rolling pushes it into the surface for a proper bond.
- Cutting in
- Painting the precise edges, where wall meets ceiling, trim meets wall, by brush before rolling the field. Crisp cut lines are one of the fastest ways to tell careful interior work from rushed work.
- Feathering
- Sanding the edge of a scraped area so the transition from bare surface to remaining paint is gradual. Without feathering, every scraped patch telegraphs a visible ridge through the new paint.
- Spot priming
- Priming only the areas that need it, bare wood, repairs, stains, rather than the whole surface. Standard on repaints where most of the existing film is sound.
- Sheen (flat, eggshell, satin, semi-gloss)
- The gloss level of dried paint. Flatter sheens hide surface flaws and touch up invisibly; glossier sheens clean easier and highlight imperfections. Typical picks: flat or matte for ceilings, eggshell for walls, satin for exterior body, semi-gloss for trim and doors.
- Mil / film thickness
- A mil is one-thousandth of an inch, the unit for paint film thickness. Product data sheets specify a wet film thickness per coat, and coverage stretched too thin fails early. Elastomeric coatings build 10 to 20 mils; ordinary paint coats build 2 to 4.
- VOC (volatile organic compounds)
- The solvents that evaporate as paint dries, the source of paint smell. Low- and zero-VOC formulas make occupied-home interior painting comfortable and are standard offerings from every major manufacturer.
- RRP (Renovation, Repair, and Painting) rule
- The federal lead-safe work rule for homes built before 1978. Firms disturbing painted surfaces in those homes must be certified and follow containment, safe work practices, and specialized cleanup. In Utah the program is run by the state, not the EPA directly.
- Utah Lead-Based Paint Program
- Utah's state-run administration of the lead rules, housed in the Division of Air Quality at the Department of Environmental Quality. It certifies the firms and individuals doing RRP work in Utah and enforces the work-practice standards on pre-1978 housing.
- S270 license classification
- Utah's specialty trade license classification covering drywall, paint, and plastering work, issued by the state Division of Professional Licensing (DOPL). Painting jobs above the small-project exemption threshold require a licensed firm, and any Utah license can be looked up on the DOPL public registry.
- Handyman exemption
- Utah's carve-out letting unlicensed workers take small jobs: projects under $3,000 in combined labor and materials, with a filing requirement for jobs between $1,000 and $3,000. Full repaints exceed the threshold, which is why established painting companies hold the trade license.
- Certificate of Appropriateness
- The approval Salt Lake City issues for exterior changes to properties in local historic districts such as the Avenues. Routine repainting of already-painted surfaces is generally treated as maintenance; visible alterations, including painting previously unpainted masonry, go through design review.
- Glazing putty
- The compound sealing glass into old wood window sashes. On pre-war Salt Lake homes it cracks and falls out over decades; re-glazing loose sections is a normal part of a thorough trim repaint.
- Fascia
- The vertical board running along the roof edge, behind the gutter. Together with soffits it forms the painted "eyebrow" of a brick house, and its top edge, hidden behind the gutter, is where water damage and peeling usually start.
- Soffit
- The horizontal underside of the roof overhang. Wide soffits are a signature of mid-century Salt Lake ramblers, and they add more paintable area than homeowners expect when budgeting a trim job.
- Grain filling
- Applying filler to open-pored wood, chiefly oak, before priming so the finished paint surface reads smooth instead of textured. An optional step in cabinet refinishing that separates a painted-oak look from a factory-smooth look.
- Catalyzed / conversion coating
- A two-part finish that cures chemically rather than just drying. Used by cabinet specialists for the hardest, most factory-like door finish. Requires spray application and controlled conditions.
- Semi-transparent stain
- Deck and fence stain that colors the wood while letting grain show, penetrating rather than filming. It wears by gradual fade instead of peeling, which makes recoating simple, the reason it is the default for horizontal deck surfaces in this climate.
- Solid-color stain
- An opaque exterior wood finish, between paint and stain. Hides weathered boards while keeping texture visible. The usual step for older decks and fences whose wood no longer looks good under a semi-transparent finish.
- Wood brightener
- An oxalic-acid wash that removes the gray, UV-oxidized surface layer from weathered decking and fencing, restoring the wood tone before stain goes on. Skipping it locks the gray in under the new finish.
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