Resource

House painting glossary

Name: Crossroads Painting Co
Telephone: +18014054709
Price range: $$

The vocabulary that shows up in painting quotes and product sheets, defined plainly, including the terms that only matter in a climate like this one.

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. It goes on far heavier than ordinary house paint, which is what gives it something to stretch with. The trade-off is low breathability: the same continuous film that keeps water out of a wall keeps water in one, so wall condition decides between elastomeric and a breathable masonry paint.
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. It matters at repaint time rather than only cosmetically: paint laid over chalk is bonded to the powder, and the powder is bonded to nothing.
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 because less atmosphere sits overhead to absorb it, so Salt Lake City surfaces take a meaningfully higher annual 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 and trim meets wall, by brush before rolling the field. It is brushwork because a roller cannot reach a corner without loading the adjacent surface, which is why the edges of a room take a disproportionate share of the hours in it.
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.
Film build: How much dried paint ends up on the surface, as opposed to how many times something passed over it. It is what a product data sheet is describing when it gives a coverage figure, and it is where a stretched job and a full one part company: the same can spread further leaves less of itself on the wall. Wet, the two look identical. Elastomeric coatings build far heavier than ordinary house paint, which is most of why they cost more.
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.
Containment: The plastic sheeting, masking, and vacuum equipment set up before old paint is disturbed on a pre-1978 home, so chips and dust are collected instead of scattering into the soil, the beds, and the neighboring yard. It is laid at the start of prep and cleaned up at the end of each working day.
Spalling: The face of a brick breaking away from the body of the brick. Water trapped behind a coated masonry face freezes, expands, and pushes the face off. It is the technical reason original unpainted brick in this valley is left unpainted, and repainting does not repair it.
Caulk joint: The flexible seal at a trim return, window or door perimeter, or siding butt joint. Salt Lake City's freeze-thaw winters work these open faster than mild climates do, which makes caulk a wearing part here rather than a permanent seal.
Change order: A written addition to an agreed scope, priced before the extra work happens. The usual trigger on a repaint is something found during prep: rot behind a fascia board, a sill past filling, or bare wood over a much larger area than the walk-around suggested.
Workmanship warranty: The painting company's own written coverage on its labor, typically one to three years in this market, covering peeling, blistering, and adhesion failure. Separate from the paint manufacturer's product warranty, and it does not cover normal UV fade or damage from water getting in behind the surface.
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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