Maintenance painting in Singapore: the full guide
Why a schedule beats waiting for damage
Paint fails slowly and then all at once. A coating that has lost its binder still looks acceptable from across the room while it has already stopped keeping water out of the substrate. By the time it looks obviously bad, you are often paying for repair work as well as paint.
Interiors in Singapore run five to seven years. Exteriors run three to five on exposed elevations and five to seven on sheltered ones. Kitchens, bathrooms and service yards fail first, because they combine moisture with poor air movement.
The annual check that prevents the expensive job
Once a year, walk the place and look at five things.
Sealant joints around windows and at wall-to-frame junctions fail before the paint does and let water in behind it. Bathroom ceiling corners show the first brown staining that means spalling has started. In service yards, look at the skirting and the bottom foot of the wall, where rising damp appears first. Shaded, damp elevations grow algae. South and west-facing exterior walls chalk.
A failed sealant joint is a twenty-dollar fix in year one and a render repair in year four.
Touch-up or repaint
Touch-ups work when the existing coating is sound and you have the same product and batch. They fail when the surrounding paint has faded, because the patch will be right and the wall around it will not.
That is why we record the brand, product, colour code and batch on every job we do and keep it against your address. If you call us two years later about a scuffed hallway, we know exactly what went on that wall.
Once more than about a quarter of a wall needs attention, a full recoat of that wall is both cheaper and better looking than a patch.
What we do on a maintenance visit
Wash down, so we are working on a clean surface rather than sealing dirt under a new coat. Fill and sand the new damage. Spot-prime bare patches. Then we either touch in or recoat, whichever the wall needs.
Exterior maintenance adds a fungicidal wash and a check of every sealant joint we can reach.
What it costs
Maintenance visits are quoted on what is actually there rather than by flat size. Single-room touch-ups start at $188. A full interior recoat follows the standard ladder, from $588 for a three-room flat.
For MCST and commercial clients we schedule the cycle in advance and hold the pricing for the term, so the facilities budget is a known number rather than an annual surprise.
