If your contractor identified any damage during the estimate, day one is often when repair work begins. Rotted wood gets removed, caulk gets stripped from window and door casings, and any loose or flaking paint gets scraped back to find the boundary of the failure. This phase can look messier than the finished job, which surprises some homeowners. That is normal. The house has to get worse before it gets better.

While the house dries, the crew continues prep work: replacing rotted wood, sanding feathered edges where old paint was scraped, filling nail holes and voids, and applying fresh caulk at all window and door casings and trim transitions. This phase is unglamorous and largely invisible once the paint goes on, which is exactly why it matters. Every hour of prep is buying years of paint life.

On homes in older neighborhoods in towns like Perth Amboy, Woodbridge, or South Amboy where lead paint is likely, prep follows EPA RRP protocols: wet scraping, HEPA vacuuming, contained disposal of debris, and daily cleanup of the work area. This adds time to the prep phase and is non-negotiable on qualifying homes.

The first topcoat typically starts on day three or four depending on how much prep the house needed. On a spray-primary job, masking goes on before the gun comes out: every window, door, fixture, and surface not being painted gets covered. That masking process takes two to four hours on a typical two-story home. The actual spray application moves fast once it starts. What looks like a quick application day often has half a day of masking behind it that the homeowner did not see.

The second topcoat goes on after the first has cured to the manufacturer’s recoat window, typically four hours under good conditions for premium acrylic latex products. Rushing this is one of the most common shortcuts on residential jobs. Paint that is recoated too soon traps solvent under the film, which causes adhesion problems between coats that show up within the first year.

At the end of each working day, a professional crew cleans the site: tarps folded and stored, paint cans sealed and staged out of the way, tools cleaned, and any debris from the day’s prep work removed. Overspray on windows, fixtures, and trim gets cleaned before it cures, not left for the final day. A crew that leaves the site clean each evening is signaling the same attention to detail they are applying to the actual paint work.

At job completion, all masking comes down, drop cloths are removed, and any incidental overspray on hardware, glass, or hardscape is cleaned up before the final walkthrough. Paint cans, used rollers, and waste material are disposed of properly. You should not be left managing a pile of paint waste after the crew leaves.

Rain pushes washing. High humidity extends drying time between washing and priming. Wind shuts down spray days. In New Jersey, a seven-day exterior repaint project should have one to two buffer days built in for weather. A contractor who schedules a full repaint with no buffer in a New Jersey April is setting the homeowner up for a compressed schedule when the inevitable rain day hits.

Weather delays should be communicated the day before or the morning of, not discovered by the homeowner when no one shows up. A text or call explaining the delay and the revised plan is the standard. Silence is not.

If you have questions mid-job, the right channel is a direct conversation with the crew lead or the contractor, not a request passed through whoever answers the phone. A contractor who has one named point of contact for the job and keeps that contact accessible throughout is doing communication correctly.

A contractor who rushes the final walkthrough or tries to collect final payment before you have had a chance to inspect the work is a red flag. The walkthrough is part of the scope. Take the time to do it properly.

A reputable exterior painting contractor provides a written warranty covering adhesion failures and peeling within a defined period, typically two to three years on a full repaint using quality materials. The warranty should specify what it covers, what constitutes a valid claim, and how the contractor will remedy a failure. A verbal warranty or a vague promise to “stand behind the work” is not the same thing as a written document.

What typically voids a warranty: moisture intrusion from a roof leak, gutter failure, or unaddressed substrate damage that was not part of the original scope; physical damage to the paint film from impact or abrasion; and normal wear on high-traffic surfaces like porch floors or handrails. A contractor who offers a warranty should also be able to tell you what falls outside it. If they cannot, the warranty is not worth much.

Most exterior repaint contracts are priced based on what the contractor can see during the estimate walk. What they find once work begins can add to the scope. Rotted fascia hidden behind gutters, failed caulk joints that require more than a surface pass, and lead paint protocols on homes built before 1978 are the most common additions on residential jobs in Middlesex County.

Any scope change should come with a written change order before the additional work starts, not a verbal mention at the end of the job. A typical wood repair add-on runs $200 to $600 depending on how much material needs replacing and where it sits on the house. Lead paint protocol adds time more than direct cost, though the additional labor hours do affect the final invoice. Ask your contractor upfront how they handle discovered damage and what the change order process looks like so there are no surprises when the invoice comes in.

For a full picture of how each phase of a repaint connects from inspection through final coat, see our guide on complete exterior repaints for NJ homeowners.