Meeting HOA Guidelines

There are some basic guidelines for choosing exterior paint colors: pigment quality, light versus dark, and temperature.

First and foremost, the color you choose for your association should be formulated with tinting pigments that are suitable for exterior exposure. This will resist and protect the buildings from ultraviolet sun radiation and help preserve the HOA’s most valuable asset.

Light colors, such as tan or shades of white, impact a building’s inside temperature and visual perception in a directly opposite manner than darker colors, such as burnt reds or blues. Namely, light colors reduce inside temperatures as well as make a building stand out in its neighborhood, while dark colors absorb heat and can make a large building seem better proportioned to a small lot.

The climate of your HOA’s loaction can affect the performance of the coatings. As the temperature fluctuates from hot to cold or cold to hot, the substrate below the paint film (the underlying layer) tends to expand or contract. Thus, a high quality coating is recommended for optimum performance. Top quality paints are designed to produce the best looking and longest lasting result, but we’ll discuss paint quality later in the article.

Sheen should always be considered when selecting the exterior finish. While a flat finish is generally the sheen selected for stucco and siding, low sheen is beginning to emerge as a popular new trend. Low sheened paints offer a more vibrant appearance and provide excellent dirt release from the substrate.

You can also select an elastomeric coating for your HOA, which is used for new or previously painted above-grade masonry surfaces. Elastomeric coatings use a blend of an acrylic terpolymer elastomer, adhesive agents and special pigments to produce a film with high strength, durability, color retention, chalk resistance, elongation and elasticity. Since they are a mastic type of coating, achieving a uniform finishin will most likely require and experienced applicator.

Although elastomeric coatings have a lot of excellent properties, they are higher in material and labor costs, and the spread rate is reduced to approximately 30% of what a conventional exterior paint would be.

To simplify the color selection process, you may want to consider enlisting the help of a chosen paint manufacturer or even a professional color consultant. Each of these parties offer very useful services to HOAs, offering advice and assistance in choosing the best paint for the job.

A professional, experieinced color consultant may be a practical approach to the selection process. Color consultants choose an array of colors for your association’s buildings based on their expertise with the aforementioned factors. If you have already selected a paint manufacturer, they may offer color consultation as an inclusive service with the agreed use of their product.

If you have no idea which colors to use for your HOA (and you’d prefer to not use consulting services), try looking at other properties in your area and see which schemes you find most appealing

Once you have a few color options picked out, your paint manufacturer may offer a complementary color rendering, via digital photograph of your specific property. This can help visualize your color scheme finalists before making the final decision.

You can also ask for a paint ‘mock-up’ on the building of your favorite color scheme options. A ‘mock-up’ is an area of the building where one or more paint color options is applied and allowed to dry. This will enable viewing of the color schemes at different times of the day ( morning, mid-day, evening), which often impacts the appearance of the color. A paint mock up gives the residents of the community and the decision makers (whether that be the board of directors or a managment company) confidence in the selected color scheme.

Remember to start the color selection process early, at least six to twelve months prior to the anticipated start date of the project. Selecting colors in the midst of the contractor bidding process can be confusing and is inadvisable; it’s best to have the paint products chosen beforehand in order to create an accurate paint specification, instead of a general Request for Proposal.