When can I paint the outside of my house?
Look up your town to see how many days each month are actually warm, dry and dew-free enough to paint or stain, counted from ten years of daily NOAA weather against the limits printed on the can.
3,206 US places of 10,000 people or more, each matched to its nearest NOAA weather station and averaged over 2015 to 2024. A hilltop or a lakeshore can differ from the station, and an average month still has bad years in it.
Is it too late this year?
Share of the 3,206 places where each month is a good painting month.
| January | 3% | |
|---|---|---|
| February | 6% | |
| March | 13% | |
| April | 23% | |
| May | 39% | |
| June | 45% | |
| July | 44% | |
| August | 56% | |
| September | 56% | |
| October | 29% | |
| November | 11% | |
| December | 5% |
- under 1Jan
- under 1Feb
- under 1Mar
- 1Apr
- 11May
- 16Jun
- 19Jul
- 18Aug
- 16Sep
- 5Oct
- 1Nov
- under 1Dec
What counts as a painting day
- Painting day
- Overnight low of 50°F or more, high no hotter than 90°F, no measurable rain, and the air far enough above the dew point that the wall will not be wet with dew the next morning. These are the limits printed on standard latex and oil cans.
- Staining day
- A painting day that follows a dry day, because stain goes onto bare wood and the wood has to have dried out first.
- With low-temperature paint
- The same, but the low only has to reach 35°F. Most premium latex lines sell a version labelled for this, and in shoulder months it can add a week or more.
A month is good at 12+ painting days, enough to absorb a rain-out. A house job is trusted to a month only if it has 2× the 4 days the job needs, since a below-average year will come.