A woman decorator

Why DIY Exterior Painting and Decorating is not a good idea

Painting and decorating this year?

Are you sure you want to do it?

DIY painting and decorating can be fun if you know what you are doing, have the right tools and equipment and have at least some level of knowledge or expertise in painting, but this is in most cases, just for small internal areas or the garden wall, what about painting a whole house!?

DIY painting and Decorating. Yes or no?

If you plan on painting and decorating yourself, maybe a bit of painting the exterior, you need to be sure you know what you are doing. Each year thousands of keen DIY’ers are admitted to casualty with DIY related accidents.

In 2010, ROSPA published the following set of statistics for DIY related accidents:

Injuries from tools and machinery are estimated to account for 87,000 of the 220,000 DIY enthusiasts turning up at hospital each year

Ladder and stepladder accidents send 41,000 people to hospital annually – often resulting in some of the most serious injuries and even death when people fall from high up.


The most dangerous tools according to the Home Accident Surveillance System (2002) are:

1. Knives and scalpels (21,300 accidents in the UK each year)

2. Saws (15,100)

3. Grinders (6,400)

4. Hammers (5,800)

5. Chisels (3,900)

6. Screwdrivers (3,400)

7. Power Drills (3,000)

8. Axes (2,200)

9. Planes (2,100)

10. Welding Equipment (2,000).


The top ten DIY materials to take care with are:

1. Wood, chipboard etc. (29,400 accidents)

2. Paving/Concrete Blocks (21,200)

3. Metal bars, sheets etc. (12,800)

4. Nails (15,400)

5. Bricks (8,000)

6. Paint and paint pots (3,900)

7. Glue, paste etc. (3,100)

8. Screws and floor/wall tiles (2,500)

10. Wallpaper (1,600).

Common DIY accidents include cuts from knives while cutting cable and carpets, slips with saws when cutting wood, paint dripping into eyes from ceilings and slabs falling onto hands and feet.

workers accident
Only attempt exterior painting if you have experience with working on ladders.


Many accidents could be avoided by spending more time on planning and ensuring that safety gear – such as gloves, masks and goggles – is worn when necessary.


cleaning wall coatings

People often make mistakes when they rush jobs or are tired. Many people overestimate their capabilities, for instance gas and electric work should be left to the experts.

(source http://www.rospa.com/faqs/detail.aspx?faq=221)

Wise words indeed.

Some times, deciding to save a few quid by doing house painting yourself can seriously backfire on you.

Safe Professional Painting and Decorating

Most Painters and Decorators now have a lot more things to think about when it comes to the job they do.

In previous years,  a painter and decorator would just turn up and paint what the customer wanted and that was about it and some didn’t even clean up afterwards!


Many of the traditional painters and decorators sometimes specialise in other areas of the decorating business, such as painting very tall buildings, applying hygienic coatings inside hospitals, or painting in remote areas such as the North York Moors, Dartmoor or a Scottish island.

Nowadays painters and decorators are expected to do a lot of work before and after painting.

What about Exterior Wall coatings?

Exterior wall coatings, and the application of coatings are just one specialist element of exterior painting and decorating and one that not just anyone can do.

To be competent and qualified to apply an exterior wall coatings, especially a spray applied wall coating, the painter needs to trained in various things, including how to operate and maintain the special spray machine used to apply the wall coatings

hand finishing job and clean up
Hand finishing job and clean up

The painter and decorator who is learning how to apply wall coatings by spray, also needs to be competent with masking up doors and windows etc, to protect other areas of the house from overspray.

They also need to serve an apprenticeship or training period before they are competent enough to apply wall coatings themselves.

This refers straight back to the point we first made.

Painters and decorators, PAINT the walls and that is it!

Exterior wall coatings painters and decorators do a full range of building repairs such as rendering, crack repair, replacing bricks etc etc, before they can apply the wall coatings to your house.

It is because of this meticulous approach to detail that if a home owner has a Never Paint Again textured masonry coating on the outside walls of their house, they will not need to paint again, or have any painter and decorator around again for 20 years, guaranteed!

A final point is that if you have one of our external wall coatings on your home, the guarantee is transferable, making it easier to sell!

The takeaway point we are trying to make here is that our job not only involves a heck of a lot more work than just painting, our work also requires many years of training in all aspects of the job, to ensure not only a great finished product, but also the fact that we work safe and we know what we are doing.

This is also why our coatings are not available to purchase by anyone.

There’s nothing wrong with enjoying a spot of DIY but ask yourself, do you really know what you are doing? Over confidence can lead to a visit to hospital so dont try it


…….OR CALL US NOW ON 0800 970 4928

This is another original article by Guy Alexander Bell, of Never Paint Again. Please do not COPY this apart from for your own non commercial use.

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