A realistic expectation on a house here is seven to ten years on siding, and noticeably less on south and west elevations, on horizontal surfaces, and on anything within a few feet of a wet flowerbed or a sprinkler head. Trim and fascia usually go first. If you got fifteen years out of your last paint job, the surface underneath it was in very good shape and the house is probably well shaded — not because the paint was special.
What actually breaks paint here
Three things, and none of them is age on its own.
- Ultraviolet light. It breaks down the binder that holds the film together. This is why the sunny side chalks and fades years before the shaded side does, and why two elevations of one house can honestly need different schedules.
- Moisture from behind. The one people miss. Humidity and rain drive moisture into wood, and when it comes back out it pushes the film off from underneath. That is peeling in sheets, as opposed to cracking, and it means the problem is water, not paint.
- Heat cycling. A dark wall in Georgia sun in July moves. The substrate expands and contracts daily, and a film that has lost flexibility cracks along the grain and at every joint. Caulk fails the same way and usually earlier.
Read your own house before you call anybody
Walk it on a bright morning and look at four things. Chalk: rub a hand on the sunny side and see if it comes away powdery — that is binder failure, and it is normal wear that a proper wash and prime handles. Peeling: look at whether the paint is coming off in flakes from the top down, or lifting in sheets with clean wood underneath. Sheets mean moisture behind the film, and painting over it is money thrown away until the water is dealt with.
Then look at the wood itself at the bottom of trim boards, at the corner joints, and at any fascia below a gutter joint. Press it with a thumbnail. If it gives, that board is rotted and no coating is going to bridge it. And look at the caulk lines around windows and where trim meets siding — open joints there are how water gets in, and they are cheap to fix now and expensive to ignore.
Why preparation decides the lifespan, not the product
Paint fails at the bond, almost always. A premium coating over a chalky, unwashed surface will fail sooner than a mid-grade coating over a surface that was properly washed, scraped, sanded at the edges, spot primed on bare wood, and caulked. That is not a slogan; it is where the labor hours in an honest quote go, and it is the main reason two quotes for the same house can differ by thousands.
It is also why the cheaper number is often the more expensive one. A quote that has no line for washing, no line for caulk, and no line for priming bare wood is a quote for putting color on your house, and you will be looking at it again in three years.
Timing, in this climate
The workable window here is wide but not unlimited. Paint needs the surface to be dry and the temperature to stay inside the product's range for hours after application, including overnight. Mid-summer afternoons on a west wall are hot enough that the film skins before it levels, and late fall evenings can drop below the minimum long after the crew has gone home. Spring and early fall are the easy seasons. Summer works if the crew follows the shade around the house rather than working the same wall all day — which is a scheduling decision, not a materials one.
The short answer
Expect seven to ten years, less on the sunny side. Judge a quote by how much of it is preparation, not by the brand on the can. And if your paint is lifting in sheets rather than flaking, stop and find the water first — repainting it will look excellent for one season and then do exactly the same thing.