Painting Steel Entry Doors

LESLIE: Cindy in Iowa needs a hand with a painting project. What can we do for you today?

CINDY: I have two steel entry doors and they’re just the way they came from the factory; they’re just the basic kind of putty color.

TOM: OK.

CINDY: And I wanted to paint them and I don’t know what to use; what type of paint or how to apply it would be the best: brush, roller or spray.

TOM: What I would recommend is that you take the door off the hinges; try to lay it out on a nice day on a couple of sawhorses; take all the hardware off. You’re going to want to lightly sand the whole thing so that you get off any old finish or any weathering or debris that’s on there. Then you’re going to prime it; I would recommend Rust-Oleum as the primer. You can use a good-quality oil-based brush to apply the primer and you can also use a top coat of Rust-Oleum over that and those two will work very well. And I will tell you that Rust-Oleum takes a long time to dry.

LESLIE: (overlapping voices) Mm-hmm, but it’s worth it.

TOM: (overlapping voices) It’s actually a good thing because it really is a very, very durable surface and with a door you really want something that’s not going to chip or take any – show any signs of wear and tear because a door gets a lot of abuse.

So that’s what I would do. Take it off, prime it, flip it over, prime the other side. You might have to stop at that point and put the door back in for the night because you’ll be out of daylight. Next day, take it off again; put the first coat of the finish on the one side; flip it; do the other coat; put it back and repeat. You’re going to need probably two finish coats and one primer coat but you’ll be done with that door for 20 years; you won’t have to paint them again, Cindy.

LESLIE: Mm-hmm, and you don’t have to worry about using a brush leaving brush strokes because the oil paint does take a little bit extra time to dry; so it gives you that much more working time as you’re applying it so you don’t need to worry about seeing any of those brush marks.

TOM: Yeah, it flows really nicely.

CINDY: Alright. Thank you very much.

TOM: You’re welcome, Cindy. Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.