Roof painting · Christchurch
A repaint buys a good roof another 10–15 years. On a shot roof, it’s wasted money.
Half of Christchurch is sitting under long-run steel that’s structurally fine but cosmetically knackered: chalky, faded, a few rust freckles. For those roofs, a $3,500–$7,500 repaint beats a $28,000 re-roof by every measure. For roofs past the line, paint is lipstick, and we’d rather lose the paint job than sell you one that peels in three years over rust we both knew was there.
The actual test
Paint or re-roof?
Rub a finger on the roof. Chalky powder means the coating’s gone but says nothing about the steel. What decides it:
Paint is the right call when…
The rust is surface-level freckling, the trouble spots are isolated (a fixing here, a lap there), the sheets are straight and solid underfoot, and the roof’s under about 35 years old. That describes a lot of 1990s and 2000s Canterbury roofs right now.
Paint is the wrong call when…
Rust has gone through anywhere, the laps have red staining you can see from the ground, sheets flex soft underfoot, or the fixings are letting go across whole faces. Paint sticks to steel, not to rust holes, and no coating in a tin changes that.
The free roof check settles it with photos. Roughly a third of the painting enquiries we get end with “yes, paint it, here’s the quote.” Another third end with “leave it alone for now.” The rest is a re-roofing conversation nobody enjoys but everybody’s glad happened before the paint went on.
The short version
How we do it
Waterblast the lot
Plus moss and lichen treatment. Canterbury’s damp south faces grow a garden up there, and paint over lichen lasts about as long as you’d guess.
Repairs first
Loose fixings replaced, rust spots ground back and spot-primed, dodgy flashings sorted. Paint hides nothing for long; whatever’s wrong under it comes back through.
Primer, then two full topcoats
A proper roof-grade acrylic system, not “exterior paint that was on special.”
Colour change is free
In the sense that painting Karaka green over faded terracotta costs the same as like-for-like. Most customers change colour; it’s the cheapest facelift a house can get.
Weather matters more on painting than any other work we do. We need dry sheets and a dry forecast, so painting books around the weather and we won’t slap a coat on ahead of a southerly to hit a schedule.
What you get
What it costs
Most single-storey Christchurch homes land between $3,500 and $5,500 including GST; bigger or two-storey homes run to $7,500. That includes the wash, repairs, prep, and the full two-coat system, itemised on your quote.
The guarantee: 5 years on the workmanship, alongside the paint manufacturer’s product warranty (typically 10 years). And the honest expectation to go with it: a proper repaint on a sound roof is good for 10–15 Canterbury years before it’s due again.
Out loud
The maths
A $4,500 repaint that buys 12 years costs about $375 a year. A $28,000 re-roof over 40 years costs about $700 a year, and eventually every roof needs it.
Paint doesn’t postpone a re-roof forever; it postpones it while the steel is still worth protecting. That’s the whole game, and it’s why the assessment matters more than the quote.
We’ll tell you which one you’ve got
Free roof check, photos of everything, and a straight paint-or-replace answer before any quote.
Licensed Building Practitioner · RANZ member · Site Safe registered · COLORSTEEL approved