As times goes on, exterior paint fades. This is just reality. When that dreaded time does finally come around, here’s what to do.
Depending on what condition your walls and siding are in, the need for scraping and cleaning will vary. Light peeling is easy to scrape (be prepared for paint scrapings to be everywhere) and sand for a nice finish, while real bad paint or damaged wood could require pressure-washing and adhesive/filler. The importance of this first step is crucial for a paint-friendly foundation; a new coat of paint will only hold to clean original paint or fresh primer.
After your siding is touched up and cleaned, it is time for probably the most important part of the prep-work; masking. This task involves multiple kinds of tape (white tape is stronger but should be removed by the end of the day, blue tape can be left for multiple days at a time), paper (typically for the snug spaces a tarp can’t close up), plastic (for windows and small, fragile bushes) and big tarps for wherever. Mask off everything you don’t want primer or paint on (if you have to put tape on areas that need to be primed, go ahead and carefully prime those specific areas first). This process can get tedious after a while; just remember, outside of the actual paint, the quality of your entire job rests on the precision of your masking. The few places you can be a little sloppy are on the “out-of-sight” areas around your roof (on top of chimneys, deep inside over-hangs etc.). Spend time on quality masking, better to be over-impressed than under-whelmed at the finale.

Back in May Boston's ABC 5 tracked down a convicted sex offender who was working as an unlicensed contractor for Home Depot. Not only was the guy a registered sex offender...he didn't even refinish cabinets well.

Home Depot promised changes and now ABC 5 is following up:

Boston’s Team 5 Investigated obtained Home Depot's most recent online reference guide for service providers who are sent to customers' homes, and it shows significant changes to what has been published in the past. "I think this is a step in the direction of tightening up the requirements and recognizing the public needs to have confidence and know that it's going to be safe to have these contractors doing the work," said professor Jim Post of Boston University's School of Management.

The most significant changes relate to background checks. There are now new obligations for those who are supposed to be doing them and an increase in how often they're supposed to performed. Home Depot is also demanding that service providers verify the identity and social security number for each worker. A failure to do so could result in hefty fines.

Workers must also wear a new type of badge to show they've met the new requirements. If they don't, the fine is $500. Licensing infractions, including a failure to pull permits, could cost a contractor $1,000. And for every consumer complaint filed with an attorney general's office where the service provider fails to demonstrate an effort to resolve the complaint, than that service provider is subject to a $2,500 penalty. "It certainly shows that they're serious about making sure the quality of service that's delivered to customers is consistent with the standards that they've set," said Post.

I got going on that last post about conserving energy and decided to research air conditioners. In general I learned that since the 70s, AC units have increased in efficiency by over 50%. If you have one even ten years old, you could gain 15-30% better energy usage by switching it out for a newer one.

If you have personal AC for each specific rooms, you may consider switching to a central system as they are more efficient for cooling the whole house rather than each room individually. The room ones are great if you only want say, your bedroom cool. In the last blog about energy efficiency, it talked about using a central system like personal system by shutting off the vents in other rooms and raising the desired temperature on the thermostat. This is interesting because I think that your AC will be working too hard and losing some of its efficiency trying to power air all the way over to just one room and losing much of its coolness in traveling though the rafters. But I’ve been wrong before.

Something else I found insisted that when having a new system installed, ensure that the contractor has measured your room and has had a computer run a calculation to find the best size system. Efficiency is greatly determined by even having a proper size unit. Something too small will obviously work too hard and draw excessive amounts of power, burning out sooner. A unit too large will cycle quickly turning on and off all day overworking the sensor and consuming unnecessary power to continually start up.

If you are purchasing a new unit, check out the BTU (British Thermal Units) rating. This tells you how much hot air is ejected from your home by the hour. Get one with a minimum of 12,000 BTU/hour or EER (Energy Efficiency Ratio) of at least 10.0. In hotter climates, go with even higher.