Annual Exterior Maintenance Checklist for North Texas Homeowners

Spring is your big inspection season — winter is over, and you want problems found before the summer heat accelerates them.

• Walk every wall and check the caulk. Look at joints around windows, doors, corner boards, and where siding meets brick. North Texas winters (and the foundation movement from our wet-winter/dry-summer clay cycle) crack caulk lines every year. Hard, cracked, or gapped caulk should be cut out and replaced with elastomeric sealant — it's the cheapest repair on this list and prevents the most expensive damage.
• Probe for winter moisture damage. Press a screwdriver into fascia boards, window sills, and the bottom foot of trim. Soft wood means water got in over the winter; small rot repairs now are cheap.
• Wash the north side. Shaded north walls grow mildew through our humid spring. A garden hose and a soft brush with a mild house-wash solution handles light growth; recurring heavy mildew on aging paint means the coating's mildewcides are spent.
• Check hail and storm damage after every big spring storm — dented gutters, cracked paint on horizontal trim, and damaged window glazing are easy to miss from the ground. If your roof gets a hail claim, inspect the paint on that side too.
• Look up at the fascia and gutters. Overflowing or sagging gutters dump water down the fascia boards — the number-one rot location we find on walkthroughs.

Summer damage comes from two sources: the sun, and your own irrigation.

• Audit your sprinklers. This is the most DFW-specific item on the list. Run each zone and watch where the water lands. A head that hits the siding every morning at 6 a.m. soaks the same spot 150+ times a summer — we can usually identify the misaimed sprinkler from the peeling pattern alone. Adjust heads to spray away from the house.
• Water your foundation (yes, really). Most North Texas homeowners know soaker hoses protect the slab — but even foundation watering is exterior paint maintenance, because a foundation that moves less tears fewer caulk joints.
• Check the south and west walls. These take the brunt of the UV. Wipe a hand across the siding — chalky residue means the paint is aging. Fading and chalking on the sunny sides while the north side looks fine is the normal end-of-life pattern; note it and start planning.
• Trim vegetation back 12+ inches from the house. Shrubs against the siding trap moisture, scratch the paint, and hide termite and rot activity.

Fall is repair season — and, not coincidentally, the best painting weather of the year in North Texas.

• Clean gutters and confirm downspouts discharge away from the house. Leaf-clogged gutters overflowing onto fascia through winter storms is how fascia rots.
• Do a second caulk pass. Any joint that opened during the summer dry-out needs sealing before winter — water that enters a crack and freezes makes the crack worse. Freeze-thaw is a paint killer.
• Touch up bare spots. Any exposed wood — from hail, a ladder scrape, or summer peeling — should at minimum be primed before winter, even if the full repaint waits.
• Schedule major exterior work now. October–November offers ideal painting temperatures and lighter contractor schedules. If your spring/summer inspections flagged widespread chalking, caulk failure, or peeling, fall is the smart window (here's why).

• After ice events, check horizontal surfaces — window sills, trim ledges, deck rails — where ice sits longest and works into any existing crack.
• Watch for peeling at the groundline as winter moisture wicks up from soil contact.
• Use the slow season to get estimates. Contractors have more availability, walkthroughs are unhurried, and you'll be first on the spring schedule.