Charlotte or Charleston: What Changes About Painting a House

What changes, on one page

A house in the Charlotte area and a house in Charleston are painted with the same products and the same tools. What changes is the weather the paint lives in, the rules about who may do the work, and in parts of Charleston, whether you may change the color at all. Here is the short version, with the figures sourced below.

The climate

NOAA’s 1991-2020 climate normals put Charleston International Airport at 52.51 inches of precipitation a year and a mean temperature of 66.5 degrees F, against 43.60 inches and 61.4 degrees F at Charlotte Douglas Airport. Those are station figures, not every street, but the direction is clear: the Lowcountry is warmer and wetter, and it sits closer to salt water.

For paint, that points to the same priorities we describe for Union County, only more so. Moisture and mildew do most of the damage to an exterior finish, so washing, drying and sealing joints matter more than the brand on the can. Near the coast, one Charleston painter’s own site describes its work as covering everything the salt air touches, so ask whether rinsing salt off is part of the prep. Our guide to exterior paint life explains the Carolina version of the same problem.

Who may paint

The two states handle painters differently, and the difference is easy to miss when you move.

• North Carolina. According to the North Carolina Licensing Board for General Contractors, the general contractor threshold is $40,000, effective 1 October 2023. There is no separate state license for painting, so most repaints fall below it. We cover this in a separate article.
• South Carolina. Section 40-59-20 of the state code defines painters and wall paperers as residential specialty contractors. They must hold a registration when an undertaking exceeds five hundred dollars, and a residential builder license applies above five thousand dollars.

The practical difference is the thing to ask for. In South Carolina, a painter should be able to give you a registration number that you can check with the state. In North Carolina, ask for the contract value and the written scope, because there is no painting license to look up.

Color review in historic districts

The biggest practical surprise is in Charleston’s historic districts. The City of Charleston says its Board of Architectural Review reviews exterior work visible from a public right-of-way, that most minor alterations including painting are typically reviewed by staff rather than the full Board, and that a color change needs a color schedule form with the manufacturer and code number for each element. If the proposed color matches the existing color, only the application is needed. Painting unpainted masonry needs Board-level approval.

The same city guidance says there is no specific palette of approved colors. Approval is given case by case, depending on the style of the building and its neighbors. Plan for the review before you order paint, and allow time in the schedule for it.

The city’s permit submittal sheet for a paint color change asks for a completed application, a completed paint color schedule, photographs of all sides of the structure, and proposed paint samples, and says staff may require a 3-foot-by-3-foot sample on the building itself. That last item is worth knowing in advance: it means a painter may be asked to put up a test patch before the full job can be approved.

What does not change

The federal lead rule travels with you. The EPA’s Renovation, Repair and Painting program requires certified firms and lead-safe work practices for paid work that disturbs paint in homes built before 1978, in both Carolinas. The City of Charleston’s own guidelines tell owners to treat any pre-1978 home as likely to have lead-based paint. Whatever the state, ask a painter about their lead-safe certification before the scraping starts.

Interiors travel better

The inside of a house is the part least affected by the move. Walls, ceilings, trim and cabinets are prepared and painted the same way in both places: patched, sanded and primed first, then finished in a sheen chosen for the room. Humid summers on both sides of the state line make washable finishes in kitchens, bathrooms and laundries worth the choice, and our sheen guide explains which sheen goes where.

What can differ is the building. A Charleston house may be older, raised on piers or masonry, with plaster walls, tall windows and many layers of paint. That affects the prep more than the product, and it is a reason to have the walls looked at in person by whoever will paint them, rather than quoted from photographs.

Owning in both places

If you are moving from one city to the other, or keeping a house in both, three habits help:

1. Do not carry the old schedule across. The repaint interval we describe for Union County in our exterior painting notes may need checking more often on a coastal, wetter site.
2. Ask the local rule first. In Charleston, ask the city before ordering paint. In the Charlotte area, ask your HOA, if you have one.
3. Hire locally. A painter far away cannot wash a house after a storm, return for a touch-up, or know which neighborhoods require approval.

Finding painters in Charleston

For a house in the Lowcountry, you are looking for painters in Charleston, SC who work in the local rules. One option is Palmetto Painting Contractors, an owner-operated company in Mount Pleasant that lists exterior, interior, cabinet and deck painting and pressure washing for Charleston, Mount Pleasant, Daniel Island and the Isle of Palms, and says it uses Sherwin-Williams and Benjamin Moore paints. Whichever painter you consider, ask for the registration number, a written scope and the plan for any city review.

On the Charlotte side, our service area is about 50 miles around the city, from our base in Monroe, and the crew has painted houses in Union County since 2000.