Painting House Numbers On Curb

Paint The Background Of Your Curb Number

There are a multitude of different kinds of paint available, but the reality of curb numbers is this: If you can get them to last about 5 years, you’ve done very well. There are “permanent” paints available that claim to last over a decade, but you will need a spray rig to use them and the final paint job will still begin to flake apart after about 5 years regardless of how it’s applied.

You can also buy pavement striping paint. It really does last a long time… but again, you’ll either need to brush it on or get a spray rig and the thickness of striping paint requires lots of drying time between coats. It just isn’t practical to use striping paint for curb numbers.

The most reasonable paint I’ve found to use for painting address numbers on a curb is Rustoleum Brand Flat Protective Enamel. You can buy it pretty much anywhere, it’s inexpensive, it lasts a long time and it comes in a spray can. Be sure and buy “flat” paint, notgloss. You can paint the background white or black and use the other color for the numbers.

Follow label instructions for general use and paint your background. Just enough for full coverage and no more, is the right amount.

How To Paint Curbs

Different curb painters use different techniques, but the basic routine is simple:

1. Use a wire brush to clean the curb.

2. Apply masking tape to create a rectangular background area.

3. Spray paint the background area white.

4. Use stencils taped together to spray paint black house numbers.

You can watch examples in curb-painting videos on YouTube. In addition to tape, a piece of cardboard with a rectangle cut out makes painting the background easy. Some painters use brass number stencils that slide together, but they work best on flat surfaces on a curved curb youll probably want the more flexible stencils. Some curb painters paint each digit by hand.

What kind of paint should you use? At least one curb painter recommendsRustoleum Flat Protective Enamel spray paint, but many different types work. My friend recommended using a more expensive reflective paint.

Some painters might take fifteen minutes to complete a job, while others may do the whole job in a few minutes. Speed matters if you want to make a couple hundred dollars in a day. Aim for fifteen minutes or less, including the time talking to the homeowner.

Prepare The Curb For Paint

Once you locate the spot for your numbers, use a wire brush to knock off the dirt from the curb and brush away the dust. Your painted area should be free from oil, grease and other heavy crud. That’s why you use a wire brush. Make sure you clean away the dust too. Paint won’t stick to a dusty surface. A soft bristle brush is ideal for the dust.

If you have heavy crud and your wire brush won’t clean it off, you may need something like paint thinner to cut through it, or if it’s really heavy crud, I use a product called Goof-Off. Just be careful with that stuff. It’s pretty heavy duty, but it will clean off the worst stuff.

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Carry Change And A Get A Card Reader To Accept Card Payments

This way, you can accept most forms of payment. Sorry, I dont have cash is no longer a valid excuse. If you charge $20, you probably wont have many people handing a $100 bill, but you never know. Better to be prepared. If you charge $10 or $15, youll probably be giving change in most transactions because most people will still hand you a $20 bill.

Spray Painting House Numbers

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Painting your house numbers on your street curb can help people find your home. Of course, family and friends unfamiliar with your neighborhood will benefit. But so will first responders such as police, fire fighters and paramedics. They use house numbers painted on curbs to find homes in fast-paced, life-threatening situations. While the job of spray painting house numbers isn’t complicated, it requires attention to detail to ensure that you end up with a clear, readable set of numbers.

References

• Avoid spraying painting house numbers on a windy day.

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How Much Can You Make

You can keep your startup costs low in this business. Even a permit and insurance, if you need them, will cost you only a few hundred dollars. That works out to an ongoing expense of less than $10 or $12 per week.

With low operating expenses as well, most of your income will be profit. Apart from a dollars worth of tape and paint for each job, your biggest expense will probably be gas for your car. If you do 10 jobs for $20 each, you might have expenses of only $20 for the day, leaving a profit of $180.

One more idea: ask a local homeowners association to allow you to offer a discount to every homeowner in the neighborhood by way of a flyer on doors or a mention in the community newsletter. If you can line up 50 jobs, you could knock them out in a two days at $15 each, for a profit of about $700.

Your Turn: Have you painted your house number on your own curb? Would you turn it into a business?

Steve Gillman is the author of 101 Weird Ways to Make Money and creator of EveryWayToMakeMoney.com. Hes been a repo-man, walking stick carver, search engine evaluator, house flipper, tram driver, process server, mock juror, and roulette croupier, but of more than 100 ways he has made money, writing is his favorite .

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Colorful Logos And Other Styles

There are a lot of colorful designs you can imagine for dressing up your curb address painting. Like all the curb number images on this page, I did the above curb styles while I actively operated my handyman business.

In the early days, I painted curbs as a means for getting fast work and making money. I also used curb number painting as a way to introduce my handyman business to the neighborhood. In the process I discovered that curb number painting can make very good money all by itself.

Eventually, I established my handyman business and stopped painting curbs in favor of larger, more lucrative jobs.

I enjoyed curb numbering and loved working that part of my business so much that I dedicated a whole website to curb number painting. I created a business model for painting curbs over two summers when I first got started.

How about that?

If you want to check out my dedicated curb painting website, go here.

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Concrete Preparation For Curb Address Numbers

Use a wire brush to knock off everything from dust and dirt to surface grease and grime. A stiff wire brush can begin to wear away the surface of the curb with some effort. That may be a good thing if there’s road grime. A fresh surface will hold paint better. Don’t try to dig too deep, just remove the surface crud so the concrete will be completely bare.

After the curb is free from heavy dirt and other accumulated crud, use a soft bristled scrub brush to finish preparing the surface to remove any dust that remains. Newer curbs won’t require much preparation and may appear clean but you should still use the wire brush/scrub brush combination to get your curb ready for paint. Surface preparation is key to a long lasting curb number!

Figure Out Your Price Point

When I ran my sidewalk painting operation, only a few customers balked at my $10 price. In 2018, its totally justifiable to ask for $20 for this service. Ask potential customers what theyd be willing to pay or what theyve paid in the past. Its likely either going to be $10, $15, or $20.

If youre offering variations, how much are the extra options going to cost the customer? Is a glow-in-the-dark paint option $5 more than the standard address?

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Decide On Your Layout

To start, tape your numbering stencils together lining the stencils up along the edges. If you are using brass stencils, lock your numbers together.

Once your numbering stencils are together in a single piece, you’ll have a starting point for the size of your background. Measure the height and the width of the combined numbers.

As a rule of thumb, you can add about 1″ – 2″ around the numbers for your background.

Now you know the size of your background.

How To Find Customers

Everyone with a curb should have a house number on it so firefighters and ambulance drivers can find the right home easily. And any pizza delivery driver will tell you that people regularly get their pizza late because the driver cant see their address.

Thats your sales pitch. Practice it, along with your painting skills, on friends and family, perhaps for a discounted rate. Then youre ready to go door-to-door.

In time, youll get better at choosing where and when to look for customers. If you hear no two dozen times in a row, you likely need to try a new neighborhood .

Look for areas where most homes already have addresses painted on the curbs. These are people who are already sold on the concept and, since even good paints only last about five years, many will have faded numbers that need repainting.

People may hesitate to hire you because theyve heard of curb painting scams. These involve shady operators who do fast, sloppy work or even paint without permission and then intimidate homeowners into paying. Show photos of your work to prospective customers, and make it clear that they can approve the finished work before paying you.

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Paint Your Address Numbers

You may want to wear rubber gloves because as you spray the numbers, you can press down the stencils as you go to avoid as much under spray as possible. Curbs are rough and under spray is a common issue. Take your time and do a good job. It only takes about 1 minute to spray 4 numbers carefully. Use short bursts and hold the can about 5-8 inches away from the stencils for the best results.

What You Need To Know About The Curb

Police are reminding people in communities all across the country not to fall for a common scam happening at the end of the driveway.

The curb-painting scam involves people you didnt hire showing up, painting your house number on the curb and then demanding payment.

Sometimes, the painters say they were hired by the city, pressuring the homeowner to pay up.

People have reported finding a bill in a mailbox, or being asked for payment in person, sometimes without being given a specific cost.

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Large 4 Inch Black Numbers

Superior Coverage, & Extreme Durability, Quality

Superior Coverage, & Extreme Durability, Quality

A curb address painting with clearly visible numbers helps Police, Fire, Ambulance Services & Guests find your home. A curb number painting is hard to see and it needs to stand out the most at night.

Superior Coverage, & Extreme Durability, Quality

Superior Coverage, & Extreme Durability, Quality

Superior Coverage, & Extreme Durability, Quality

The reflective coating helps provide maximum visibility at night, you’ll also be happy to know that we use the same commercial grade highly reflective glass beads that Airports and Government Contractors use on every curb painting.

Attractive & Will Last For Years

Superior Coverage, & Extreme Durability, Quality

Attractive & Will Last For Years

To ensure your new curb address painting lasts as long as possible, you have the option to add a protective coating that helps increase the longevity your curb number painting.

Supplies For Painting Curb Numbers:

• One can of Rustoleum brand flat black spray paint.
• One can of Rustoleum brand flat white spray paint.
• 1/2″ to 1″ wide masking tape.
• Masking paper or something to prevent overspray.
• 3″ or 4″ high numbering stencils.
• Small brush for touch ups !

I recommend Rustoleum brand flat enamel, which I use for all my non-reflective curb numbers, including the ones in the photos on this page. If you want to take a look at a complete list of the tools I use, check out my recommended products page over at my curb number painting website. I also sell a course on how to build a serious curb painting business on that site. If you sign up for my curb painting email list, I’ll send you an ebook that covers a lot of the bases. It doesn’t cover everything about building a business, but it will get you started on the right foot.

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Thats Your Sales Pitch

But curb painting isnt always a scam. Like Chief Gielin said, the problem around curb painting is when its a service that wasnt requested. Steve Gillman at The Penny Hoarder blogged about this as a profitable side gig.

And by the way, there are dozens of reputable curb-painting businesses already out there doing good, honest work!

Prepare And Secure Your Address Numbers To The Background

To prepare your address numbers, lay your stencils on a flat surface facing up in the correct order you want them, lining them up at the top and at the bottom. Butt the stencils together at the sides. Tape the stencils together using 3/4″ masking tape. Extra tape beyond the stencils will help you tape the numbers into position.

You can tape your stencils over your background after just a few short minutes or until the painted background feels dry to the touch and tape will stick to it.

From top to bottom, the stencils should fit nearly perfect into your background. From side to side, you can easily find the center of the background for placement. Once you have your stencils in position, run a strip of tape all the way around your numbers, making sure your background is completely covered up from getting sprayed.

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Offer To Do A Few Houses For Free

This will help you learn your best strategy for the surface youll be replicating the address numbers on. Take nice photos of these painted addresses. That way, if a potential customer is unsure of what the final product will look like, you can show him or her. Preferably, do this for neighbors you know well. Explain to them that youre starting a business and that youre offering this in order to build your résumé and practice, and to please not tell anyone that youre doing this for free.

Paint The Curb Numbers

Once your background is dry enough to apply tape to it, center your assembled number stencil to the background, and tape it securely on all edges. Mask the remaining background from getting painted.

You can also use a light spray of stencil adhesive to help hold the stencils down and to minimize under spray. If you use stencil adhesive, make sure your background is completely dry before applying your stencils to it.

• Paint the numbers carefully using short bursts of paint.
• Wear rubber gloves and use your fingertips to press the edges of the numbers as you go and that will help to minimize under spray. Once complete, you can remove the stencils immediately and allow the numbers to dry a little before touching up.
• If there’s under spray, spray a little paint into the cap of the paint can and use a small brush to touch up any areas that need it.

Finally, remove all your masking and you will have new curb numbers that should last for years!

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Curb Address Painting Is Pretty Easy With Just A Little Know

If you spend just a few minutes to make it look nice, and you use the right materials, you’ll find that it’s pretty easy to paint great looking, long lasting curb numbers yourself. In the images below, you can see a curb number I originally painted in May of 2008 . Since this was right next door to where I was living at the time, I was able to watch it over a period of years. I watched it, in fact for almost 5 years years just so I could monitor how long curb address painting would last, painted exactly like I describe here in this article.

Here’s how it looked the day I painted it:

…and here’s how the same curb number looked after 3 years and 11 months. Still doing it’s job.

Reality check: If anyone tells you they can paint curb address numbers that will last 20 years, ask them how they know that, because it ain’t true.