Most houses built before 1950, as well as many newer ones, are covered with multiple layers of oil paint. You stand a chance of peeling off all the paint if you switch. Latex paint can literally pull old oil paint off the house, he says. Adding zinc oxide to paint helps it resist mildew. Earth tones outlast bright colors because they don't break down in sunlight.
Clear finishes are short-lived because sunlight gets through, breaking down wood fibers.
As sunshine hits the wall, the wood and the latex can expand. But the oil paint in the middle is brittle. Now pulled with double force, it either cracks or loosens its grip on the wood underneath. It has to coalesce, or it can't cure. The force of this effect varies.