Farrow & Ball front door - Gloss or eggshell

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Planning on painting wooden front door in Hague Blue, but cannot decide whether to go for gloss or exterior eggshell - anyone have any experiences on which is best?

Sorry but F&B Exterior anything falls off for a pastime, very quickly. I love the interior paints but wouldn't recommend their exterior products.

Really Fresh? Is there anything else you would recommend instead?

I’ve have F&B eggshell on my sashes for 4 and half years. Starting to fail now which is pretty much standard for modern water based paints.
Have Johnstones acrylic eggshell on some of the larger items barge boards etc and it’s a bit better but starting to fail.

Old paints lasted far longer

I have f& b exterior eggshell on my windows. In year 4 now and no signs of failing.

I’d add this is all on the south facing side. North facing are still fine.

Seems sun/heat is the enemy of water based eggshell.

Thanks all, think I'd rather go for eggshell as not sure I want a 'shiny shiny' front door. Interesting to hear your experiences

So we did our front door in F&B eggshell and it looked terrible after 18 months. Redid it F&B gloss as I liked the colour and it looks beautiful and fresh still, 2 years on, full south facing too.

I would go for gloss, and make sure you have a high quality base coat that is completely dried and cured before you apply the F&B on top. Get the best outdoor base/primer you can find. Also prep the door thoroughly before you put anything on it.

Sorry for radio silence for a few hours. We used one of the Dulux exterior products over the failed F&B, and it lasted much better. Sorry it was a few years ago now so I can't remember exactly which one.

I worked for F&B and usually the people who didn't prep the surface correctly had problems with the product. I suggest sanding the surface make sure no dirt/oil shininess is left on the surface. Then use a water based primer undercoat. Now it doesn't have to be the F&B one but make sure it's waterbased otherwise it'll chip...

Hague blue is a great colour. I love it. If you go for eggshell you a matter deeper colour . If you go for gloss hauge blue will come out ever so slightly lighter. Just a shade or two... beacuse of the sheen level. I have painted doors / furniture in both Hague blue and all turned out beautiful.

In my experience eggshell is a ball ache to get right on an exterior door whereas gloss settles better so you see less brush marks/imperfections.

I would avoid F&B exterior eggshell. I spent a week preparing my garage doors - burnt off old paint layers, thoroughly sanded and applied BIN primer to knots. Used F&B exterior primer undercoat (dark tones) and then Railings exterior eggshell. 2 coats of each. Tin said one top coat but the coverage with one coat was poor. Overall finish is very shiny and not what I consider an ‘eggshell’ finish. Also the knots I painstakingly prepared, sanded and treated have bubbled. I also used two part wood filler on other parts of the door to fill some sections and there are small cracks appearing. The paint was bloody expensive so I am disappointed. Another gripe is the paint lid which did not come off without huge effort. Would love to know what pro-painters think of this stuff and what, if anything, I could have done differently.

I have a south facing front door, did it F&B eggshell(brinjal) about two years ago, it has faded & is bubbling quite a bit, I was thinking of using Littlegreene this time as they also have more range of colours.

IMO oil-based gloss is most durable on exterior. Weather will reduce the gloss over time. Eggshell is not so easy to keep clean, from general grime and especially handmarks..

p.s.

"Aluminium Wood Primer" (which is grey, not silver) is also IMO the most durable outdoor primer, and it seals knots and hardwoods.

If the door is exposed to sunlight, and is a resinous softwood, the sun will heat dark colours and resin will sweat out and collect under the paint, possibly causing blistering. You can get a lot of it out, during preparation before painting, with a hot-air gun.

We had F&B eggshell on our back kitchen door, south east facing. It showed no sign of fading or wear after 3 years, which was remarkable I thought considering it was the kitchen door so in frequent use and prone to knocks taking the bin out etc.. I would definitely recommend it.

Would love to know what pro-painters think of this stuff

They never use it through choice, those that I know (and I know a lot) don't rate F&B at all.