Should we paint these door hinges?

[betterthanadice]

I'm getting 3 bedrooms, hall stairs and landing all redecorated, starting today. All of a sudden my painter is bombarding me with decisions I need to make! One of them relates to the door hinges. They're already paint-marked from a previous re-dec by the former owners of the house, so he is recommending that we just paint over them completely. But I'm worried that will make them impossible to remove in the future. What do you think?

No - don't have them painted. You might be able to get the paint off the metal with a nylon scourer and some cif. The more that gets on them, the more issues you'll have if you ever have to unscrew them.

What's he going to paint them with? If he's going to use standard emulsion I'd get a new decorator.

Even is he uses the correct metal paint, they're moving parts and will likely chip, not to mention he'll fill in the screw heads making it difficult to remove the hinges in future.

Use some paint stripper and a plastic knife to clean the paint off, or just leave as is. Those frames look a bit old so I'd advise against removing the hinges to clean them up, but that's your call. If you do just be sure to mark each hinge, and ideally screw position and hang them exactly the same way once cleaned up.

Sounds like he wants to cut a few corners... I take it he's not on a daily rate?

they look like they might be a brassy colour, with previous paint carelessly smudged on them.

Don't paint them.

Test them with a magnet to see if they are really brass, or brass-plated steel. I see they have steel washers, so probably brass.

If brass, you can clean them off when the painter goes. You can try a green pan scourer if it's water paint, but if oil gloss you'll probably need wire wool.

Brass hinges are usually lacquered after painting. Otherwise they tarnish, unless your housemaid polishes them weekly.

If they are brass-plated steel cheap rubbish you can't scour them because it will take the plating off.

Are they fire doors?

Depending on how many door you are doing, you may just want to replace them after painting the door. Will look a lot better and less effort than getting the old paint off. Won’t take more than 3-4min a hinge.