You may have heard it be said that good surface preparation is an important part of a paint job. Well, this is very true but good preparation can mean different things to different people. Also, what can be considered good preparation for one type of surface may not be so good for another type. Different types of surfaces (wood, plaster, metal, etc.) will require different paint preparation procedures. Furthermore, the preparation procedure for a given surface type at an interior of a home may be completely inappropriate for the same type of surface at a home’s exterior. Use a wrong procedure or product and you can wind up with a real mess on your hands.

This brings to mind a time about three years ago when this young couple bought a house just down the block from my own home. The woman noticed my truck sign and approached me for an estimate. The place had not been painted in years and needed a lot of work. During the walk-through, the new owners pointed out various surface imperfections and wanted those addressed. I bid the job accordingly – lots of scraping, sanding, partial stripping, etc. I was not too surprised when I saw another painting company’s sign on the front of that house – a bit disappointed but not surprised. Imagine my surprise though when, just a few days later while on my way out to lunch, I casually looked up the scaffold to discover the painters, on the young couple’s project, skimming the front of their place. I mean literally, with large cans of spackle and wide taping knives in their hands, those guys were laying down a thin coat of spackle on the surface of the wood siding like they were doing level five finish on a new sheet-rock wall.

One should never use spackle in the shallow depression of an exterior wood surface, but there they were going at it. I just stood there looking at those guys, not knowing what to do. Do I try to locate the homeowners? (They have not moved in yet.) Do I climb up the scaffold and slap the Spackle Experts alongside of their heads? I just kept walking. Every time I go by this house now (which is about every other day), I regret that I did not climb up the scaffold that day. Just a few months after the scaffold came down, I could see some hairline cracking. By the spring time, minor peeling had developed and today some parts of that place look like a shag rug bristling with bits of loose paint and spackle.

My guess is that I lost that job because the homeowner wanted to save some money. Well, trying to save money is totally understandable but the irony of it is that, from the cost savings view point, it would have been much, much better if those other painters did not do any work on that place to begin with. If I were to bid on this project today, I would have to more than double my original bid to correct the results of their “cost saving technique” and to get rid of all that loose paint and spackle. Proper paint surface preparation is essential to every paint job. For proper paint surface preparation to take place, one must have a considerable understanding of the surface being painted as well as materials to be used. Also one has to be willing to take the time necessary to do the job right.

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Post tags: Paint Preparation, Paint Surface, Paint Tip, Paint Tips, Painting Advice, Painting Surface, Painting Tip, Painting Tips

A common mistake that I see homeowners make, in shopping for a painting job, is to just invite a bunch of painters over, point them to the project and, without much preamble, ask them for a painting quote. Perhaps those homeowners simply did not want to offend contractors with excessive descriptions or maybe they thought that professionals will know best. It is true that professionals should know the best way to go about a job; however, modified by individual experience (or lack thereof), one painter’s approach to a job may be completely different from another’s. What will likely happen with these submitted proposals is that the price, job specifications and even the scope of work will be all over the place. This will make such proposals nearly impossible to compare.

For example, one bidder may include an extra finish coat — maybe this is how his old boss always used to do it. Another bidder may entirely omit the prime coat — perhaps this is the only way he can outbid the competition. Yet, someone else may not include a light well — maybe they did not notice it or did not think it needs doing. Such job specification inconsistencies would make those proposals very difficult to compare, possibly leaving the homeowner with the need of completely redoing the bidding process only this time dealing with even more painting contractors. Or even worse, this can leave the homeowner with the need to revisit the bidding process again in the middle of the job, when it comes to light that something that the home owner wanted done was not included in the winning proposal.

Homeowners can easily avoid such confusions by simply providing all bidders with a project description. This description does not have to be very complicated and it can even be verbal, just as long as it is exactly the same to every bidder. Here is an example of what I mean:

Paint exterior of 123 Main St.

Include the following: All work at front, back, east side light well, partial west side (above the neighbor’s roof).

• Prepare all surfaces to be painted.
• Use one complete prime coat and one coat of finish paint.
• The front will be three colors, the back and sides – two colors.
• Material used will be “XYZ Paint Company” of top grade.

During the bidding process, even with a project description in hand, you may find that some bidders will recommend something different than what was described. At this stage of a game, you must resist the temptation to stray from your project description and keep in mind your goal — get comparable paint proposals. So even if you like that recommendation of an extra finish coat for example, you should ask the recommending bidder to give you an alternate price — price only for that extra coat. This way, when the time comes to compare proposals, you will not end up trying to compare apples to oranges or to some other completely different type of fruit.

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Post tags: Compare Paint Quote, Paint Estimates, Paint Quote, Painting Bid, Painting Company Estimate, Painting Estimate, Painting Quote