Crestwood Painting

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How to Hire a Painter

Articles designed to help with hiring and assessing the best painter for your needs.

Top 3 Must-Haves When Hiring A Paint Contractor

Careful Crestwood painters

If paint contractors are clear in what they are providing and customers are clear in what they are getting then everybody will be happy, yes? So why are happy customer/contractor experiences relatively rare? The answer is the dreaded Unmet Expectations.

Let’s say the paint contractor hired to paint your house drips on your new patio. You assumed he would properly protect your home, he assumed you wanted the work done fast and cheap. If he didn’t have a written contract then shame on everybody. If he did have a contract did it clearly specify these gems?

  • Inclusions
  • Exclusions
  • Clarifications

Inclusions

This is, of course, the work that will be done. In our case it would read something like “Paint house and garage only, including all previously painted doors, windows, soffits, fascia, etc.” Also included should be the materials used, time to completion, and yes, surfaces to be protected.

A job well specified is half delivered

Exclusions

If your fence will not be stained or painted it should be noted here. If the dog house, garage or porch swing will not be painted that will all be listed in the section. Is it really necessary to describe what will not be painted? Well, yes – everyone wants to avoid Unmet Expectations. If you expect that your beloved white dog house will not be painted and then come home to see that it is now gray you will be, at least, a bit put off.

Now, Exclusions can go too far – it’s not necessary to state that your roof will not be painted, is it? Or the driveway?

Clarifications

So you’re talking with your painter during the estimate and he assures you that he’ll take extra precautions around your new rose bushes. This section is where that assurance should be described – “Rose bushes on east side of garage will be staked off with yellow caution tape to help prevent damage”. Even better is an explanation of the consequences if the roses are not staked off – something like “if roses are not staked off and are damaged contractor agrees to have a qualified nursery replace them.”

If the rose bushes are not mentioned at all you’re setting yourself up to have some dreaded Unmet Expectations. Or, what if the contractor simply forgets what he said about the rose bushes. Or he forgets to tell his work crew?

It’s been wisely said that “a job well specified is half delivered”. Give Crestwood Painting a call if you’d like to see what Met Expectations feel like.

Filed Under: How to Hire a Painter Tagged With: estimates, painting insurance

Top 5 Uninsured Contractor Questions

uninsured paint contractor

What happens if you hire an uninsured contractor? A few pointed questions to your agent and you’ll soon see who pays if you hire an uninsured contractor – you do. Almost always. A Farm Bureau Insurance agent offered some specific cases that are very helpful.

Q. What if your contractor’s ladder falls on your convertible – who pays for what?
A. Your auto policy will cover the damage, but you, of course, will pay the deductible. Your carrier will likely “subrogate” (i.e. try to collect from) your contractor and you will have to determine if it’s worth trying to recover your deductible.

Q. What if a similar event occurs one year later. Will that event be handled differently?
A. The event should be handled exactly the same.  And hopefully not the same contractor. (One might infer that at some point the carrier will tire of covering a homeowner that routinely hires uninsured contractors.)

[Read more…]

Filed Under: How to Hire a Painter Tagged With: painting insurance

The BBB – Maybe Not AAA

Better Business Bureau Accredited BusinessHere’s an inside look at the old-time consumer “watchdog” agency, the Better Business Bureau. We’re pleased to belong to the BBB and happy to have an A+ rating, but some have had a less-than-ideal experience.

A roofing contractor starts his thorough overview of the BBB with this:

The Better Business Bureau portrays itself as a watchdog, protecting the unsuspecting consumers from the bad guys.  After learning a little more about the Tony Soprano-like practices of at least one BBB chapter, we need to ask… who’s watching the watchdog? Click here to read the rest...

A key distinction here – the BBB is a negative review organization in that they only catalog complaints. This is in sharp contrast to all of the online review sites which catalog both negative and positive reviews and so give a fuller picture of a contractor’s reputation.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: How to Hire a Painter Tagged With: Better Business Bureau, local partners

What’s A Warranty Worth?

Peeling exterior paint warranty
Peeling paint is a possible warranty situation. What kind of company will stand behind their work?

Believe it or not, some homeowners have hired crummy contractors – the kind you have no confidence in. But these people are quite sure that if everything goes bad, they’ve still got a written warranty.

Now a warranty is only as good as the company making it. The SBA says that 80% of new service companies don’t make it to their 5th birthday (93% don’t make it to 10 years!). You should know how far along that time line your contractor is before you buy into his warranty.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: How to Hire a Painter Tagged With: Better Business Bureau, painting insurance, warranty

Price, Service & Sketchy Dudes

painter background check kansas city
Some painters are best qualified for someone else’s project.

Several factors should be considered when hiring a contractor. The type and quality of painter that will work on your project is right at the top. Below are some thoughts on hiring a contractor that most people don’t address.

We often hear the following question from people who find us on the web or see our vans around Kansas City…..why is your price higher than the other painter(s)?

A number of variables influence pricing, among them…

  • Apples to apples – we supply carefully written scopes of work so you know what we are promising to paint, and how – a properly and conscientiously written estimate should have no gray areas, nor create opportunities for ‘upselling’ once the project commences.

We only hire people we would be comfortable having work in our own homes – each of our painters presents well, is personable and knows what he or she is doing.

  • Who is actually going to work in your home? We employ only painters who meet our 3 ‘Cs’ – competence, courtesy and communication. We only hire people we would be comfortable having work in our own homes – each of our painters presents well, is personable and knows what he or she is doing.
  • Trust but verify – by running background checks on every person who wears the Crestwood uniform we confirm the bona fides of the painters we hire. We consider this the minimum standard for any responsible service company and so should you – it’s your home or office we’ve been invited into.
  • Employee vs. subcontractor – this is a pet peeve of many an ethical painting contractor – some companies act as brokers, selling on your project to another company – this is becoming more common alas; we call it misrepresentation. Subcontracting lends it to myriad complications around misaligned expectations; typically the company working on your home is realizing a much smaller reward for the work and so likely to be in a hurry to finish!
  • Professional vs. price; we don’t believe in competing on price. We’d rather deliver excellent service and craft – hiring the right people and keeping them means offering them more than minimum wage so we offer a competitive package of benefits as well as a decent working wage; we reimburse for health savings accounts, offer retirement matches and paid time off.
  • It’s an unusual industry we’re in – the bar is set low and there are few if any licensing or other regulations that ensure either technical or business competence. We aim therefore to work for homeowners who are interested in turning over the protection of their home to trusted partners who will be around in 10-15 years when it’s time to paint again.

This article was adapted from a post by fellow PDCA member Nigel Costelloe at Catchlight Painting in Boston, the appropriate references have been changed.

Filed Under: How to Hire a Painter Tagged With: estimates, painters, subcontractor

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