Whether you are painting a doghouse or an entire house, you can be sure it will be a difficult task at best. With the high cost of material tools and your time, it is often a good idea to hire a professional painter who can get the job done right and right away. Whatever exterior painting project you have in mind, be sure to hire the best professional for the job. Follow these five important steps on your next exterior paint job, and you’ll make sure you get a quality painting contractor to get the job done right.
1. Hiring the Right Person for the Job – At best, it can be difficult to find a quality painting contractor when there are so many to choose from and they all claim to be the best. One of the easiest ways to start eliminating the undesirable is by choosing a licensed and insured painting contractor. Without these two essential tools, your painter can easily do you more harm than good if someone gets hurt on the job or spills materials.
2. Receive Multiple Bids – By getting more than one painting contractor to bid on your exterior painting project, you will most likely get a good deal for the price. But don’t choose the lowest offer just because it is the cheapest. Make sure you get an itemized list of material and labor costs so you can better judge who has the real deal on costs, materials, and labor.
3. Ask for references: You never know who is going to do a good job, unless you’ve seen their work before. A good portfolio with lots of images is a common practice for many painting contractors. While this works great for viewing work, nothing beats speaking with a previous client in person. Get at least three contactable references from previous clients and you’ll be sure to get a very experienced painter and a long list of satisfied clients in the past.
4. Tool Check – If your painter decides to show up with a stepladder to paint the exterior of your home, he will not be able to do the job properly and safely. Important tools like ladder jacks, scaffolding, and walking platforms are just a few of the essential tools for getting the perfect exterior paint job. Be sure to ask your prospective painting contractor if they have the tools to safely reach the highest point in your home and meet industry standards to avoid unnecessary injury to workers, or your new paint job.
5. Get the best materials – It’s pretty easy to find cheap paint for sale at your local home improvement center and use it to coat your home with a cheap new coat of paint. But most of the time, these cheap paints don’t meet industry standards and will eventually fail much earlier than conventional exterior paints. Make sure your exterior painting contractor offers you a warranty on the paint so you don’t have to repaint your home every few years in the future.
