Hiring painters - expectations

[ny biker]

This week I've had painters doing work in my condo. Though things look good from a distance, I'm disappointed by the the quality of the work when I look up-close. I expected them to use painter's tape or an edger or something to get clean lines around the trim. Is that unrealistic?

This is the first time I've ever hired anyone to paint for me. If you've gone through this before, what was your experience?





Also they rushed to finish (stayed 3 hours late -- I had to go out to dinner to get out of their way) because they were told they had to finish yesterday because of a snowstorm shutting things down today. They did not do a good job cleaning up. I had to vacuum my bedroom at 10 pm last night before I could sleep in it. Despite repeated requests by me to cover my furniture, I have white dust all over the place and white paint stains on my red loveseat. I turned off the heat pump and fan each morning but they turned the fan back on so the dust circulated everywhere. This is the filter that I removed from the air handler last night.



This is an old building -- they were supposed to follow EPA guidelines for working with lead paint dust.

They will be coming back for "touch ups" so I need to figure out how much rework I should ask for.

Thanks for your input.

[Crankin]

None of this seems right to me.
We've only hired one professional painter for the inside, when we moved to this house. Since it was the person my older son worked for during 2 college summers, it might not be a good comparison, but, yes, he used tape and all of the nearby furniture was covered or moved. And, when my DH has painted, he always did that, too. Since it was just him painting, with the occasional help of his brother in law, I almost felt he was like that character in the Murphy Brown show! He was always here when I came home from work.
I would call the boss and specify your complaints and review the terms of the contract.

[Blueberry]

I've had limited painting done, and no - this doesn't sound right.

Do you have anything in writing? Do you have the EPA lead certification in writing? It might be worth calling EPA. They are pretty serious from what I hear about the lead contamination issues - and it sure sounds like you have them. http://www2.epa.gov/sites/production...ents/steps.pdf Who have you been working with?

Issues to consider:
How much re-work do you want given the level of destruction they have caused? Would you rather pay less than the contract and have someone else fix it? Would you want them back (without you there?) after this?
What do you want done (if anything) about lead contamination? Perhaps a professional cleaning (steaming carpets, etc.)?
Can the damaged furniture be cleaned, or would it need to be re-covered? They should definitely cover making that right.

What I mess. My sympathies.

[rebeccaC]

Sounds like problems coming from a rush job. Where did the white dust come from? If from sanding lead paint I’d look into what needs to be done to mitigate that problem and ask them to take care of that, recut the areas where overlap is on the floor and door moldings/walls, take care of removing paint from furniture and any other painting related problems. My condo insists anyone working in the building be licensed, bonded and insured. If they are that may give you some recourse if you don’t get any satisfaction from talking to them….and like blueberry wrote deal with the epa if they didn't do things according to the ways they were legally suppose to.

hoping they make things good for you.

[ny biker]

Thanks very much for your replies.

I sent an email to the company president, who was the person who provided the estimate and was my contact person before the work began. (I actually planned to draft the email tonight, sleep on it and then possibly edit it tomorrow, but I accidentally hit the send button, so I'm committed. Note to self: don't enter anything in the To: box until you're ready to hit send.)

The company was highly recommended by someone who has worked with them in the past, so I'm hoping that I will not have a problem getting them to come back and fix the sloppy work. I have some plastic dropcloths here which I will use to cover the furniture myself.

In the meantime I'm moving ahead planning subsequent home improvment projects -- someone came today to measure my windows for new honeycomb shades, I scheduled an appointment to get an estimate for new hardwood floors and will be calling a second flooring company on Monday, and I picked up some sample tiles and paint for the bathroom renovation. I'm frustrated by the painters but remaining optimistic that all will turn out okay in the end.

Thanks again!

[lph]

I'm just now doing some painting of my own. It looks like they did use tape, but slapped it on fast. It's a lot faster to just stretch it out and make a straight line than to actually look at where the trim goes and carefully adjust it as you go. Very shoddy. Admittedly, it took me a while to learn this myself, but it's the very least I would expect from a professional.