Yes. That's what they called them selves. College Pro Painters. The company name pretty much says it all. The crew was professional and on time and considering that they were 2 college students, their time on the job for my house wasn't too bad. 9:00 to 4:ish.
I was not able to be around for the first day but arriving home that afternoon something wasn't right. How could they have painted so much in the first day?
Day two I hung around and discussed the work with the boys. They were unaware that they were responsible for hand cleaning the wood with TSP and filling any wood gaps and cracks. Then there was to be the oil primer and then the actual colour final coat paint. They thought that they were just to paint over everything. Including dirt. After all the supervisor/agent quoted 120 hours for this 7000 sqft house to be painted. At 60 hours per person it shouldn't be a problem.
Seems the boys were unaware of the terms of the contract. That was cleared up on day three between myself, the agent/supervisor and the painters. Oh. By the way, the supervisor was never around.
The boys were now doing a fine job though I did have to suggest to them that painting directly over TSP with out rinsing it off and letting the wood dry might be a problem. They appreciated my instructions and they adjusted their work methods while I was around. Being around is the important part of this job. I've done this work many times and a lot of my houses are going on 12 to 15 years and still do not need a paint job.
All in all in the end the boys did an ok job considering that they had never done this kind of work before. Summer job you know. I did have to send them up a few times to paint the parts of the house you couldn't see from the ground. by the end it took the lads three weeks to complete the
job. And their reward from the company for doing such a fine job was a reduction in their hourly rate once they went past the 120 hours. Not exactly a fair shake to the working guys and a huge miss quote from the agent.
Watch closely when you have strangers work on your pride and joy. A little extra effort on your part will yield the results you want.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $7,500.00