Risks to Consider Before Hiring the Low Price Painter
Choosing the Lowest Bidder for Your Painting Project Always Seems Like a Smart Way to Save Money… Most Times It Doesn’t Work Out.
The following information is provided to assist homeowners and property owners in choosing a professional painting contractor in New York and New Jersey. We have extensive experience serving Downtown Brooklyn’s historic brownstone communities including: Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn Heights, Boerum Hill and Red Hook. We are now looking forward to future growth in the Red Bank NJ area and bringing our 18 years of New York City experience to this area.
There are some pretty common reasons why some painting contractors offer what appears to be a “great deal”.
It can be hard to resist the savings especially if you are at the end of a renovation project that ran over budget.
We ask you to look beyond price and choose a painter that brings the most value to your home or business. We believe that our painting process is probably the most important thing that distinguishes ourselves from our competition. We can provide you with a written step-by-step application process for all that we do.
Our clients consistently rate our work as outstanding. We invite you to check out our ratings and reviews. We will also provide you with at least 50 local references that you can call.
Some Ways a Painter Can Cut Corners on Quality to Offer a Lower Price
A quality painting project starts with proper prep work.
Shortcuts in prep work can show up in as little as 30 days and most low bidders don’t include a warranty that you will be able to enforce. At that point you will have to live with the blistering and cracking paint or hire a professional painter to fix it.
The biggest cost for a painting contractor is labor so cutting corners on prep work is the easiest way to make a profit on a low bid.
Here are some of the most common ways the low bidder will cut corners on quality to reduce their labor costs:
- Applying one coat of spackle when multiple coats are needed – seams and other imperfections will show through
- Using caulk instead of tape and spackle on cracked seams or in corners – the cracks will be back in short order
- Substituting cheap caulk – inferior caulk is prone to drying out and splitting
- Skipping a true superior primer (we only use the best primer money can buy) coat and applying paint directly to bare wood or drywall – when the paint blisters of cracks – painting over the area will not fix the issue – it will continue to blister and crack
- Using the lowest grade of paint from well-known manufacturers. Most manufacturers have up to five lines of paint and spending $20 more per gallon can make a big difference in the final project
- Not properly cleaning the surface first – if there is any residue on the surface it will affect how well the paint adheres
- Hammering in nails or even screws instead of replacing them will cause the same nail pops in the future
- Hiring untrained and part-time workers that are learning how to paint at your expense– this avoids taxes and it also exposes the homeowner or property owner to liability in case of an accident