6 Mistakes to Avoid When Choosing Your Next Painting Company

Painting can be both fun and intimidating, depending on the scale of the project and your skill level. This is why most San Diego homeowners opt to hire qualified and experienced painting contractors to help them with their painting projects. While repainting a small piece of furniture can be a perfect DIY weekend project, major projects like exterior painting, interior painting and cabinet repainting in San Diego should only be left to the pros.

When considering repainting your home, you have major decisions to make –after all, your home is easily the biggest investment you have, yet. And choosing a professional painting contractor is one of the biggest decisions you need to make. Professional painting contractors have the training, experience, and tools to produce the best results quickly and efficiently.

However, there are a few contractors that you want to avoid, and to do that, here are some hiring mistakes you should avoid when choosing a painting contractor for your next project.

1. Failure to Check for References

Before hiring any painting contractor in San Diego, you want to get a feel of their work quality and how it feels to work with them. Any painting contractor that has been in the business long enough and is proud of their work should be happy to refer you to one of their clients who had a similar project like yours. Don’t just look at the physical work, talk to the former client and ask them about things like the contractor’s communication, timeliness, honesty, professionalism, the painting process, and budget issues.

2. Not Checking Paperwork

This is rarely a big issue, but if you’re hiring a painter for a major project such as exterior, interior or cabinet painting, you want to make sure everything falls on the legal side. The two most important things you want to check for here is the registration/licensing and insurance. If in any doubt, request for a copy of a business license which allows the painter to operate in your state.

Secondly, check to see that the painting company has business liability insurance and Workers compensation insurance. Business liability insurance covers any damages that might occur while the crew is working on your property. In the event of an injury to any of the painting crew members, the worker’s compensation insurance will take care of that –you won’t have to incur any additional costs in either case.

3. Not Checking for Reputation

Any company that has been around long enough has footprints, both online and offline. You don’t want to end up with a company that has been misbehaving before, because chances are you will become part of the bitter statistics. Check for online reviews and feedback about the company on sites like Yelp, Google My Business, Angie’s List and social media. The company doesn’t need to have endless 5-star ratings and 100% glowing feedback, but if they have a significantly high number of negative reviews and feedback, run!

4. Making an Upfront Payment

While it’s normal for most painting companies to request for some down payment to facilitate their operations for major projects, avoid any company that requires you to pay everything upfront. It’s ok to pay 10-20% of the whole amount as down payment, but only pay everything else once the project is completed.

5. Picking the Lowest Bidder

In an effort to save some money on the project, it’s quite tempting to choose the cheapest offer on the list. And most homeowners make this mistake. The most important factor to focus on here is actually not the dollar amount, but the actual value that the painter is presenting. Make sure that all the important prep process are included, only quality products to be used and all your painting needs are covered. The cheapest painter on the list has most likely cut some corners, and this will cost you in the long run.

Bottom Line
If you avoid all the above mistakes, you should end up with an experienced, reliable and efficient painting contractor that can offer the most durable and best quality results. Alternatively, if you would like to skip the hassle of jumping the above hoops and more, you should consider giving Peek Brothers Painting Company a chance.
Peek Brothers Painting, a reputable residential painting company in San Diego, is built one job at a time. As a family owned and operated business, we are keenly aware that a job done well is an asset to our reputation. And we would love to add you to our long list of happy clients. Give us a call today for a free estimate or more information.