What To Ask A Painting Contractor When Hiring Them

Hello, my name’s Kevin Sillaman – I’m with the Ohio Painting Company

We’re right here out of Dayton, Ohio! I’m actually one of the owners.

The other owner is Nick Goebel – a great business partner of mine!

Just wanted to talk to you today about a question that is on the internet and people are asking this would be a pretty simple question you would think…

If you’ve ever remembered a time, whenever you’ve gone through an experience and at the end you thought, ‘WOW! I wish I would have asked us to begin with!’ Well, here’s one of those questions that you may be able to get the answer to.

‘What to ask a painting contractor when hiring them’

Once you’re in the mix of the work, it’s already too late! You might have somebody in there that you wish you would have asked a couple more questions of.

One of those questions might be;

‘Do you work full time or do you work part time as a painter?’

Now, this seems like a pretty easy question and you might be thinking why would you ask that if he’s a painter? This is because there are a lot of people out there that are not doing full time work in painting. They just treat it as a gig that they can make some extra money from!

More importantly, they might even be a contractor that doesn’t have the right expertise in painting that you need to have in your home!

They may be satisfactory in a lot of other homes, but in your home particularly, you’re going to want a little more quality.

So you’re going to want to take a look and be asking these questions, or you wouldn’t be looking at this content – so kudos to you for looking out for a better contractor!

Another great question is..

‘Is this your trade? Or are you a school teacher?’

‘Do you just do this on the weekends and in the summer?’

There are a lot of teachers out there that are really good painters! So keep that in mind. If they are a painter, and they’re a teacher also, it might not be a bad thing!

Maybe a little bit of an older painter is what you might want, one with more experience, because he only has half the time that a regular full time painter would have – since he’s only painting in the summertime.

You might want a painting contractor with a little more experience.

If they have a team – how much experience do those people have?

This is a guy that is full time, now you know for sure he’s a good guy, but you’re wanting to know about his team too! As they may be working on your property too!

‘How many years of experience does the team have?’

Or…

‘What type of a training process do you have for your employees, your subcontractors etc.?’

‘How long have you been painting?’

Be sure to ask this right at the beginning, as it gets you in the mindset of what you’re dealing with.

If you’ve got a painter that only says they’ve been at it a couple of years, then you might want to think again!

‘Is this the guy that I want for my house?’

However somebody that’s got three to five years experience, if this has been full time, then I’d say that’s probably a pretty good indication that they’ve got some pretty good skills!

‘Are you registered with the state?’

The reason you want to make sure that they’re registered with the state is because the registration is to get qualified to be insured properly. If they’re not registered, they might not be insured properly!

They might try to  give you a card under somebody else’s insurance!

They could just show you insurance and it might not be applicable to them at all!

So proper insurance is something that you want to make sure that they do definitely have!

So be sure to find out if the insurance is in their name or not!

PROTECT YOURSELF

If something happens to them on the job, you’re going to be liable if they don’t have insurance! Your homeowner’s insurance is going to have to pick that up!

If something happens and they spill a gallon of paint who’s going to pay for that?

For whatever it has done on the floor, the walls, the couch etc.!
So be sure to think of all those things and, keep that in mind whenever you’re looking at their insurance to make sure that they are registered!

• What type of preparation do they do?
• Where do they put their stuff?
• What happens at the end of the day on their cleanup?

….These are all prep things for – either the beginning of the job or the end of the day, but they are still prep!

Once you get through the beginning and the end, also ask more questions!

‘How do you prepare the walls?’

There are certain things that we do, and we know that we need to make sure that they’ve done to every wall before it’s done, all the woodwork, and to anything that’s being painted. You just cannot put paint on things!

Well technically you can…

But we choose not to!

We decided a long time ago that we want to make sure that you’re getting the highest quality possible. We want your walls to look what we call ‘Baby’s butt smooth’, and your trim work,, we want to look as if it were literally sprayed on! Like a factory finish!

We want it to look really premium for you!

Those are a couple of those very important prep questions that you might want to ask. along with that, things like

• ‘How do they care about filling holes?’
• Are they going to take care of it themselves?
• What kind of paint do they use?

Paint is extremely important!

A lot of high quality paints are out there.
But there are ten times more very inexpensive paints!

You may want a clay based paint for your ceiling because it doesn’t really matter.

You’re just looking for that bright white finish.

But you definitely don’t want clay based paint on your walls!

Because you know what clay is and does? It dissolves in water!

So you want something with a really premium finish in there, maybe even little plastic molecules.

There are paints out there that put up a really good defense shield to anything that’s going to come towards them, so that you can still clean them a lot easier too.

One of the things that we use would be a Sherwin-Williams, like a Cashmere® – that’s the name brand of the paint. This is for an interior. 

Cashmere® – Just that word alone, just it makes you think like;
‘Oh my gosh! This is going to look like butter on the wall’ 

I mean a nice, smooth, soft finish – which is what you’re looking for!

Needless to say, Cashmere® is one of those lines. 

We could get into a little bit more about that, but Ben Moore has also got a great line that you can’t go wrong with either! 

‘What type of references do you have?’

A lot of people might have a couple of references from their mom or dad – but look online, what kind of references do they have?

Sure they can give you a couple right then, but dig in a little bit deeper around that one – okay? And just find out exactly what you’re looking for and the quality of service and finish that you hear from their other customers.

I hope you have a great day.

That is the end of this session.

We do have another question coming up…

‘How to hire a professional painter’

Thank you so much again for joining us today.

Have a super day.

– Kevin Sillaman