You need a reason to hire this specific contractor over the others on your shortlist. A contractor that is invested in their trade will maintain membership with relevant local business and trade associations. Membership to the Better Business Bureau is a good starting point. It is a good idea to ask about the contractor’s certifications and license if local rules stipulate that they must have these. At the very minimum, the contractor has to be registered as a business and have a proper business address.

PRO TIP:

Ask to come and sign the contract at the contractor’s offices after completing the in-home consultation. While you’re there, check around to see if the building is branded in their name and if there is a staff that works from there. This way you know this isn’t just another chancer moonlighting as a painting contractor.

Unfortunately, as you would expect for a line of work where people are perched on ladders all day, accidents are common on painting projects. You want to make sure that when an accident happens on your home and property gets damaged or someone is injured you don’t shoulder the cost for it.

To protect your property from damage, your contractor must carry comprehensive business insurance with full liability coverage. Ask for proof of worker compensation insurance, which many contractors avoid to save money. That insurance covers both their workers and your family from injuries directly resulting from the painters’ work.

PRO TIP:

Call the contractor’s insurance carrier and confirm that the insurance is valid and if indeed the cover is sufficient for the scope of work.

It is critical that your exterior painting contractor is licensed and that they have all the necessary insurance cover in place. But that does not tell you enough about their actual competence or reliability. Ask the contractor for a list of local references and, if possible, a recently updated portfolio. The contractor should have traceable references and past clients that are willing to vouch for their services. The number of references they can supply is also a sign of how busy they are.

Get the opinion of a good number of local people who have had first-hand experience of working with the contractor. If the contractor is only able to give you contact information for only a handful of people, those maybe their relatives or friends and not bonafide past clients.

PRO TIP:

Choose several from the list of the contractor’s past customers and personally visit the properties the contractor claims to have worked on recently. Ask about the contractor, their systems, and get the homeowner’s general assessment of the contractor’s crew. Assess if indeed the properties have recently been painted and if the quality of work is satisfactory.

It is important to not make assumptions about the scope of work and what the contractor will actually do as part of the contract. Some will require you to prepare the house in some way, while others may ask you to clear a garage for the storage of their tools and materials. You don’t want to scurry around and arrange that while they wait on you.

PRO TIP:

Offer to provide a room for storage of tools and materials. Vacate a room if you have to. Having everything the contractor needs for their work kept on-site guarantees there won’t be any delays caused by the contractor’s truck breaking down or stuff that gets stolen or is left behind at their warehouse.

With any painting work, surface preparation is as important to the quality of the final product as the actual painting itself. You will want to know if the contractor will repair rotted boards or sand down any old peeling paint and if that will add to the project’s cost.

Make sure all necessary prep work is done before any paint is applied, even if that adds another expense to the project. Skipping this work will mean you have to redo the project soon, which is costly.

PRO TIP:

If there are major carpentry or siding repairs that need to be done, rather hire a pro builder instead of asking the painters to do it. It is unlikely they will do a better job than a pro builder. Ensure this work is done before the painters come to do the in-home consultation or estimate.

You should look to hire a painting contractor that uses their own employees and not subcontractors. It is cheaper for contractors to subcontract the labour as it removes the cost of having to pay worker benefits and social security taxes. For you, however, it means you have people whose credentials you are unsure of, which can lead to poor quality work. Employees have a greater incentive to do a good job as they have an attachment to the company and will want to see it succeed. A subcontractor is likely more interested in getting paid and won’t take much pride in their work.

It is also unlikely that the contractors will do any thorough background checks on the subcontractors they use. This compromises the safety of your family and the security of your entire property. The likelihood that these people will not have compensation insurance is also high.

You must know specifically who will be turning up at your property every day and what time they will start and finish work. You don’t want different faces showing up every other day as that compromises your security.

PRO TIP:

Many contractors will try to pass subcontractors off as their employees to avoid the obvious questions on background checks and job skills. Ask for proof that these are indeed the contractor’s employees. Check stubs, payslips, and a copy of the payroll are a few items of proof you can ask for. A contractor with nothing to hide should be happy to provide this.

Even if it costs you more, you should insist on the highest quality paint you can afford. Cheap paint produces cheap results. It is also likely that the contractor will quote and use cheap paint if they sense you are especially concerned with your budget.

Ask the contractor about the paint finishes and specifically about what works best for your house and local conditions. There are wild variances in the cost and quality of finishes for the different paint brands on the market and you want to make sure you are not compromising on quality for the sake of budget.

PRO TIP:

Don’t limit your questions to the quality of paint alone. Find out the brand of caulking materials and solvents they use. Make sure these aren’t cheap quality as that too affects the overall quality of the end product.

You must have a contact person through whom you will communicate with the painting company. This is the person who should answer all your questions regarding the progress and quality of the work as the project proceeds. Preferably, this will be the project manager.

Having a designated contact person establishes a clear line of communication that ensures that issues are attended to timeously so the project runs smoothly. It minimizes the potential for complaints and the cost of remedial work where issues were not addressed on time.

PRO TIP:

At the beginning of the project, discuss with the project manager how the project will proceed. Ask for a timeline and a system for executing and checking off each stage of the project.

If the contractor will clean up after the work is done, you must have this written into the contract. It helps you to plan and arrange a cleaning crew if you have to. There is usually quite a bit of cleaning that will need to be done, including clearing all the empty paint containers and the rotten wood and other dirt removed as part of the prep work.

Serious exterior painting contractors stand by their work. The best way they do this is by offering a reasonable, comprehensive warranty. Be careful of contractors that offer unreasonably long 10 and 15-year warranties, which may ultimately be unenforceable as the contractor may long be out of business by then.

Know specifically what the warranty covers. Instead of a general, vaguely worded warranty, ask what specific defects are covered and whether both labour and materials are included.

PRO TIP:

Verbal warranties have no legal force. Ask that yours be in writing and, if need be, have it reviewed by a lawyer or someone knowledgeable about contracts.

There is no guarantee that your painting project will be done to your absolute satisfaction. But by getting satisfactory answers to these 10 questions, you will minimize the risk of the most common issues homeowners have with painting contractors. You will have greater assurance that you aren’t opening your home to people who will put your security at risk and that the quality of work will at least be decent.