Author Topic: Help! "Professional" paint job? Scrape prior drip marks on lead paint/peeling?  (Read 6709 times)

Offline tullia

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I need some advice from a professional painter who knows what they are doing! I am feeling in over my head now and not sure if I can believe the professionals we hired to do the job.

We hired a professional with a supposedly good reputation around town and who advertise their lead paint certifications to repaint our 1930's cottage style house with original wood siding, and of course lead (we didn't test it but it can be assumed) The paint was not in good condition -- one wall in particular has had layers kind of peeling off in chunks. We had fixed moisture issues last year and think it was all good there. We live in Oregon so we requested the job not be done until June or July, but they called in April and wanted to do the job that month. Our contract said they would use lead-safe practices to power wash, scrape, prime, and paint with Sherwin Williams 10 yr.

They called us and said "All done! Come do the walk around!" What we found was what looked like a slapsdash job -- gaps not filled in in trim, drips, paint peeling off the one side wall already, brushmarks, one unpainted underside of roof trim, and the one that made me maddest of all -- paint chips on the ground all around the house. It looked like no scraping or sanding had been done whatsoever.  I asked to meet the field manager there and he told me he didn't see anything that was "too big of a deal" to get me to calm down. I gave him a piece of my mind. I escalated it and called the owner, who offered to meet me at the location os he could see what was going on. He was immediately defensive when we showed him the craftsmanship and even told me that painting the house was like "polishing a turd" because the house needs some work and that he'd rather be attending to other parts of his business than doing a walk around with me.

I pointed out drips and he said it was from a prior paint job and that he wouldn't scrape drip marks from prior paint jobs. Is this really not done in the painting industry? Would a professional painter really not scrape old drip marks?  It is almost beside the point that the drips, I believe, were from his crew.

We settled on the fact that he would have the same guy who did the job in the first place go back out and fix any issues -- we are smalck in the middle of this ordeal right now and I am a bit anxious to go back over after he says he is "done" the second time after all this. We really didn't want to start a fight with a house painter, we just wanted a quality job that would be the best a professional could do -- we know an old house won't wind up looking perfect and that we'd still see layer marks from the old paint, etc. The bill is almost $6,000, which I won't pay until it's done to my satisfaction. Even if the paint job becomes magically wonderful some how I am sickened and shocked by the customer service of this company.

Long story to ask about that two sticking points really-- 1) should we expect a professional house painter, who promised to do scraping in the contract, to attempt to remove old drip marks by scraping and buffing it out a bit before painting over top? I keep going back to the lead paint thing and thinking maybe that throws a wrench in it. 2) He is saying "oh, yeah that wall is chunking off already because there must be moisture that is being drawn out by the new paint and it's not his fault, and I am saying "why didn't you check the moisture content of the wall first during your prep, that seems like the painter's responsibility to do that?"

Any advice from people who have experience with these things would be more than appreciated.

Offline rmichael

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Hi Tullia,

"Lead Safe" practices are very specific and require that the contractor be certified to carry out specific guidelines required by the EPA. The contractor must complete a lead safe course usually provided (for a fee) by your local Health Dept. From your post it is clear that your contractor may not be a certified "lead safe" painting contractor, if he were there would NO paint chips on the ground around the house. Certification also requires a lot of paperwork including logs and plans for every step/phase of the job.

If he is advertising his lead certification and not following the safety guidelines he is asking for trouble. Big trouble.

As far as the quality of the job, it is always best to get at least two estimates and always ask for and call references. In this case I would have asked to see his lead certification and inquired about other jobs he had done involving lead.
While I do not know how detailed your contract is, If you think that he did not complete or attempt things that are listed in the contract insist (strongly) that the contracted services be completed, after all, the purpose of the contract is to protect both parties.

Best Luck
rmichael


Pro Painter 30 years ~ Down East Coastal NC

"Hell Son, It's always been about the work."

Offline mymint87

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lead practices written in the contract just means basically to contain and avoid particles getting airborne, meaning wet sanding instead of dry sanding for example, the amount of debris has a minimum limit in order for him to provide a manfest (paperwork).if the debris is below that limit, no paperwork is needed....appears to me your ultimate finish is not uniform and is in need of feather spackling, putty coating, caulking etc and that is what your disturbed about....as hinted in the above post, the contract is your ultimate protection, if the company didnt specify any other prep work besides removing loose debris, they have fufilled the contract....would love to see the scope of work specified in the contract as rmichael referred too
I don't do this for a hobby and I'm damn sure I don't need the practice

Offline tullia

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Thanks, guys. Hindsight is 20/20.The contract states that they'd scrape anything loose or chipping to a well-adhered surface. And it also states that lead safe practices would be used. The same guys is trying to make good on their contract as we speak  (I hope) and I'll post an update. We got 2 bids on the project... guess we went with the wrong people.