What could go wrong?... Continued

Painting contractors are, by and large, an honest, hard working bunch.

Occasionally, however, there are contractors, or employees, that don't take pride in their work and just want to create the impression of completion rather than doing a thorough job. Sometimes a foreman or project manager don't train, or review their painters work and mistakes slip through the cracks.

An then, sometimes... thankfully rarely, there are painting contractors that just do lazy work. A quick pressure wash and 1 coat. Incomplete preparation, and not taking the adequate steps to complete a painting project

When wood is pressure washed, if a mildew treatment is not used where it's required, the water will drive mildew spores into the wood. This holds moisture within the wood, and speeds the growth of wood rot. In addition, the dark stains will not fully remove, and translate through a single coat of paint leaving a mottled, dirty appearance.

If this skipped step is compounded by a lack of manual preparation by scraping and sanding, followed by single coat application of the new paint, what's left is an ugly, mottled appearance, unprotected wood, and another painting project in the near future. As we all know, fixing a bad project is significantly more expensive than just doing it right the first time.

Something that regularly confuses us at Inspec Consulting is when a contractor chooses to caulk and paint over rotten wood rather than advising the strata or owners and replacing it properly. It represents proper surface preparation, shows the owners that the contractor is serious about doing the work properly, and is an additional source of revenue for contractors on the project.

Doors are a particular area where additional preparation is required. The existing coating needs to be thoroughly scuff sanded to remove any failing or unbonded paint, and to create an adequate anchor pattern for the new paint to bond. Failure to take this step will result in premature failure as the previous coating continues to fail, and the new paint will be poorly bonded, and can be removed with light pressure from a fingernail.

A few months ago, we wrote a blog about what could go wrong when care is not taken selecting a painting contractor. That caution extends to existing crews within reputable painting companies. The example photos on this blog were taken from a project produced by a painting company that has been associated with good work in the past, and likely still produced good work. However, in this case, there was a crew that didn't take pride in their work, and a lack of oversight that resulted in an expensive repair for the contractor.

Involving a reputable Inspection and Consulting company from the beginning will ensure that these results won't be repeated on your property.