Customer
When you hire a painter you need to know where to find one and how to stay in control of the painting project and final price. Follow our step-by-step guidelines.
Finding a reliable painter to paint your home is simply a matter of having a comprehensive checklist of steps to follow. One of the first things to do when you hire a painter is to ask around your social network or local neighbourhood to see if anyone can recommend a few painters they have used before with good results.
Another great place to start is online – using a handyman directory such as Service Seeking. Read on, and before long, you will be on your way to a freshly painted home in no time!
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You have worn-out, chipped or dull interior or exterior walls that have been plaguing you long enough. It’s time to give your nerves a break and ring up a painting service to give your home a refreshed look.
Maybe you’ve done a bit of research on Google, but separating the wheat from the chaff seemed almost impossible despite hours of searching and scrutinising.
You certainly want to steer clear from dodgy painting contractors that cut corners, leave a mess behind or don’t deliver as promised. You want a reliable tradesman to do your painting project to the standard you expect, on time and at a reasonable price. With no unpleasant surprises down the line. And an end result that stands the test of time.
Knowing where to begin puts you in control of the process. That’s exactly where we step in to help. Here’s a step-by-step guide to finding a high-quality painter to hire.
Use your word-of-mouth referral network
Good old word-of-mouth referral is the oldest and most influential form of marketing. If a good and reliable friend or family member speaks well of a product or service based on personal experience, we’re ready to embrace it without too much overthinking.
It’s a great place to start. But what if none of your friends or family has done home painting renovations recently or ended up with a fiasco?
Use Service Seeking to hire a painter
Service Seeking is a user-friendly online tool that helps you track and hire just about any kind of trade imaginable. Painters included. And they’re all local, just a click or phone call away.
So when kicking off your painting project, all you have to do is browse some profiles, skim through some reviews and find your best pick. Then, narrow down your search by getting free quotes from at least three professional painters.
ServiceSeeking.com.au offers some awesome perks. It:
- Lists all the services the painting contractor provides
- Offers house painters' portfolios
- Lets you filter painters by ranking or number of reviews
- Gets you in direct contact with the contractors
Looking at positive and negative reviews will help you reach an informed decision, and their price ranges will keep you from overpaying. Plus, it’s all in one place, so there’s no need to look further.
Discuss the details to get the most accurate quotes
In order to get the most accurate cost you can expect to pay for the paint job, you need to pinpoint all the details that need to be done first. The more detail you provide the contractor, the more accurate the quote they’ll give you.
However, this accuracy has its limits. The ability to price a job comes from the painter’s previous experience, but final estimates can be done only after an on-site walk-through.
What you need to discuss upfront is:
- Is there a need for some prep work?
- How many square metres or square feet of the house do you need to be painted?
- Do you want to go to multi-colour?
- Do you need plasterwork, moulding, wallpapering, or drywall work?
Paint and material choice will also affect the price and quality, as will the need for specialty painters if you choose faux painting or murals for your feature wall.
Arrange for an on-site estimate
Arrange for at least three painters to give an on-site estimate before you decide to hire one. This way, you can cover all aspects of the work and negotiate the best price.
The on-site assessment should look into all work stages, from prep work to finishes, to diagnose what needs to be done and factor all of it into the quote.
Paint preparation needs to be addressed most thoroughly. If not done properly, there’s no way back. Even the best paint will crack, peel or chip easily if the surface is not well prepared.
The painter will check to see if your walls are uneven and how deep the damage goes. They will explain all the details of surface preparation. Do your walls need caulking, filling cracks and light sanding? What primer should be used? How many coats of paint is needed, including undercoats and finish coats?
Seek a written estimate
A written estimate will put your mind at ease when you hire a painter since it’ll give you an insight into where exactly your money goes. It’s also a dead giveaway for revealing how professional a contractor is. Alarm bells should ring if he slips you a vague proposal you can’t make sense of.
Go for those contractors that offer you a full written estimate listing a breakdown of labour, paint and material costs and all the minutiae of surface preparation costs.
Do a reference check
Even if you’ve checked customers’ reviews online, it doesn’t hurt to ask for a list of references from each of the contractors you’re considering for the job. Double-checking the quality of their work will help you draw closer to seeing your selection process through. And when you do, you’ll do it knowing you chose right.
Maybe even visit some sites of their previous work to see for yourself how it is holding up.
Check up on the painter’s credentials
Painters are required to be licenced in most parts of Australia, including New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia.
Hiring a licenced professional doesn’t only mean you’ll get top-notch craftsmanship for your home redecoration. It also means you’ll be able to protect yourself and have legal recourse if damage occurs and insurance coverage is needed.
Just ask the painters to show you proof of their registration.
Make sure everything’s included in the contract
The contract should include all the contractors' personal information, license numbers, phone numbers, etc. It should also work in all the technicalities from the written estimate as a clear point of reference of what is and is not included in the job.
Don’t forget insurance
We’re constantly being flooded with grim headlines that remind us things can get bad when we least expect them to. But with something as mundane as a paint job, any thoughts of impending disaster are not usually top of mind.
But one of the painting crew could trip over a bucket of paint and hurt themselves, damage your family heirloom Persian rug or drop a ladder on your neighbour’s car.
Each of these scenarios, however unlikely, demonstrates why your contractor needs to have insurance coverage. If they don’t, the best-case outcome is having to live with the damage to your property and, in the worst case, having to pay for the damage out of your own pocket – a sure way to blow out your budget!
Ask for a guarantee
The painter should offer a two-year guarantee on the paint job. This means that should any peeling, chipping, flaking or fading occur during the time covered by the guarantee; he should be able to fix it at no or at a minimal cost.
Choose the paint
Choose your colours by taking your personal preferences into consideration, but also variables like lighting, mood and your home furnishings. Check out this video to get the gist of the art of choosing the colours for your interiors.
Some may find a flat matt finish paint the most appealing, but if you’re after durability, go for an eggshell finish that has a slight lustre but holds up better with cleaning. The rule of thumb is the higher the sheen, the better it stands up to washing and cleaning.
Photo from ziduu.com
Confirm start and finish dates
Before you seal the deal, agree on the start and finish dates. And whatever you do, don’t make a total amount down payment. Also, make sure to delay the final payment (usually 10 to 15%) until after the last brush stroke, or at least the last one that you’re satisfied with.
The vital aspect of finding a painter worth hiring is to do your homework and carry out your research well. You’ll have to know where to find them, how to negotiate with them and how to assess the factors that affect the quality and price.
Using an online tool like Service Seeking is often the best way to kick-start the process if you are a bit of a procrastinator. Before you can blink, painters will be reaching out to offer their services, and you’ll have no more excuses for putting your painting project off any further!
You’ll need some time to mull things over and weigh your priorities on the cost-schedule-quality scale. But going through the steps above should leave you covered.
Good luck, and no doubt you’ll have your home spic and span again in no time!