Starting a huge project like house painting in Concord entails a lot of fuss and preparation. Even if you choose to hand the project off to a professional painting contractors (as opposed to doing the work yourself), it is not a simple process. There’s choosing the potential contractors who will vie to win your job, something you do not want to take lightly.
The usual mistake homeowners make when choosing a contractor to paint their home is to just request the candidates come over their property, point to the areas that need to be painted, without much prelude, and then ask them for a quote.
Maybe the owners did not wish to put off the contractors by giving them too many details, or assumed that professionals tend to know best. While it is a fact that professionals should know the best way of dealing with the job, every contractor has their own experience (or lack thereof) which makes their approach to a job different from other contractors. Without explaining what you want to have done, the submitted quotes and everything in them — price, job specifications, even the scope of work –will be inconsistent so comparing one quote with another would be nearly impossible.
For instance, one bidding contractor includes an extra topcoat of paint, while another bidder may completely exclude the extra coat in order to outdo the competition. Another bidder includes pressure washing the exterior surfaces because he thinks it will clean the walls more effectively. But a competitor may not offer pressure washing at all.
So as you can see, the job specifications that contractors offer in their proposals are not that consistent, and this renders them impossible to compare. Many homeowners to into the bidding process all over again in the middle of the project, when they realize something that they wanted was not included in the winning bidder’s proposal.
To avoid such confusion, it is recommended that homeowners provide a clear and exact description of the project (all aspects of it) to all bidders. Such description need not to be complicated and can even be verbally expressed to every bidder, as long as the description the homeowner provides is exactly the same.
Here’s an example of the homeowner’s project description:
Paint a bedroom’s interior walls on #1 Smith Street. Paint all surfaces including the trim, door and window frames, baseboards and the accent wall (please do not paint the door).
- Clean and prepare the surfaces to be painted
- Use one coat of primer and one coat of paint
- Walls will be painted beige, while the accent wall will be painted light brown. Trim, baseboards and window/door frames will be painted chocolate brown.
- Use only high-quality paints from “ABC Paint Company,” latex, VOC-free.
In the middle of the bidding game, some contractors may suggest something else that is not included in your project description. At this point you should resist against agreeing to their suggestion (no matter how professional it sounds) and try to be firm with your job description because it is only you who knows what’s best for your space. Even if you find a certain recommendation from a bidder that is appealing (such as an extra topcoat), you should ask the bidder to provide you an alternate price only for that extra finish coat.
By using the suggestion above, you’ll be able to compare proposals that are nearly at par with each other, and will not be faced with trying to compare an apple to an orange (or another type of fruit). In the end, you will be able to pick the rightful bidder who will do your house painting in Concord.