House painting in Concord is not as simple as it sounds. You have to go through such things as evaluating the proposals of several potential painting contractors. One of the usual things that most homeowners do when looking for a painting contractor is to contact and then invite him over to their home, point to the areas that must be worked on, and, without any prelude, request a quote.
Maybe these homeowners are simply confident that the contractor knows what he’s doing, or they don’t wish to exasperate him with too many details. While there’s no disputing that professionals should have the knowledge for their line of work, every contractor has his own different approach based on their number of years of experience. One contractor knows his job very well, while another contractor may be new and therefore lacking experience.
As a homeowner, what you most likely will see with these presented proposals is that its details (price, description, even the scope of work) will look muddles. This will make comparing estimates or proposals difficult to compare.
For instance, the first bidder might add an extra prime coat, while the second bidder might outdo his rival by skipping the prime coat in order to win the job. Such discrepancies in job specifications are hard to compare because the work being done is not the same. Most likely, the result will force the homeowners to do the bidding procedure all over again. Or even the worse scenario: such inconsistencies may also leave the homeowners to redo the bidding process while the in the middle of the painting job. Especially when they realize that there are things that they wanted finished weren’t included in the successful estimate.
To avoid such pitfalls, homeowners have to simply provide the every bidding contractor with a detailed description of the project. The description doesn’t need to be difficult or complicated. In fact, you can just literally describe the project verbally to the bidder, just as long as you provide exactly the same information with each contractor.
This is the sample project description you would provide to every bidder:
Exterior painting on 1st Street
- Clean and prep the surfaces to be painted
- After prepping, prime the surface with one coat and apply one coat of paint
- One color on all sides of the house
- You should use high-quality paints and materials by “ABC Paint Company,” nothing less.
Some bidding contractors will offer you something different than what you’ve exactly provided in your project description. At this point of the bidding process, you must not stay away from your original project description even when the offers seem too tempting to take. For instance, one of the bidders recommends that another top coat should be applied. His proposal sounds attractive to you, but it would be good to ask that contractor to provide you a different price just for that one more top coat. In that way, you’ll be able to compare proposals that aren’t entirely different from each other, and you will have a clear idea on which estimate will meet your needs and to win the job.
While professional painting contractors know about house painting in Concord, you ultimately have the say on how the work should be done, since you are the customer. In the end, what you need to be done in your house is what the contractors must exactly provide.