As painting contractors, we have noticed that house painting prices vary wildly in our industry. And this not only affects homeowners, but also, affects fair, hardworking & honest painting companies. For homeowners, it is difficult to make a decision when receiving tempting cheap offers that will save them some bucks. So, why do house painting prices vary greatly?
Today, we’ll give you the reasons and the scenarios that lead to this bothersome situation. In this way, you’ll learn the reasons to avoid picking the wrong painter, preventing you from a bad experience and a bad painting service as well.
License is the first thing you need to consider when hiring a painting contractor.
Maybe you got 3 painting quotes. And one of them was way cheaper than the other two. You should double check the one that offered a cheaper house painting price to see if they have a license. Often, unlicensed contractors will charge you way less than licensed contractors.
Licensed painting contractors are fully trained, and they have invested their money and time to get their license. Also, a licensed contractor complies with all state regulations and building codes.
The California Contractors State License Board (CSLB) issues licenses to allow the legal performance of companies in the construction field.
If you want to see if a contractor is licensed in California, you can click here to do a quick License Check. Obviously, we can’t be talking about unlicensed contractors without ourselves being a licensed company. Next Level Painting Lic. #1038748.
This second reason is tightly related to unlicensed painting contractors. What happens is that unlicensed contractors can’t obtain necessary building permits. Basically, they work without permits. That’s another reason why they would charge much less.
Since unlicensed contractors lack permits, the work they do will not be properly inspected. And this can be unsafe since the work was not completed following the building code specifications.
Hiring an unlicensed painting contractor might cost less, but it can be more expensive in the long run due to repairs in case the job wasn’t completed correctly.
Also, you take the risk to get fines and legal fees due to lack of building permits.
Insurance is another aspect that influences the big gap in the house painting prices.
So, house painters that don’t have insurance can drop the price to unprecedented rates. Uninsured painting contractors not only fail to protect homeowners, but they also hurt the insured businesses because sometimes homeowners prefer to pay less than to be insured.
An insured painting contractor buys liability insurance to protect homeowners from damage to their property. So, in other words, if you choose to work with an insured contractor, they will charge more since they are also protecting you in the event of a mishap.
The amount of preparation work done is one of the main reasons for price discrepancies between painting contractors.
Not all painting contractors are created the same. Some are masters of their craft. And trusted house painters know that a good preparation work before painting is the key for ensuring a beautiful, long-lasting finish.
But preparation work takes effort and time; thus, it costs more. For instance, at Next Level Painting, we do excellent prep work by removing all of the old, peeling, blistered or chipped paint with scraping tools.
Then, to remove dust & dirt, we power wash the surface of your house (this only applies for your house exterior). And we also take our craftsmanship a step further by doing minor repairs on whatever needs to be fixed prior to painting your house. In fact, fixing minor damage is one of the best benefits of painting your house exterior. We can fix damage like mold or mildew, rotting wood, water stains, holes from termites, etc.
Last but not least, we prime your walls to make the surface ready for the coat of paint. We might say that our preparation work can take longer than the painting itself. But the effort is worth it because we want to delight you with durable and exceptional painting results. At Next Level Painting, we work without cutting corners. We’ll complete each step with excellence. No less.
On the other hand, cheaper painting contractors may simply have the goal to get color onto the surface. And that’s why they will offer a painting quote that is far below the average cost.
Quality of work and materials is another reason why there are big price discrepancies between painting contractors.
The quality of paint can make an impact on the total cost of your house painting project. For instance, there are different types of paint. Some paint prices can vary from $15 per gallon, up to $50 per gallon. And by buying cheap paint is how some painting contractors can offer the cheapest painting service on the market.
Also, good painting contractors know which type of paint sheen to choose for exterior or interior projects.
But here we’ll give you one of the greatest pieces of advice you’ll get from us: “Never go for the cheapest residential painting service because Cheap is Almost Always More Expensive.”
Based on our experience, as a painting contractor, some clients that requested our estimates sometimes went for the cheapest painting services. And then, the cheap painting job ended up being of low quality, so that’s when they called us again to fix what was done incorrectly and get our high-quality painting services.
Remember that a low-priced job is likely to be rushed. To be profitable while charging less, a painting contractor must do high volumes of work.
It’s risky to go for the cheapest painting quote because it may mean that the contractor is not licensed. Also, the cheap house painting estimate can give you a hint of the quality of preparation work, paint, materials, and even the lack of experience of the painter.
Ok. Let’s assume that an unlicensed and uninsured house painter charges a lower price for a good quality painting result. Great for those who took their chances to hire them and everything worked out well.
But now, let’s assume that the job was not completed smoothly. There was damage to your house, and because you hired someone uninsured, you cannot file to get compensation from an insurance company since no one was backing up the project. In this case, homeowners took their chances, so they end up assuming the consequences.
So, you’ll be better off hiring a licensed & insured painting company in Pleasanton, CA.
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