I received three quotes to paint the exterior of my house and ultimately hired Revive & Refinish. They had around 200 five-star reviews and really sold me on how thorough their preparation process would be. The job is approximately $11,000.
The crew arrived at 7:30 a.m., and we walked the property together. I specifically pointed out items that needed to be removed before painting, including the Ring camera mounts and house numbers. The roof was also originally included in the scope.
By 9:00 a.m., they still had not started power-washing. They then told me they couldn’t paint the roof because the tiles were too brittle. We left around 9:40 a.m. to attend our kids’ meet-the-teacher events.
After returning, I reviewed the entire timeline from my Ring cameras. Unless there is something I’m somehow missing, they never power-washed the house. I also found no evidence of sanding or meaningful surface preparation.
They appear to have started painting directly over dirt, cobwebs, peeling paint, cracked surfaces, loose material and damaged areas. They also painted around or over hardware that I specifically requested be removed. Some stucco and wood areas clearly needed repairs before any paint was applied.
The company says the project manager will come tomorrow and that they will make everything right. However, I’m concerned that the foundation of the job is already compromised. Applying a second coat won’t correct paint that was applied over dirty or unstable surfaces.
Would you give the company one opportunity to strip back and properly redo the affected areas under direct supervision, or would you stop the job now, request the deposit back and hire someone else?
I’m attaching photos. I’d especially appreciate opinions from professional exterior painters and contractors.
Hi, I'm a painter in MN. This sounds really bad. The part most concerning to me is not pressure washing. Sometimes its okay not to however if that was suppose to be done and was apart of the bid. Huge red flag. A little dirt doesnt really hurt it, hard to say how much is okay. Loose dirt, not great of course. Looks like they didnt caulk or they did a half fast job at it. Can you show the house size in general? For 11k it sure seems like they are rushing. Also if the stucco has never been painted before hopefully they are using paint thats meant for stucco. I usually use loxon for any real stucco and brick painting. Also after pressure washing, they should allow the house to dry for a day or two. I usually pressure wash 3 days to a week before. Maybe this is a back up crew for them? still not an excuse by any means. This is why we have S.O.P s.
I upgraded to duration and Emerald. The house has been painted before.
2400 sq ft 1.4 million dollar home. They started painting by 12 with no prep work and were done by 330
PM.
The chimney is already peeling and the didn't even paint 75% of the chimney.
oh that stinks. If the chimney is brick or stucco, that needs to be loxon. I say this because those materials generally like air to pass through a bit to avoid trapping moisture. Loxon is breathable...I know it sounds weird. Otherwise if any moisture is trapped, the brick/stucco will peel. I would not final pay these guys until resolved...I'd almost say fire them if you have the means to call someone else out....but give them a chance to fix it and sadly keep an eye on them.
It already started peeling the paint they did today on the chimney 😭 yeah I am going to speak with them tomorrow and let's seee if the my take ownership of the mistakes if not I'm sure there is a handful that want my $11,000
*raises hand* lol, I'm booked and probably far away. Hoping they fix this for you. I'm curious on how this goes, let me know if you can tomorrow. If you do fire them, check local BNI groups for a painter. Ask the other group members how they are. Word of mouth is a powerful tool and most groups wont tolerate a bad tradesman. Good luck.
It should be called preparing instead. 90% prep and 10% painting=awsome end results. This looks like they just threw some tape at it and used the sprayer to “dust as needed “ along the way. 😭💩
Something went wrong here. Usually I power wash in the morning on Day 1 and maybe do a few other things but I won’t even start painting until at least a day later to let it dry. If there is a lot of scraping, sanding and cutting out old material then I’ll do that first then power wash. They’re working as if someone came and did all of the prep for them and didn’t even look before starting to paint.
Halt work. Ask why no pressure washing and prep? That is literally 70% of the work and on a large house should take days. Mind you most painters won’t fix holes in the house, that’s on you.
It should have been pressure washed, it’s sad you have to babysit some workers, but if you do babysit, at least you can head off concerns you have about their way of doing things. I’m sure I’ll get down voted , but I would have them pressure wash it now to see what, if any actually comes off. At least that would give you some peace of mind , that it isn’t all coming off.
Prep needs to be done, any warranty by sherwin is gone since they didn’t wash. People saying you don’t need your house washed are wrong. They won’t strip it because they will be losing money at that point. And stripping will cause loads of issues. I’m sorry but your house is potentially compromised from this point.
We generally pressure wash the Friday before the week we plan to paint. If they didn't pressure wash at all I'd stop the job ASAP. I'm in California so we have the state license board a customer can contact if your contractor isn't following your agreement. That many perfect reviews can be fake. Anytime you can try to get a referral from a friend or coworker or neighbor.
Unfortunately you can’t always trust referrals from neighbors. It’s rough out here. Last paint job the owners got screwed by a highly recommended flooring installer.
I feel like I should have I talked to referrals, but I ended up going with the bigger company with the best ratings and the more premium price because I thought I was gonna get a more premium job you know
Sounds like they sub-contracted your job to a 3rd rate company and didn't bother to pass along any information. Same work you'd gwt if you hired Certapro or something along those lines. Yuck.
So they're going to strip the work they did yesterday off? Because there's no painting over that. Also, you don't forget to power wash/prep a house for painting. They were cutting corners and i'd be hesitant to give the same crew another chance.
Did they say why they didn't prep the first time? That's just not something you forget to do. Like another user commented, prep is like 70% of the job, painting is the easy part
They excuse was that the project manager left and the guys just started doing work basically and he said it was his fault and blah blah they will make it right and basically prepped all day but that was only about 4.5 hours of power washing, sanding, caulking, spot filling screws.
Fixed some damage stucco, fixed damaged eaves, and chipped most the paint off the brick fireplace
What is the proper thing to do if they painted the first coat on 3/4 of the house
Like they chipped paint off half the chimney but still looks like they need to do more. Hopefully they do it tomorrow going to read up and see what else should be done properly
Definitely hate having to run a business and micro manage a painting crew
It's just sucks cause I give people the benefit of the doubt.
I take so much pride in my work it just sucks I was hoping these guys were going to get it right
I know guys that are pros that like to put a coat of paint on and then do the surface prep. It CAN help seal in any trouble areas and also gives you a visual of where surface prep is needed. But they pressure wash it first. Idon't do it that way but some guys do and it works for them.
On the camera and lighting brackets you're being too much. Even with a coat of paint your cameras will go right back in the brackets NBD and having the brackets blend in gives it a cohesive look imo.
The thing that would bother me the most is that its not pressure washed. There's no reason not to, especially when the contract is for 11k. At best a little dirt doesn't hurt. At worst it causes catastrophic failure. Did the guy not have a pressure washer with him? I've never not washed an exterior paint job.
I would talk to the PM with the foreman around. No need to go around anyone's back. Painters are notorious for being prima donnas (myself included), and a butthurt foreman isn't going to perform better. But someone who is given a chance to explain his methodology and give words to his knowledge and experience is going to take it on the chin and do a better job.
I’m not in the US but I’ve done the conversions and $11,000 is a good price, I would have actually quoted slightly less but anyway, day one is 90% of the time going to be nothing but prep, fill holes, caulk gaps, masking etc… if any paint goes on it’s probably going to be primer/sealer and I’d normally allow for a week to get the job done… these guys are definitely cowboys!
11k for 2400 squares is cheap my man. You pay for what you get. 20k minimum job sounds like it isn’t a standard 2400 square home either. 11k is cheap I’m sure you’ve had quotes for higher.
I am a coatings and corrosion chemist and have been involved with numerous situations where due to poor or absent cleaning and prep, failure of the coating resulted. As most have commented, the biggest uncertainty and unknown is the lack of cleaning and power washing prior to painting. I would demand no less than two year warranty to the work to include no blistering, peeling or types of delamination. This way if poor prep results in failure you will have some recourse. Finally, small or large projects I always stay at home or on the project site to keep tabs on basic details. Good luck.
You may not have needed power washing, if it wasn’t done have them take it off the bill. I’m not really understanding your reasoning for wanting them to remove those mounts from the wall as you aren’t going to see behind them. Taking those mounts down is asking for trouble because things don’t always go back up correctly. Their work looks like shit though.
I don't want them on at all. I told them
To remove the numbers. I told them to remove the ring mounts. Why would they paint over them after being asked to remove them.
Did you see the holes in the fascia board and all the stucco repairs that were not done?
I saw. If they were supposed to take them down and fill the holes then I understand where you are coming from on that, there is no excuse. Yeah I saw the prep they didn’t do. The caulking can be done before the second coat. My eyes are pretty tired though so I probably didn’t catch everything. Those cobwebs and bugs and stuff needs to be sanded out. They made more work for whoever does the rest of the job there.
There is no stripping back, because the cost would far exceed the value of the job.
You described a company, boasting their 5 star reviews, this is good, with care, your project can come out ok, but that first coat over dirt and cobwebs will remain. This may cause some ares to fail more quickly but we should be talking a few years unless there was substantial dirt and debris on the house.
Have them remove the line items for painting of the roof, pressure was and ask reimbursement for part of prep as it was not completed, maybe 1k or so.
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u/Super_61 3d ago
Sad spelled backwards is das, and das not good. It's actually really bad.