Response from CertaPro Painters of Broward County
We are really sorry we could not provide a proposal to this customer. It was in our best interest to do so, however, we were forced to pass because as professional painters we can't commit to follow a process that will produce sub-optimal results. Unfortunately, the summary provided by the customer is not accurate. We keep a very detailed log for each one of our visits, so we will clarify here what happened for the benefit of other Angie's list members. 1.- CertaPro Painters is a proud member of the Painting and Decorating Contractors of America (PDCA) trade association. All of our jobs are done according to PDCA Industry Standards. To guarantee our jobs, we follow a very specific set of steps. This is clearly specified and explained in our proposals. 2.- We visited this customer's property on 8/15 at 10:30am. The house exterior had not been painted for many years and consequently the walls showed lots of chalking that required to be treated carefully. 3.- The customer made clear that he wanted us to apply the paint by rolling. While this is not a problem, we explained to him that spraying or spraying+backrolling were technically superior options for stucco. This is not just our opinion, all the major paint manufacturers recommend spraying+backrolling as the best application method for stucco. The customer insisted he wanted the paint rolled and we agreed on that. 4.- We explained to the customer that at least the clear sealer needed to fix the chalking should be applied by spraying. This was our professional recommendation for this specific house after looking at the architecture and the specific items that required painting, some of which cannot be fully reached with a roller. 5.- The customer disregarded our recommendation and insisted that he wanted everything, including the sealer to be applied by roller. He also established other expectations for the process that go against what is established in the PDCA standards and in our warranty. 6.- At this point, we were frank with the customer and told him that based on our professional experience, we didn't feel comfortable with the process he was asking us to follow. In summary, we didn't refuse to roll the house. We have done that for hundreds of customers, including several Angie's List members. We just preferred to avoid providing our service following a sub-optimal process that will not deliver the best results.