CertaPro Painters of Milwaukee WI

We just had CertaPro stain and paint our entire house exterior. They were easy to work with from the first estimate to the final payment. The price was extremely fair. The staff from the estimator to the scheduler to the painters were all fantastic: Friendly, courteous, respectful, and professional. The painters, Angel and Chepe were fantastic! They very respectfully greeted us each morning, described what they would by doing for the day, and about what time they would finish. They also weren't afraid to ask us questions if they weren't sure what our needs were. And, at the end of the day, they would let us know when they were leaving, what they accomplished, and what they would be doing the next day. Upon completion, we did a walk-around. Angel shared what the job had entailed and that they were finished. Angel and Chepe were just wonderful to work with, and we would not hesitate to hire CertaPro again.

They came out and we signed a contract to strip and stain my two front doors on July 17th. The tentative time frame was to be after August 8th. They called me back and said the start would be sometime between Sept. 15-30th. They called one time to say they were running behind because of the rain. They never called me after that and never showed up to do the project.

Poor communication, I had to always call to find out status. Contract signed 9/11/2017 for work to be done 6/1/2018. Work stated 6/29/2018 and done during high humidity and temperature by painter with friends assisting who had no formal training.. Pointed out missing paint areas and was assured it would be corrected when paint dried. Had two coats and paid for at end of 2 days work. Missing paint never corrected. One week later blistering appeared. Called painter to return and he attempted to fix. By next day blistering again was evident. He returned and took paint left for touch ups and said he would be back. Never heard from him again. Made numerous calls to him and to company, but no action. I feel like I have been taken advantage of as a senior and all I want is work done properly. Contract had 2 year warranty but ignored.

Terrible. Zero communication. Will never use them again

Not well. I’m tired of waiting for a due date.

When Jim Benson came to arrange the contract he told us they would do all the scraping and recaulking when it was necessary. When the crew was here we asked about the caulking and scraping and they told us it was not necessary. When they finished, it looked fine. A year later we began to notice problems with peeling. Now two years later we are having the job redone. The present painters are finding badly damaged caulk and evidence of poor surface prep. The present painters are scraping, sanding and priming the areas that should have been done two years ago! We now realize what a shoddy job CertaPro performed two years ago.

Jim Benson come over on March 23 to give us an estimate for interior and exterior painting. He gave us the estimate for the exterior painting right away and said he'd get back to us in a day or two with the interior estimate. Over a week later, we still did not receive the interior estimate. My husband called the main number several days after he came over, and they said they'd get back to us. They didn't. I called Jim's cell phone on Monday, April 3. He said he remembered us, that he'd check to see what happened with the estimate, and give me a call back. Again, he never got back in touch. It's disappointing because we were hoping to get this work done sooner rather than later. So, I emailed milwaukee@certapro.com on April 5 about the problem. Heard back pretty quickly from Donna, who assured me that Jim does indeed want the work and that she'd get back to us. That was five days ago, and we haven't heard back from them. Really disappointing!!

The entire crew was awesome. It was a very difficult job and they did a phenomenal job.

The sales person was very professional and had a great attention to detail. He explained everything thoroughly and i was very impressed. They were a no brainer when it came to hiring as they were able and willing to do exactly what my house needed. The crew was prompt and courteous. However, soon after they started they told me they were not going to be able to fix the glazing on my windows as promised. I hired them because they were the only company who said they could fix this. The crew did a good job overall but missed a lot so they came back several times to complete the job (forgot some basement windows and a few storm windows and left paint on some windows, the windows were also painted shut in some areas). After further inspection I noticed two panes of glass had been broken and my garage windowsill was repaired very sloppy). A manager came out to inspect and since it was late October I agreed to have them come back in the spring to repair the windows they broke and fix the garage windowsill. I was happy to see that they jumped right on this in March and sent a crew in April. They put in new window glass but didn't do the glazing or start repairs on the garage window. Because of rain they said they would come back later in the week to finish. I NEVER HEARD FROM THEM AGAIN! I have called 5 times (as recently as 3 days ago), spoke to Donna and left messages for the owner Matt. I emailed my original contact Rebecca several times with absolutely no response. So now I have two windows that have no glazing and fall will be upon us in no time. I also have an ugly patch job on my garage window. Customer service is non existent. Very disappointed with them. I will update this f I ever hear from them.

Price was comparable to other quotes. They were prompt, professional and accommodating when I decided to change the paint color I had first chosen.

It went very well. I just haven't found the time yet to schedule the service

It was awful! The salesman was very professional and we thought that was the type of service we would get. NOT! The painting crew showed up on the appropriate day, but they were foreigners from an eastern European country that hardly spoke English. They were also not inside house painters, but only familiar with outside painting projects, The brushes they tried to use on my interior walls were old, huge outside brushes that left marks and streaks all over the walls. They were so huge that they could not trim around the woodwork without getting paint on the wood.. As for removing the wallpaper, they left gouges in the wall by scraping off the wallpaper with metal paint scrapers. Before the end of the first day, I called the salesman and told him to get rid of these guys and they would not be let into our house again. The salesman showed up at our house that night to look at the work and said he would have a new team on sight in a week or so. When the new "team" came in, it was only one guy. Although he was very good and did repair the other guys work, the salesman insisted that the old team shadow the new guy to see how to paint inside a house instead of outside. It was an awful experience and I have been telling all of our friends, neighbors and relatives how bad this experience was. CertaPro did not even offer to adjust the bill for all the inconvenience and stress this put my wife through.

Walls turned out great. He had difficulty with the ceiling. The paint would not stick. I pealed, so he tried something else. He said it was our ceiling and not his methods that caused it to peal. It was fine for a couple weeks and then started to peal again in certain spots.

They did a really nice job. On time, professional, and cleaned up after themselves.

It went well. I was pleased. I was okay with the contractor they found. Things were done adequately. I was pleased with the job upon completion.

They provided all services as agreed and within the proposed estimate. They were very professional and did excellent work. They cleaned up after all work daily and left no evidence of their presence other than a great paint job, We would use this company again and recommend without any hesitation.

Prompt, clean, and quality work.

Did a great job. Cleaned up every day. Scraped off old paint where needed. Replaced rotted board.

Very well. Painters were prompt, professional and provided excellent customer service.

Painters round 1 - August 2013: MBR and garage trim. When they told us they were "done" painting our master bedroom we had a list of 13 things that needed to be fixed/redone/repaired. Issues such as chunks of dried drywall spackle all over the carpeting, a large gouge in the drywall on the ceiling, dirty hand prints on the freshly painted ceiling, numerous missed spots, etc. The lines where 2 different colors of paint met were so wavy and crooked that it looked like abstract art. In CertaPro's favor, when we called the office to relate our list of problems they were prompt in sending a supervisor out to make things right. He took care of all of the problems with the MBR and did all of the trim work on the garage. The MBR and garage, including rework, were completed in a reasonable amount of time and occurred weeks prior to the next phase which was for the great room/kitchen and loft. As of this writing (January 2014) the paint on the garage trim has started to bubble and peel. Painters round 2 - October: Great room/kitchen and loft. They were surprised to see our 22' great room ceiling and had to make a special trip to rent scaffolding in order to do the job. Apparently no one communicated this architectural detail to the team. Starting a day late and with a large amount of surfaces to paint and multiple color changes posed challenges for the team. They started taking short cuts to make up time and the results reflected that. Poorly painted surfaces and crooked lines. When they got to the great room walls they tried to further cut corners by not removing the faceplates from the light switches and the outlets. They painted around and OVER them. We saw this and we removed all of the faceplates - we asked them to repaint around each of the receptacles and they still missed 2 of them. We personally scrubbed the paint off of the faceplates and re-installed them. They also failed to cover anything and got hundreds of paints splatters and smears on our hardwood floors, stone hearth and wooden mantel, kitchen cabinets and counter tops, solid oak floors and furniture, kitchen ceramic tile and grout lines, and patio doors. We spent hours on our hands and knees with scrubbies to clean up after them. Also, everything was coated with a film of spackle dust from repairs that need to be done to the drywall. Furniture, blinds, appliances, etc. Multiple trips were needed by the team in order to get sufficient paint to complete the job - further delaying the completion date. As it was, they left our home in a total unusable state over the weekend. We found a snuffed out cigarette butt on our oak dining room table. Neither of us smoke nor do we allow smoking on our premises. The drywall seam patching on our textured walls was amateurish at best. The patches were smooth, eliminated any texturing that had once existed in that area. Inadequately applied paint did not cover the original color in multiple areas, there were paint smears everywhere, large areas of the cathedral ceiling were so poorly painted that it looked like a pattern of circles and random stripes had been added to the décor. We can not adequately describe in words the disaster that was called a "finished paint job" by CertaPro. We did not accept this job. We took photos of all of the issues and sent them, along with a detailed list of all of the items that needed to be addressed, to CertaPro. CertaPro responded by sending a sales manager out to inspect the work. He agreed that it was a COMPLETE DO OVER. All of the walls and ceiling seams had to be re-patched and re-textured. There was not a single wall or ceiling surface in the kitchen, great room, stair well or loft area that would not need to be repainted. Painters round 3 - November 2013: Great room/kitchen and loft - second attempt to get it right. The first team to show up for this round were described to us as professional dry wall installers that CertoPro brought in to repair all of the damage done to our walls by the first "painting" team. They scraped, chiseled and sanded off all of the patch that the first team applied and re-patched and textured our walls. The end result went from overly smoothed out sections to overly textured sections of wall. The second painting crew to show up were ALSO surprised by our 22' ceiling in the great room. (Does this company not have any means of communication?) Another day wasted while they went to rent scaffolding. 5 days later - including working thru the weekend - the job is "finished". They not only got more paint on our woodwork, furniture, flooring and windows - but put a 8"X4" footprint of dark green paint on our beige carpeting in the loft area and beige paint on the purple carpets in the first floor bath. There is a chunk of wood knocked out of one of our 9' patio doors.. It appears that they hit the edge of that panel when they were taking ladders out thru that door to the deck. There are gouges in the great room center beam where the bolts that held the scaffolding together rubbed against the wood. The scaffolding was also shoved against the down rod of one of our remote controlled ceiling fans - not only did that rub the finish off of the down rod but that fan is now out of balance and it squeaks when turned on. When they dropped one of the sections of scaffolding it left a large dent in our oak floors. Numerous wall areas were not sufficiently covered with paint and the underlying paint shows thru. It has taken more than 4 weeks to get to this point. The quality of the completed project is marginally acceptable. We do not have the time, patience or trust to allow them a third attempt at getting it right. We will take it upon ourselves to finish the job that we contracted CertaPro to do. During the entire process our primary living space (kitchen and great room) was rendered unusable. There were always ladders, garbage containers, open trays of paint loosely covered with plastic, brooms, etc. strewn about. We didn't dare move any of the few drop cloths that were put down for fear that they would not be replaced when they restarted the project the next morning. What they did to our home is nothing short of vandalism and willful destruction of property. We will never allow CertaPro or any of their designees on our property again. We will not recommend or endorse CertaPro for any services that they claim to provide.

Our deck was extremely worn and we had bad luck in the past with a previous stain (not from this company) flaking off within a couple of weeks. Our deck now looks GREAT!!. I was worried we would have the same problem again but so far no problems. The proposal we received was very timely and precise. It included an option to also stain the vertical portion of our deck railings which we declined because they were still in good condition. They did a great job matching the existing stain color. One gentleman did all the work and he was very friendly. Overall we were very pleased with the finished product.

There were several miscommunications with us. First about who would do the job of painting our basement floor (we were initially told that one of four experienced teams in epoxy paint would be doing the job), then the lead contractor failed to tell us about the change in the type of paint (our contract stated epoxy, an acrylic floor paint was used because we were told later that the epoxy paint was not available in the color we requested even though the company was informed of the color a week prior to the date of service), several times I talked with the lead painter about the job being with epoxy paint and he never corrected me. Then, the controller or scheduler wanted to send the same person back out the next day to do the original job as stated in the contract, but we checked with Sherwin-Williams who makes the epoxy paint that was originally recommended and we were told by their representative that the paint would react with the paint that was already used and would essentially "eat it up." They told us they would not have recommended that type of epoxy paint for an indoor job like our basement anyway, but would have suggested using a latex based epoxy. We finally had to request that the head of the company come to talk to us about how the problem would be remedied. There was no compensation given for the inconvenience or anxiety caused because of the mistake. In fact, he wanted us to pay him 1/2 of the original amount of the contract for the mistake. We told him we felt this was unfair and suggested a price we felt was fair and still have not heard back from him. We were very disappointed by this experience.

They were so friendly. The estimate came in at a very good price. We definitely would have went with them because they responded very quickly. It was very professional. Their estimate spelled everything out. If I did need something in the future I would use them. They got back to him right away. When they said they would call back, they called back. Most of the other ones did not. They indicated that they do clean up so everything is back to the way it should be. I would definitely recommend them.

The estimator really understood the challenges of painting an older house. He also had an excellent eye for what the finished product should look like and encouraged me to adjust the color choice. The job was scheduled and completed within days of signing the contract. The painters worked steadily and finished the job in just three days. They complied with everything that I had discussed with the estimator (hand washing instead of power washing the 100+ year old wood) and did meticulous work from the prep through the finish coat. The house looks fantastic.

I was happy with them; everything went well and the job turned out very good. I gave them a deadline and they met it.