Before you hire a painter: the questions that separate real prep from promises

What to ask, in one paragraph

Before you hire a painter, ask exactly how they will prepare each surface, which product and how many coats go where, whether the estimate is itemized, what insurance they carry, who will be on site each day, and what the written warranty covers. If your house was built before 1978, also ask whether they are certified for lead-safe work. A painter who answers those clearly and specifically is usually the one who does the work well; vague answers are the warning.

I am Andrey Shelokovskiy, and I run Nomad Painting. Before I started the company I spent six years at PPG Protective and Marine Coatings, and I am a petroleum engineer and a NACE member by background. I have seen paint fail on everything from steel to siding, and nearly every failure traces back to something a homeowner could have asked about before the job started. Here is the list I would use if I were hiring a painter for my own house.

Why the cheapest bid usually has a gap in it

Painting is mostly labor, and most of the labor is preparation. When one bid comes in far below the others, it rarely means that painter is more efficient. It usually means fewer hours of washing, scraping, sanding, priming and caulking, or a lower-grade paint, or one coat where the others planned two. None of that shows on the day the crew leaves. It shows a year or two later, when the paint starts to peel on the sunny side.

The questions below are designed to make those differences visible before you sign. Ask every painter the same ones and write down the answers. You will find the bids stop looking like three prices for the same job and start looking like three different jobs, which is what they are.

Questions about preparation

Preparation decides how long paint lasts, so spend most of your questions here. A good painter will answer without hesitation and will usually point at specific spots on your house while doing it.

Listen for detail in the answers. 'We prep everything' is not an answer. 'We wash the house, scrape to a sound edge, spot-prime bare wood and recaulk the open joints around the windows before two coats go on' is. The more concrete the description, the more likely that is what will actually happen on your house.

• How will you clean the surfaces before painting, and how do you deal with mildew?
• What happens to peeling or loose paint, and how far back do you scrape?
• Do you prime bare wood and patched areas, and with what?
• How do you handle open joints and cracks: what caulk, and where?
• What will you do if you find soft or rotten wood?
• Inside, how do you protect floors and furniture, and do you patch and sand walls first?
• Where on this house do you expect problems, and why?

Questions about products and coats

You do not need to become a paint chemist, but you should know what is going on your walls. Ask for brand and product line, not just a color. We use Sherwin-Williams, Benjamin Moore and PPG, and on an estimate we name the product for each surface. On exteriors that might be Sherwin-Williams SuperPaint, Duration or Emerald Rain Refresh; on cabinets it is Benjamin Moore Scuff X, a cabinet-grade enamel; inside, all our paints are low- or zero-VOC.

Ask how many coats are planned on siding, trim and walls. Two coats is our standard on exterior siding, and it is a reasonable baseline to compare against. Ask whether brick, metal, stucco or wood each get a product suited to that surface, because a single paint for everything is a shortcut. And ask why they chose those products for your house. The reasoning matters as much as the label.

Questions about insurance, paperwork and lead

Ask for proof of general liability and workers' compensation insurance. We carry both, and any painter you hire should be able to show you current certificates. Without workers' compensation, an injury on a ladder at your house can become your problem.

Ask whether the scope and timeline will be confirmed in writing. Ours goes into a simple agreement with no hidden terms, and that is the minimum I would accept from anyone. A handshake and a total on a business card leaves you with nothing to point to if the job drifts.

If the house was built before 1978, ask about lead. The EPA's Renovation, Repair and Painting rule says that anyone paid to disturb paint in housing built before 1978 must be certified, and that includes sole proprietors. The EPA also notes that about three-quarters of U.S. homes built before 1978 still contain some lead-based paint. Ask how the painter will contain dust and clean up, and ask to see the certification.

Questions about the crew and the daily routine

Who actually paints your house matters as much as who sold you the job. Ask whether the same crew will be there from start to finish, or whether crews rotate between jobs. We keep the same crew on a project from the first day to the last, with a project manager you can call. Ask who that person is for each painter you are considering, and how quickly they answer.

Ask what a typical day looks like: what time the crew arrives, where materials are stored, and whether they clean up at the end of each day or only at the end of the job. Our crews store tools and materials every evening and leave the space usable. Ask how long the job should take, and what could stretch it. For interiors our FAQ gives 1 to 7 days, depending on the number and size of rooms, the prep, the paint and finish, and weather that affects drying. I walk through what happens on each day of an interior job in a separate guide.

Finally, ask how the job ends. We do a final walkthrough with the client and fix touch-ups before the job is closed. If a painter does not offer that, ask for it.

Questions about the warranty

Ask whether there is a written warranty, how long it lasts, what it covers, and how you make a claim. Ours is a two-year limited warranty on labor and materials from the substantial completion of the project; if paint failure appears, we supply the labor and materials to correct it, and claims are submitted in writing before the warranty expires. Carpentry tied to removing and reinstalling cabinets carries a separate six-month warranty.

Just as important, ask what is excluded. Every honest warranty has exclusions, such as damage from accidents, settlement cracks or problems caused by other trades. Knowing them up front prevents disappointment later. I explain what a painting warranty covers and how to make paint last in more detail.

Questions that depend on the job

Beyond the general questions, each type of project has a few of its own. Ask these when they apply, because they reveal whether the painter has actually done that kind of work or is planning to learn on your house.

For exteriors around Dallas, ask how the painter schedules around heat, wind and rain, and what they do on a windy day when spraying would drift. For anything involving a sprayer indoors, ask how overspray is contained. And for any job tied to a deadline, such as a listing date, ask what happens to the schedule if the weather or a repair pushes it back.

• Cabinets: Are doors and drawers removed and labeled? Is there a contained spray area? What enamel, how many coats, and is there sanding between them?
• Brick: Which system do you recommend, standard acrylic, mineral paint or limewash, and why for this wall?
• Decks and fences: How do you clean the wood, and how do you know it is dry enough to stain?
• Popcorn ceilings: Has the texture been tested, and how will dust be controlled?
• Floors: How is the concrete prepared, and when can we walk or park on it?

Red flags worth walking away from

Some answers end the conversation for me. If you hear any of these, keep looking.

• A quote given from the driveway without walking the house
• One total with no breakdown of prep, products or coats
• No proof of insurance, or reluctance to show it
• A plan to paint over peeling or chalky surfaces without scraping or washing
• Pressure to sign today for a special price
• No written agreement and no written warranty
• On a pre-1978 house, no answer about lead-safe practices

Putting the answers side by side

Once you have asked everyone the same questions, line the answers up. Cross out the bids that skipped preparation or would not show insurance. Among the rest, compare the scope line by line before you compare totals. A useful way to think about it comes from remodeling, where the same problem shows up: three bids, three prices and nothing matches until you normalize the scope.

If you want to understand why the numbers differ, I also wrote about what actually drives the price of painting a house. Price matters, but the right painter is the one whose answers you understood and believed.

When you are ready to talk to us, the first step is a free in-person estimate anywhere in our Dallas–Fort Worth service area. We walk the house with you, answer every question on this list, and send an itemized estimate you can compare against anyone else's.

Questions people ask me