University First Class Painters

Around the beginning of September 2017 I solicited quotes from 5 painting companies. I realized it was late in the season, but my life changed and it seemed important to protect the house. Two other companies refused to quote because they felt the weather would not hold out and would want to wait until next spring.

I chose University Painters because they seemed to have a professionally prepared quote. They said they would have no problem working around the weather. Their price was the middle of the five. From what I got out of the quote was that they were going to wash, scrape, prime and paint. They did wash and they did scrape. But they did no priming.

The exterior of the house is about 85% cedar shingles. The house was painted about nine years ago, so the existing paint was chipping and flaking off. UFCP scraped off the loose paint leaving two finishes on each shingle – part smooth and shiny from the old paint and part rough, bare shingle, deteriorating from age. They applied Dulux Wood Pride 100% Acrylic Siding Stain. One coat was applied. The rain came shortly after they did the east side of the house and washed a large amount down on my finished concrete patio, which never got cleaned up properly. They had to do that side again. They never really did a full second coat anywhere else on the house – patch work at best. Upon closer inspection, when I went up a ladder, ( the house is a split level rancher, so nearly 2 stories), I found missed spots and old paint still flaking off on its own , leaving bare shingle as it originally appeared before the painters arrived. Now the shingles are Storm Gray (mainly), but still part smooth over the old paint and rough shingle. The bare part of the shingle did not get covered. It is just about as degraded as it originally was.

I asked Adam about priming and was told that with what he was using, the house did not need it. I went to Dulux in Tsawwassen and spoke to the manager and showed her pictures of the shingles. She suggested that the house should have had the bare spots on the shingles spot primed, and then use Dulux Diamond Exterior paint. This would have helped to even out the discrepancy in the look of each shingle, giving a smother look and filling out the bare shingle properly. The shingles still don’t look like they will hold together over a severe winter. They don’t look much different than they did before UFCP came, except blue and scraped. The Dulux Diamond Exterior paint, although a little more expensive, goes farther and works better in colder, wetter weather.

The door and window frames were done with “Approaching Storm” 1650 Deluxe Diamond E paint. A very messy job was done around the door frames. There were no clean edges, just slopped unevenly around the corners. This paint was also used on the 2 x 10 railing along the patio into the house. The dark brown acrylic paint that was originally on it was not primed. About a week later, I lifted grocery bags from the car up onto the railing, and then took them from there into the house. Later that day, I noticed that the blue was rolling off. That’s where I had put the bags. Grocery bags shouldn’t have done that. It really pulls off. Adam said it need more time to cure/dry. It had been a week. It is still rolling off if anything is moved along it.

Part of the house has vertical 1x5 tongue in groove. A section was dry rotted and I had it replaced. The boards were put in place with a pneumatic nail gun which left visible holes. Adam painted the wood as part of the contract with one coat of the Wood Pride 100% Acrylic Siding Stain (Egret). This was bare new wood, but it was not primed. All of the nail gun holes are still visible and spaces in between got no paint.

With the exception of painting the new vertical wood, Adam did no painting. He delivered the paint and the painter. At the end he walked me around for me to point out problem areas. No more clean-up was done. A few spots I could see immediately were taken care of. But I am 70 and don’t move quickly and shouldn’t be going up a ladder to find spots.

I don’t pretend to know much about painting, but I don’t like the look of the results and not sure the shingles are any better protected after painting. I didn't get what I thought I was paying for.

I cannot recommend University Painters at all. This at best was mediocre.