How far to push w/Painter

[Kyle Boatright]

We hired a painter to paint the interior trim in our house. We'd used him before and were happy with his work.

As part of this job, he was supposed to spray about 20 new solid pine 6 panel doors and 3 sets of solid 6 panel bifold doors I installed. Probably close to $3,000 in doors, not including my labor to install 'em.

Well, two weeks ago, the crew came in, pulled down the doors (we'd already stripped the knobs, but left the doors on the hinges), took the doors away for about a week to spray them, then returned and re-hung them. When I saw the doors, I was PO'd. Every door had flaws. In some cases, there were fresh dents and gouges that had been done since the doors were painted. On other doors, filler had been used after the "final coat". Other doors were splintered because the painter didn't "break" edges we had pointed out. Some doors didn't get enough paint, so the paint was transparent. On one very obvious door in the master bedroom, it is obvious that the sprayer had a problem, because there is very noticable orange peel. On the closet doors, the nice brushed nickel hinges were painted white, like the doors. Some doors had a dozen or more flaws.

We called the painter back and he indicated that he was subbing this job out, since he was exiting the paint business, but would get his subcontractor to correct all of the problems. I walked the "prime" contractor through the house yesterday and we marked the flaws (not all of 'em, just the 50% that were most obvious) with blue painters tape. The prime contractor met the sub here this morning and the sub's crews did quite a bit of work today.

Unfortunately instead of pulling the doors down, fixing the flaws, and respraying, they filled the dents and gouges and brush painted all of the doors. Quite a few door edges still have not been "broken" by sanding, and it is obvious that the crew didn't remove hardware when they came back today, because lots of the doorknobs and hinges have paint on 'em.

Is this situation correctable? Obviously, the hardware can be cleaned and door edges can be rounded and repainted. The big problem would seem to be that all of the doors now have brush marks, and I don't think that is fixable.

Suggestions?

[SQLit]

Sadly you need a lot of sand paper. Sure hope you have not paid them Time to call your contractor licensing agency and file a claim. If the situation is as you state they sure are not listening.

[Kyle Boatright]

I'm not sure this is a sandable problem. First, I've never had much luck sanding latex. Second, if you sand the routed panels, they will lose definition.

Absolutely not. However, even if I don't pay them a penny, I'm out $3k on doors plus probably another $3k in labor if I paid someone to install replacements. Interesting how probably $1500 of work (painting the doors) can more or less screw up $6k of prior work. Hadn't really considered that possibility with a painter...

Painters are not a licensed trade here.

Clearly.

[HeyBub]

But they ARE subject to small-claims courts. Don't threaten. File the claim.

[marks542004]

You may need to send the doors off to be professionally stripped. Then start over with the paint job .

[trader4]

You've given them adequate opportunity to correct the problem. The fact that they now made things worse by getting paint on brand new hinges, etc, is unacceptable. I would get a painter that knows what they are doing to fix them, which hopefully they can. I hope you haven't paid them. I would deduct whatever it costs to have them fixed right from what u owe them. If that means they owe you money, you could sue them in small claims. Of course the problem there is collecting a judgement, which is usually difficult with guys like this. I'd also take pics now of the doors as evidence in case it does wind up in court.

[m Ransley]

Of course they were sprayed in oil-right. Latex might take 6 months or more before it can be sanded correctly, depending on the Oil product you of course used, they can be sanded in a few weeks to 2 months. Either way you don`t owe anything now, the job is not finished. Take your time to figure your options and all non quality issues, wait and sand, or strip now, all at your contractors expense. The hardware painted should be stripped, if it is not correct, replaced. You must give this guy a chance to make the job right if he wishes. I hope you still owe enough to cover all costs.

[m Ransley]

You did not say what your cost is to spray or what you owe, the job is fixable, some might need stripping. You should call for prices to strip and spray a door and get a competing bid to repair the job. Either way the painter will loose, only if he walks do you have a problem. I hope oil was used if not you have another problem down the road.

[RobertM]

When I bought my house, the kitchen cabinet doors has several layers of paint. I brought the doors to a place that stripped them using a chemical steam. No sanding at all. It raised the grain slightly so when I got them back I had to lightly sand but nothing serious.

Bob

[trbo20]

Out of curiosity, how does this work when your prime subs the work? I would have thought that the prime needs to pursue this on his time, and the hiring party needs to take it out of him.

[trader4]

That;s how it works. The OP indicated he did contact the prime who got the sub to come over and screw it up some more. Clearly the prime is on the hook. If I had to take them to small claims however, I'd sue both of them and let the court figure it out.

[rosebud]

Ditto. Sue them for the cost of buying new doors.