My mom is having her home painted. The guys who gave her the estimate says he's going to mix the primer/sealer in with the paint and then paint the house. This does not seem like a good idea. There's a reason the primer/sealer goes on first. Or is this ok and done professionally? If it's a bad idea what things can happen?
It's going over CBS (concrete blocks).
Primer is primer, paint is paint, and a hack is a hack. Talk to a real pant store for products, Sherwin Williams is well known and may have a one coat product. Any painter who says he will mix 2 products not already offered to make a "Better" product should not be trusted. I would not let him do the work unless I was there and knew he wasnt doing other things wrong, you need to learn. Get to a real paint store and find out what is offered and how to prep and paint correctly.
A primer/sealer and a finish coat have very different properties. Your mom needs a different painter.
good advice. if you need pro painters a real paint store usually will have a list of good ones. i did this once and got a great painter and t the price was not as bad as you would think.
Tell her to fire the jerk and hire a painter.
This is bad. Painting is all about preparation, and if you don't do it right expect a poor job. The surface needs to be cleaned (powerwash is good), possibly repaired/sanded, primed, then painted. The primer provides the good adhesion that's needed to prevent peeling.
Powercash ***CAN*** be good, if it's done from above so water isn't blown behind the shingles. Even then, it can be a twitchy process. Best to issue warning when you use the word "powerwash".
Did I type "powercash"??? :-) Jeez....powerWASH.
I think I met this guy. He goes to garage sales and second hand stores and buys all the used paint he can find for under a buck a gallon. Then he mixes it all together, indoor paint, exterior paint, latex and oil base. Then he charges someone a huge price to paint their house. He uses the same paint inside or out and the choice of colors is pretty much limited to dirty gray and dirty brown. Sometimes his paint jobs have texture, other times not. The texture is from the oil paint mixed with the latex.
But rest assured, he will offer you at least a 10 year warrantee on your paint job.
One year from now when the paint starts peeling off your house in large sheets, you'll call him and his phone number will be disconnected and his office vacated since he moved on to another town.
Tell your mom to cancel this contract now. If the company refuses and wants to cause trouble, call your local building inspector and explain the situation to them. Dont forget to check on this company with the Better Business Bureau, and file a complaint with them too.
I think the same moron painted the apartment I lived in a couple of years ago. Two weeks before I moved in, I stopped by to measure windows. He was just starting to paint. He hadn't turned on the heat, so it was about 40 degrees in the place. I commented that the paint would never cure correctly. He disagreed. Two weeks later, the glossy he used on the doors was still sticky. Two months later, it was still sticky. Couldn't hang clothing from coat hooks - it would stick to the doors. The apartment complex ended up replacing the doors.
Several issues:
1) There is a chance that you misunderstood what he was suggesting. Not likely, but possible.2) Cans of various paints and/or primers cannot be arbitrarily mixed together without knowing the chemistry of the products. For example, two leftover cans of white interior latex paint can't always be mixed together. This is 99.99% safe if the paint product is from the same manufacturer and the same product line, etc. But randomly mixing paint products can produce a gallon or two of worthless crap.
Remember that there is a lot more to paint chemistry other than "latex or non-latex." For example, so-called water based paints generally have about 50% (?) organic solvents blended with the water. And all paints have non-generic solvents blends, emulsifiers and binders. If paints and/or primers are blended, there is often the very high risk that the blend will perform poorly or not at all.
If you blend incompatible products and you are very lucky, then shortly after the mix is stirred the pigments and binders will precipitate to the bottom of the can in a rock hard mass with the solvents floating on top. If you are less lucky, you won't discover that you've produced crappy paint until some time after you've applied it.
3) Even if the chemistry is compatible for the paint and primer that this painter is suggesting, there must be a reason why the manufacturer didn't do this at the factory to save painters or homeowners time, effort and money.4) Many/most "professional painter" aren't. I haven't hired anybody for painting in over 20 years just because there are so many hacks out there. When my son was about 13, I realized that he was actually a better painter than anybody that I had ever hired. (Thank you Boy Scouts of America for teaching useful life skills!).
The good painters are expensive, but expensive painters aren't always good. I learned that the hard way. And references don't mean crap. The average homeowner doesn't know squat about a quality paint job and isn't a reliable source of references. I've discovered that I am the only homeowner on the block ambitious enough to climb on a ladder to inspect second story prep, priming and painting. The only one to walk a roof and inspect a roofing job before handing over a check. Etc.
Good luck, Gideon
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It's going over CBS (concrete blocks).
Thanks for the input! I spoke with my mom and she said she was going to tell him to do it in two steps: primer/sealer and then paint. I told her to just find someone new. If he's going to make a shortcut here, he's likely going to do it in other places.
Is she at that obstinate age, when you're not sure whether they're listening, or if they're just being a total pain in the ass (for sport), like we did to them when we were teenagers? :-)
My mother in law had a major gas leak from rusted tubing in her 800 year old stove. For a month, she insisted it wasn't a big deal - "It's been that way for years. Don't worry about me - I've had a good life blah blah blah..." I finally called the gas company to "inspect" it, figuring the guy they sent might have a better approach for convincing her to come with me to the store and get a new stove. He did. He said "Holy shit!", disconnected the stove, and put a seal on the pipe until a new stove was installed. Then, she said "Well, I don't use it much - I can warm things in the toaster oven".
No need to elaborate on this saga.
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