Painting Companies

Short answer: Painting contractors apply and maintain the protective and decorative coating systems on a building, and on commercial work the job is corrosion and substrate protection first and appearance second. Licensing varies enormously by jurisdiction: California and New South Wales license painting as a trade in its own right, while most of the United States and Canada leave it to a general contractor registration.

What a painting contractor does

A painting contractor is responsible for surface preparation, priming, coating application and the protection of everything that is not being coated. On residential work that means interior and exterior repaints, new-build finishing, and the preparation trades that go with them — filling, sanding, caulking and minor substrate repair. On commercial and industrial work the scope broadens considerably: intumescent fire protection to structural steel, high-performance coatings on tanks and plant, traffic and line marking, epoxy and urethane floor systems, elastomeric coatings on masonry facades, and abrasive blasting and recoating of bridges and structural steelwork. The trade's commercial reality is that the coating is rarely the expensive part; preparation and access are.

Preparation is the job

Almost every coating failure that becomes a dispute traces to preparation rather than to product. Adhesion depends on a clean, sound, correctly profiled and correctly dry substrate, and each substrate has its own discipline: alkalinity and cure time on new concrete and render, mill scale and chloride contamination on steel, moisture content on timber, chalking and existing coating compatibility on a repaint. Specifications on serious commercial work call up surface preparation standards by reference and require hold points for inspection, and on those projects a painting contractor is delivering an inspected process rather than a finish. On residential work the same physics apply without the inspection regime, which is why the warranty exposure sits with the contractor.

Licensing varies more than in any other trade

There is no consistent international or even national picture. California requires a C-33 Painting and Decorating licence from the Contractors State License Board for any job of $1,000 or more, with an examination and a bond. New South Wales requires a painting and decorating licence under the Home Building Act for residential work over $5,000, plus insurance above $20,000. Most other United States states and most Canadian provinces do not license painting as a trade at all and regulate it only through general contractor registration and consumer-protection statutes. The one thing that is near-universal is lead: work disturbing paint in older housing carries certification requirements almost everywhere, and in several jurisdictions those requirements sit on top of, rather than instead of, the national rule.

Coatings regulation and VOC limits

Volatile organic compound limits on architectural coatings are set regionally rather than nationally in several markets, and the differences are large enough to make a product lawful in one jurisdiction and unlawful a short distance away. Southern California operates the tightest limits in the United States. Specifiers who carry a national product schedule into a regulated air district produce a specification that cannot be built, and a contractor who buys material outside the district and brings it in carries the exposure. Checking the applicable rule before buyout is part of estimating rather than a compliance afterthought.

How to choose a painting contractor

1. Confirm the licence or registration that applies in the jurisdiction, and confirm it covers the value of the work.
2. Ask what surface preparation standard is being priced, and get it in writing rather than as an assumption.
3. On pre-1980 buildings, confirm the lead certification held and whether the jurisdiction requires a state credential beyond the national one.
4. Check that the specified products are lawful in the local air district and that the contractor is not substituting after award.
5. Ask what the coating warranty actually covers, and separate the manufacturer's material warranty from the contractor's workmanship warranty.

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