Questions you should ask a painter before hiring
Painting is one of the few trades where the work that decides the outcome is invisible by the time you see the result. Two painters can quote your house, one at $9,000 and one at $14,000, and both walls will look identical the day the scaffolding comes down. The difference shows up in year three.
So the questions worth asking aren't about price. They're about what's underneath it.
Here are eight we'd want you asking — including when you're asking us.
1. "Have you actually walked the house?"
A quote produced from photos, a Google Maps look, or a phone call is a guess wearing a number.
Nobody can see soft weatherboard, failing sealant around joinery, previous coats that were applied over dirt, or the south elevation that's carrying moisture — without standing in front of it. A painter who quotes without walking the property has either padded the number to cover what they can't see, or they haven't, and you'll meet the shortfall later as a variation.
Every job we quote starts with an in-person site inspection. We measure, we look at what's actually there, and the formal quote is in your inbox within 24 hours. It takes longer than a phone estimate. That's the point.
2. "What exactly does your prep involve?"
Ask this and listen to how long the answer is.
Prep is where the money either goes or gets quietly saved. "We'll give it a wash and a sand" is not a process — it's a sentence covering for one. You want specifics: what gets washed and how, what gets scraped, what gets filled, what gets primed and with what, how many grits of sandpaper, whether they sand between coats.
For us, prep is the job. Walls, ceilings and trims each get different treatments because they're different substrates behaving differently. We sand between every coat, working through grits. Before a top coat goes on, we run a lighting inspection across the surface to pick up defects you'd never see under normal light.
What goes on underneath is what decides how long the finish holds. Everything else is colour.
3. "What happens if you find rot or damage once you've started?"
This is the question that prevents the argument.
Older Auckland homes hide things. Villas and bungalows especially — you pull back a rotten board and find three more behind it. It's normal. What isn't normal is finding out how your painter handles it after they've found it.
A good answer sounds like: we'll stop, show you, explain the options, and price the extra work in writing before we touch it. A bad answer is a shrug, or worse, silence followed by an invoice you weren't expecting.
Ask how they document variations. Ask whether you approve them before the work happens. Get it in the terms.
4. "What paint system are you using, and why that one?"
Not the brand. The system.
A brand name tells you almost nothing — every manufacturer makes a budget line and a premium line, and the gap between them is enormous. What you want to know is which primer, which topcoat, how many coats, and the reasoning behind the choice for your specific surface and exposure.
If the answer is just a brand name and a shrug, that's a painter buying whatever's on special.
We work exclusively with Resene, and the reason is partly the product and partly the support — a manufacturer partnership means we can spec a system properly and stand behind it. Their low-VOC formulations also matter a great deal when we're painting inside a home people are living in.
5. "What's not included in this quote?"
Almost nobody asks this. It's the single most useful question on the list.
Cheap quotes are usually cheap because of what's been left out, not because someone found a discount. Common omissions: gutters and downpipes, soffits, the garage, fences, second-coat allowances, scaffolding, moving furniture, making good after minor damage, waste removal.
Make the exclusions explicit and two quotes suddenly become comparable. Very often the "expensive" one turns out to be the cheaper one.
Our quotes lay out the scope, the breakdown and the terms in writing, so you can see the boundaries of the job rather than infer them.
6. "Is that a paint warranty or a workmanship warranty?"
They're not the same thing, and the distinction matters.
A paint warranty comes from the manufacturer and covers the product. It's also conditional — apply the paint outside the specified conditions, over inadequate prep, or at the wrong film thickness, and the manufacturer isn't liable. Most paint failures are application failures, which means most paint warranties don't help you.
A workmanship warranty comes from the painter and covers how it was applied. That's the one that protects you.
We carry a workmanship warranty on completed jobs. Ask any painter for theirs in writing, and ask what would void it.
7. "Who's actually going to be on my property?"
Find out whether the person quoting is the person painting, or whether the job gets handed to a crew you've never met, or subcontracted out entirely.
There's nothing wrong with a team — you want one, for a job of any size. But you should know who's turning up, whether the same people are there start to finish, and who's accountable when something isn't right. High turnover on a site usually means inconsistent standards on your walls.
You should also know who to call. On our jobs, that's a short list.
For more information on our processes. Check out our specific service pages. Including Interior, Exterior, Restoration, Roof, Deck and Fence Painting.
