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Paint Restoration: Keeping you Safe While Doing the Work

Painting services are required to abide by the new EPA regulations coming into effect on April 22, 2010. Specifically, it requires painting Contractors to distribute the “Renovate Right” brochure to the owners of pre-1978 child-occupied buildings. Additionally, house painting contractors are now required to be certified by the EPA, have the painting work supervised by a “Certified Renovator” and ensure that EPA-prescribed procedures are followed during painting activities.

It is a pleasure to announce that Painting in Partnership is now a “Lead Safe Certified Firm” and that three of its employees have become “Certified Renovators” to meet the EPA regulations. Below is some background information on the new regulations.

Painting in Partnership is a Lead-Safe Certified Firm

Lead was used as a paint ingredient for generations in the United States because of its durability features. It is estimated that 50 million tons of lead was used in American homes by painting services before it was banned in 1978. (Ironically, Europe moved to ban lead in paints in 1921, more than 50 years prior to this country.)

Lead has been proven to be especially dangerous to children under the age of six. The main exposure comes from ingesting lead dust that accumulates on floors and carpeting. It gets absorbed from hand to mouth during play activities. This dust is largely generated from remodeling projects, such as painting, that disturb lead or the up and down movement of windows surfaces. The intent of the new legislation is to protect children of six years of age or younger during restoration projects.

Painting in Partnership continues to be on the cutting-edge of painting technology and work practices in order to give you the best long-term result, while keeping you safe.

Lead-Based Paints Make House Painting more Complex in an Old House

Paint restoration in older houses, interior or exterior, is about to become more complicated for painting contractors, as well as other trades that disturb lead-based paint. In April of 2008, EPA enacted new regulations that take effect on April 22 of 2010. It affects trades such as painters, electricians, plumbers, carpenters, remodelers and other trades who create dust in child-occupied buildings built prior to 1978.

The intent of the new regulations is to protect children under the age of 6 and pregnant women from the poisonous effects of lead dust generated from remodeling projects of different kinds. It mandates that painting contractors and other contractors to give EPA’s Renovate Right pamphlet to all owners of pre-1978 housing. It also mandates that contractors be certified by EPA as “Lead-Safe Firms” and that projects be supervised by “Certified Remodelers” to ensure that EPA-prescribed procedures are followed during paint restoration work.

Huge fines can be levied by EPA against violators at the rate of over $32,000 per day, per violation. Even though EPA has limited enforcement personnel, it has empowered local governments to enforce the regulations, not to mention that nosy or angry neighbors can become willing whistle-blowers as well.

What does all this mean for paint restoration and painting contractors? It means that house painting contractors have the opportunity to create added value for their customers by following safer work practices. It also means that the most professional painting contractors have the opportunity to further differentiate themselves as the contractors of choice to potential customers.

Why Caulking is Critical to the Longevity of a Paint Job

By creating a flexible seal for the gaps in the external components of a building, caulk keeps water out of the structure. Unlike paint, caulk has the ability to expand and shrink with the ambient temperature and humidity. When caulk begins to fail, moisture gets into the surrounding wood joints. Before long, the moistures causes paint failure, eventually rots the wood and causes expensive repairs on the outside components or even in the interior spaces.

Because of our frequent freeze and thaw cycles, caulk often begins to fail within 2 or 3 years, even though “45-year” or “55-year” caulk may have been used during the exterior painting project. It is therefore important to do maintenance caulking and maintenance painting.

A visual inspection of the surfaces every three years at the most will reveal areas where caulk has begun to fail. Intervening at this stage to remove the failing caulk, re-caulk and spot-paint those areas will add years to the life cycle of a exterior paint job and prevent expensive repairs.

Make it a point to ask Painting in Partnership to come and inspect the caulk on your house. This is work that saves you money!

Residential Painting that Delights!

A house painting project, and re-decorating in general, have the potential for enhancing the quality of life and the mood of the occupants of a house. Well executed house painting, coupled with personalized colors, can also inspire and make people feel nurtured in their environment. These beliefs motivate us, as painting contractors, to go to work every day and strive, with our employees, to produce such results for our clients.

In January, Painting in Partnership received an email from a client, which was really heart-warming in its enthusiasm and excitement about their new décor and their painting and decorating experience. Here it is:

“I anticipated that by now we’d have moved all the furniture and paintings back to their original places against the walls. But that’s just not going to happen. The walls are far too beautiful. Anything that hopes for a place in front of our walls will have to prove its worth first.” By Richard Medina

Those words go to the heart of the emotions and warm feelings we work to produce in our clients on every house painting project.

Chicago House Painter Takes a “Custodial View” on his Painting Projects

When we are hired as painting contractors in the Chicago area, we, at Painting in Partnership, look at it as an opportunity to create value for the homeowner, above and beyond the painting work we are there to do. We look at the client’s property as if it was our own. We seek opportunities to help out our clients enhance the safety, workability and enjoyment of their property, in any way we can. We call that “Taking a Custodial View”. There are four major aspects to us having a custodial view on our house painting projects. Click here to see those four different ways.

Here is a brief example of how we look for the root cause of a problem and offer a solution. As house painting contractors, among other things, we are asked to do exterior painting. One area of a cornice is peeling badly. Upon closer investigation, we discover debris on the gutters from rain water overflowing the gutters. Going a step further, we find out the gutter is pitched the wrong way and has a small downspout. In a situation like this, we would approach our clients with an assessment of the problem, its consequences and what needs to be done to permanently solve the issue. We recommended to replace the gutters on that side of the house and install large size downspouts to help drain the roof better. This way, the owner will not experience the same paint failures and our paint job will last longer.

As painting contractors, the mere fact of looking out for our client’s back and seeking to be of service above and beyond the painting work we are there to do speaks volume to clients about the relationship we have with them and the value we intend on creating for them. Consequently, we view referring other trusted professionals as an integral part of our work as painting contractors.

As a house painting company, we have gone a step further. We have created what we call our “Trusted Partners” group. The companies in this select group have proven themselves to have the same “Custodial View” as we do in dealing with their clients. We actively support our trusted partners by sharing “best practices” with them and actively promoting them to our clients. They do the same for us. Through these close company ties, we help multiply the value we create for our respective clients.