Painting product reviews are a new feature of HousePaintingEstimates.com and content will be added shortly.  Please be sure to check back soon to see these reviews start being added to the site.

Homeowners  FAQ

1. How long after I submit my request until I am contacted by a painting contractor? 
We do a little validation on your request before sending it to our member painting contractors.  For example, we do a manual address search and give your request a quick glance to ensure that all of the necessary data is present and that the data that is entered at least seems to be valid.  Because of this manual effort, and depending upon the time of day of your request, it could be the next business day before your request is forwarded to our member contractors.  We do release the request to each local contractor at the same time, however, so as not to favor one contractor over another in terms of responsiveness.  Once the request is released from us to the member contractors, it is up to the contractor to reach out to you directly and begin the estimate process.

Contractors FAQ

1.  How do I sign up my company for your services?   
We are currently implementing a new process to handle online registration and payments, and until that is ready, we are not currently accepting new members.  We expect to have this functionality up and running by December 1, 2008.   You can also contact us by email and we will notify you of when we are accepting new members.

If you are looking to paint your home, or have any home improvement project completed, during slow economic times, you can save a significant amount of money.  Many service companies and contractors are impacted substantially when consumer spending is down, and when people are watching their discretionary income more closely, non-essential expenses such as painting a bedroom or applying a faux finish to the kitchen are typically things that are put on the back burner for a better day.  

When demand for these services is down, labor costs also drop quite a bit.  As a consumer, you can take advantage of the down economy to negotiate a better price for your project because many painting contractors need the work right now.  Sure, it is a catch 22 because many people do not feel comfortable spending money on these services at the same time.  But if you have work that needs to be done, and have the funds set aside to do the work, then there probably has never been a better time to take advantage of the situation.  Many of our members have suggested that they have dropped prices as much as 40% just to keep their paint crews working, all but eliminating any gross margin on the jobs. 

If you are looking for an interior painting project in the northern United States during the winter, for example, you may be able to secure a terrific deal on your painting project, especially if you are flexible as to when you would like the work to be done.  Contractors in cold weather climates are limited to indoor only work this time of year, and with those prospects being less frequent, there is a good chance that you can find an outstanding painting contractor willing to do your project during a time when his or her crew would otherwise be down.  Many times, the contractor will take the project at cost just to keep the crew busy during that time.

Of course, there is more risk involved during down economic times as there are many more shady and fraudulent contractors out there looking for an easy payday.  We’ve recently posted an ad on Craigslist looking for someone to help with an interior painting project.  Literally within minutes of the post being available for people to see, we had over 50 emails asking to do the work for us.  We pursued these emails and found that 24 out of 53 - almost 50%  - were what we would classify as high risk contractors.  These painters used fictitious names or asked for 100% of the money up front (Ed. note - one wanted the funds sent via Western Union immediately - please NEVER send money via Western Union to someone you do not know personally).  We also had several emails from people that didn’t have much or any painting experience, but the economic climate recently forced them out of a job and they were willing to do the work to help make ends meet, which is an unfortunate situation in its own right. 

Of those emails that we would classify as worth pursuing, we had price quotes ranging from $200 to $4,000 to paint the perimeter of an unfinished 2,500 square foot basement.  Many of these prices that came in included notes from the owner indicating that they just wanted to keep their crew working and there was no profit in it for them.  I know from my own experience which of these people were likely telling me the truth and which were likely just using that as a line they hoped I would believe.  Bottom line… during these times, it is even more important to work with a trusted resource to help you find legitimate contractors.  Craigslist is great for finding a used sofa for a college student to take off to their apartment, but I think there is a high risk in using services such as that for finding home improvement professionals.  Considering a service such as HousePaintingEstimates.com is completely free to you to use, there is no justification in risking your money and your project with anyone else.

In summary, now is a great time to do that home improvement project that you have been putting off, as long as you take the necessary precautions to protect yourself from potential scam artists.  If you want to find free painting estimates from a trustworthy resource, you are sure to find a great project price from a trusted painting contractor - all while doing your part to help get the economy back on its feet.

This is a new section of our site dedicated to painting companies and contractors.  It is not a password protected portion of the site, nor it is limited only to contractors (homeowners or anyone else can view the contents of this section. 

This is the section of our site where contractors, both members of our service and non-members, can read and learn about new trends in the industry as well as share their thoughts on industry related news and topics that impact our day to day world.  This is also a good place to share tips and ideas about painting, and by being an active and helpful member of this area will also help you become a respected individual in the community which would likely lead to earning some business from the thousands of visitors we have to this site each month.

We’ll also go into detail about our service, describing what we provide (new membership levels are coming soon with the new upgraded launch of our site) and what benefits you will receive from being a member of HPE.  We look forward to working with you to help provide a common goal - outstanding service to our visitors!

Mix Up Your Colors

Welcome to HousePaintingEstimates.com’s new section devoted to providing you with excellent tips and ideas to help you with your painting project. For the initial article, I wanted us to focus on a touch that I personally have implemented in my own home recently. When you are going through that painstaking process of trying to determine what color to paint a certain interior room in your home, the key is not to pick a color. Or more specifically, do not pick only one color. Finding two or more complementary colors will give your room, and ultimately your entire home, a more contemporary appeal.

Choosing the colors actually becomes easier this way as well, as you can easily find color swatches at paint stores with preconfigured groups of complementary colors. This does not have to be an intricate pattern or complex design, but rather can be simply painting one wall as an accent wall (typically a darker, more dramatic color), with the rest of the room a lighter and more neutral color. In larger or less traditional rooms, you may even be able to incorporate more colors into the room, separated by obvious barriers such as any corner in a wall.

One drawback is that this will certainly result in the purchasing of additional paint, but if you take the time beforehand to compare the colors and make sure that all colors selected will blend in well together (especially in an open floorplan where you may have 6 or 7 colors visible from one location), you will truly enjoy a visually appealing interior.

How does HousePaintingEstimates.com help you find the best possible painting contractor?

House Painting Estimates provides our visitors with the single most trustworthy source of painting project referrals and local companies that would like to compete for your business. By submitting a request for a free estimate on HousePaintingEstimates.com, you will be contacted by at least 3, and no more than 5, companies in your area that are very interested in your business.

Each of these members not only meet the strict HousePaintingEstimates.com partner requirements, but are all insured and bonded, maintain a good relationship with their local Better Business Bureau, and remain in good standing with House Painting Estimates.

After you have been contacted by our member painting companies, you are under absolutely no obligation to purchase services from them, or even invite them to your home to give you an estimate. Our members pay a monthly or annual membership fee which includes all referrals that we send to them for a month or a year. Other leader generation businesses charge the company $30 or more for each lead, promising you that you will face a high pressure sales pitch from each company that your information is forwarded to (and you may get called by 10 or more different companies). 

With HousePaintingEstimates.com, we require our partners to provide no-pressure estimates to you, and each one risks losing their non-refundable membership privileges if they are found to violate those terms.

Also, our primary means of advertising is by creating a great web site that is highly optimized for search engines to generate visits. This keeps our costs low, meaning we can keep our costs to our partners low, ultimately giving our visitors a better group of companies to work with, since we are the national leader in providing free painting estimates to customers that is also the most affordable for our partners. Because of this combination, our customers benefit and everyone wins.

Welcome to the new features and functionality of HousePaintingEstimates.com.  This is essentially version 3 of our site, and is our most exciting and powerful set of tools yet.   Some of the changes you’ve likely noticed are the new, friendly look and feel for the home page of the site.  As a part of that is the ability of a visitor to submit an estimate request right from the homepage.  This will make the process of our core functionality even easier for visitors, with one click ability to request an estimate from one of our quality contractors. 

The other main addition to our site is this new section, The Paint Shed.  In the shed, you will find all things related to painting, from product reviews of different paints, brushes and tools, to tips and ideas for painting anything under the sun.  We are going to become the place that people go when looking for painting information, whether you are a do-it-yourselfer or looking to hire the right contractor for your painting needs. 

We look forward to an active user community for participation, and with our history of traffic, we anticipate this being quite an outstanding place to be.  Almost everything we do in the Paint Shed will be open for feedback and comments, and we encourage you to register with us to create an account so that you can contribute to this community.

Thank you for your past and continued patronage of our site, and we’re looking forward to working hard to remain the leader in all things paint related. 

Sincerely,
Joe Rozsa
Founder
HousePaintingEstimates.com