I and Three other homeowners had gotten together to form a group who were looking for a painting contractor. My next door neighbor just had his house painted and the contractor that he used was very professional and did a very impressive job. As a group, other painting contractors were added to the bidding pool. One of which, was Dalton's Painting. One of us had used them on two prior occasions, along with some other members of their family. Another member of our group discovered a negative review on "yelp" about Dalton Painting and brought it to all our attention. This was a red flag in all our minds.
After all bids were in, Dalton painting was by far the most reasonable. Scott is the son of the owner of Dalton's, and the field estimator. They have a small work crew and like to do 1 job at a time. The dad had later told me that he has been in business for over 30yrs. I told Scott of our concerns over the negative review in "yelp". He was surprised and unaware of its existence. He went on-line to review it. Scott related that on an average they do almost 100 paint jobs a year. He had full confidence in his teams work. He also was very hurt by the negative review, and thought he new who it was and why it happened.
He stated that he had given this lady a bid on a job and she had accepted. He tried to explain to her that his crew was busy on another job, but she was very adamant about needing the work done as soon as possible. Scott stated, his mistake was to sub-contract the job out. The sub had mess up the job, but it was his responsibility. He sent out his crew to fix it, but the damage was done in the homeowners mind.
I decided to go with Scott, mainly for two reasons. 1st, the bid and 2nd prior work at one of our groups home. I had them power wash my house on a Friday so it would have the weekend to dry. They did a very through job of it. Scott had asked if he could leave his ladders at the job site. No problem. Thru out the following week, I was watching to see if any road bumps arose. The main work crew consist of the Dad and two workers ( Jose and Frank). The Dad is more of a field supervisor and materials man. The dad let me know that Jose has been with them for 17 yrs. Jose and Frank are pros. They will amaze you with their skills. They left no stone unturned in their prep work ,which in my opinion is most important. They remove what had to be remove and other items that I never expected them to be able to remove. All in an effort to paint all existing stucco. They did a great job on all my trim (most of it wood).
As a Review, I'm torn between 4 Stars and 5. The reason for the indecision is as follows. In the beginning I stated that my neighbor had his house painted, and I had actually gotten a very respectable bid from that company. That company was very neat. At the end of each day you hardly had a Idea any one had been there working on his house. Dalton's is not that way. I'm okay with it. I've had construction work done before. I had a lot of things taken off my building for a reason. I have a very small beach property and the houses are very close to each other. Just a little bit on the sides of my property looks really cluttered. If I had not seen that other work crew, I would probably give the 5, but I did and that's my mental block on the 5. In Dalton's defense, my neighbor's house hand nothing taken off. Also, Dalton's bid was $ 2000.00 less. I guess I'll take a little mess in exchange for the saving. What the heck, "5". read more
