CertaPro Painters of Seattle

If I could, I would give certapro painters of Federal Way/​Seattle a rating of negative one.
Issue:
1) made an appt. two weeks in advance.
2) day of appt. no show, no call and no return call — real professional, CertaPro!
Having a business requires customer service, communication and honoring an appointment when it is made. Otherwise, try giving potential customers a courtesy call back.
Guarantee, this franchise will not last with this kind of customer service or lack there of.

Looking over the recent Unilocal reviews, I am wondering why I even considered using this company. All I can say is that they got good reviews on Angie’s List and there are several CertaPro Painters in the area and perhaps I got confused. Here is my horror story:
I got an estimate from Justin for painting a condo preparing to list it for sale. I told him timing was very important. My renters were going to vacate on April 30. I was going to be out-​of-​town until April 29. May 2 was a Monday. I had carpet cleaners scheduled for Thursday and stagers and photographers scheduled for Friday. I didn’t want to finance the job. It was agreed that I would give them a check for half payment when they arrived and full payment when the job was finished. After checking his schedule (I did have other painters who could have done the job) he assured me that he could put me on the schedule for Monday May 2. I doubled checked with the office (Julie?) and was told that yes, May 2 would work. I emphasized how important the timing was and that I would be out-​of-​town until just before the job. No problem. I discussed with the office person, that I was not financing and would be giving them a check. They sent me a contract that I signed through Docusign. I left town. I was at the condo before the agreed upon 8:30 start. Around 9:00 I left a message with the office with my phone number. By 9:15 or so, I called Justin and asked where the painters were. He said he would check with the office and get back to me. That was the last I heard from anyone. All several calls in went to voicemail with absolutely no call back. They made a mistake in not scheduling the job as promised. This put me in a very bad and tight situation. They had ample opportunity to try to make things right or at the very least to apologize for the error, but no. Stay away from this company. Not Certa (in) Not Pro (fessional)!!

I thought about discussing my extreme frustration and disappointment in this review, but I’ll try to be as unbiased as I can and just recite the events in my experience with this franchise. It and the accompanying photos of our «finished» house should speak for themselves.
Here’s our experience, starting from the day we delivered our signed contract & 10% cash deposit: Day 1, we are told the project will take 5 – 6 days and to expect a call within a day or two to schedule. Day 3, we email to ask when we should expect to hear about scheduling. No response. Day 6, our deposit check is cashed; still no communication from CertaPro on scheduling our project. Day 10, we send another email asking to be scheduled. No response. Day 13, we get an email from Anne (the office «manager») telling us she wasn’t working that day but that she would call us the next day. Day 14, no contact from Anne as promised. Day 15, we call & email Anne & get only voicemail. We call Justin (the sales guy that did our estimate); he promises to get in touch with Anne & get right back to us. No one returns our call. Day 16, Anne finally calls & tells us she can’t schedule us yet because she’s still figuring out timing. Day 17, Anne emails us that the crew can start 2 days later & once we confirm she’ll send us an email with «all the details» including what prep work we need to do and when to expect the crew. We confirm within an hour of her email. No response. Day 19, we call & email Anne asking for the promised details, or at the very least the name & phone number of our crew lead, so that we can complete any required prep work and schedule any time off from work needed. No response. Day 20 (Monday, start day), we wait at home with absolutely no idea if or when anyone will show up or who it will be when/​if they do. Anne finally emails around 10AM that just the pressure washing crew would be there at 2PM & that we did not need to be there. They showed up at 11AM. Day 21 (day 2 of project), we have been told that our crew lead Joe will show up between 8AM-​9AM to meet with us but that we did not need stay at the house while his crew was working. Joe shows up at 10AM, informs us we will need to be there to open doors for them throughout the day. I take another day off. The crew never asks for the doors/​windows to be opened. Day 22 (day 3 of project), Joe’s crew shows up at 9:30AM, tells me I don’t need to stay at the house. An hour later, I get a text message that the doors need to be opened. I take my 3^rd personal day in a row so that I can be available at the house. Day 23 (day 4 of project), in the early afternoon, some new guy we’d never seen before (later learned it was Joe’s uncle) knocks on the door & tells me they’re done and that we must do an inspection. During the walk-​around, I point out the large patch of wall they didn’t even paint (seriously), the porch post they also didn’t paint (it was an extreme color change, so hard to miss), portions of the soffits where the dark trim color had been sprayed onto the light siding color, the places on the railings which had been missed or were painted so heavily that paint drips were clearly evident, the parts of the trim around the front door where the light siding color had been mixed into the dark trim color, leaving brush-​stroke streaks around the door, the areas where the line between the trim & siding were so jagged that it looked like it had been done by a 4-​year-​old with a crayon, & various other smaller nits & misses. We do a 2^nd walk around, & they have only managed to correct the giant patches they forgot to paint & the bleeding on the soffits. We do a 3^rd walk around, & I can’t tell that they’ve done anything. We do a 4^th walk around, & they’ve made an effort to straighten the transition lines between the trim and siding, but I again point out the others that have been missed. We do a 5^th walk around, & the transition lines are slightly straighter, but still no attempt to correct the other problems. I throw my hands up in exasperation & resignation that I will be the one going around & fixing the other problems. I am told I must pay the balance of the contract right then. I’m very suspicious at this point, so I ask for a final invoice). Day 24, ladders & trash remain on the jobsite. We call to request cleanup & are again asked to pay the contract. I again ask for an invoice. Day 26, ladders are finally picked up. We are again asked for payment; I again ask for an invoice. Day 31, we are emailed an «invoice» by Anne. It’s actually just a copy of our original proposal estimate, not even adjusted for our 10% deposit. Day 34, we ask Anne for an accurate invoice and expressing our disappointment. Day 35, Anne sends us an email basically telling us we should have known better and halfheartedly offering to set up a meeting about fixing the mistakes (but does not send a new invoice). We decline, preferring to complete the work ourselves because we feel we will do a better job. I give up.

I hired CertaPro to paint the railing around my home. Shortly after the job completion, I noticed multiple paint spillages around the work area. I was told that someone would come out right away because «they never walk away from a job.» Multiple emails and 10 days later, they have yet to respond to this request. During the job, communication from the crew lead was scarce, and they left a mess every day despite the contract citing that clean up would happen at the end of every work day. Final clean up of paint chips was disappointing. I would not rehire or recommend.

I am revising my original review because it takes some time to look around and inspect, etc… Our 100 year old home has some challenges on the cedar siding due to it’s age but the problem lies in the fact that CertaPro’s standard procedure is to scrape only. No sanding or feathering out the edges of the scrapes so you end up with a worse looking surface than what was there before.
I have had to touch up several spots since they painted a month ago and am pretty close to calling the company and having someone come out and assess the job other than the crew who painted it. There are also many places that should have been scraped and primed before painting but they weren’t. We’ve already had them come out a week later to fix some things they neglected.
There was also an area of our yard where the crew didn’t even pull some boards away to paint and just left things against the house and painted around the stuff.
I wouldn’t go through this company again because they are poor quality as far as the prep work and I can see just a month later that it’s not going to last 5 years. However, they have a 2 year warranty on their work and so before that time lapses you can bet we’ll be having them fix a lot of areas. For now we will be taking notes as to the work order which will surely happen in two years.

We are in the process of repainting the exterior of our house that was painted five years ago by Certapro and are discovering why the original job failed so badly. There was absolutely no prep work done by Will’s crew that was promised and paid for. The paint has been chipping and peeling for the past three years as there
was no scraping, priming or caulking done. The crew were comprised of day laborers with basic painting skills. We made several complaints after the job was done, a man came out and made perfunctory alterations to the subpar job; but to be honest, getting any response from Will was a full time job and we simply gave up. He was very available when it came time to collect his money, though. We had to save up in order to paint again, but this job has been failing for over three years. The bid we received from Certapro was one of the highest we got, and every time I see the horrible state of the paint on the exterior of our house I feel very angry and taken advantage of. Avoid this Certapro franchise at all costs

The way I was treated by Will and this franchise of CertaPro is despicable and I urge whoever is reading this review to go elsewhere for your painting needs. I hired CertaPro in 2011 to paint the interior of my house. I was pleased with their work and when I needed work done on the exterior of my house, I hired them immediately without seeking any other estimates. I wanted to take an easy approach and trusted them because of my experience several years ago.
Unfortunately, dealing with CertaPro this time around was anything but easy. Throughout the process there were a variety of communication issues. They were annoying, but tolerable. What was intolerable and despicable is what happened next.
My project had to be delayed by two days due to weather. No problem! It’s no one’s fault that it rains in Seattle. We set an alternate date and were ready to go. When more rain was in the forecast, I emailed the office manager, Anne, to find out if we need to reschedule. Her response was, «yes, we’ll need to reschedule. I’ll have Sly give you a call.» Sly never called. Early the next morning, I left Anne a message saying I hadn’t heard from Sly and asking when we could reschedule. Several hours later, she informed me by email that Sly was no longer available for the project. I called her back to discuss when we could reschedule and how we could get things back on track to be completed sooner rather than later. She seemed completely oblivious to our email exchange the day before, even saying to me «Sly told me that you had canceled.» I reminded her that we had emailed and she was the one who had told me we’d need to reschedule. She said she’d look into options and call me back in an hour.
At this point, I decided that Will, the owner, needed to be aware of the problems I was having. I noted in my email that no one was to blame for the weather, but told him about the various communications problems I had had. Twenty minutes later he replied that he was sorry «if I had experienced any customer service issues» and that they would not be able to complete the project. I was shocked! Not only was I shocked that he simply canceled on me, but I was appalled that he didn’t even have the decency to call me. I left him a voicemail asking him to give me a call and sent him an email. He never called back. I filed a complaint with the CertaPro national office and received a prompt response from them. I learned that Will claimed that I had been rude and abusive to Anne and that I had threatened to «sue CertaPro if they got a drop of anything on my carpet.» Nothing could be further from the truth! Not to mention the fact that the work I was having done was OUTSIDE my house. As far as I can tell, the worst thing that possibly could have happened is that a drop of dirt from someone’s shoes would get on my floor, which I’m pretty sure is why one keeps a vacuum cleaner in the house. Five days have passed and Will still has not called or emailed to apologize.
If Will is going to run his business this way — and treat a repeat customer in this way — then he doesn’t deserve my business or anyone else’s. If what I can tell is the case — that Anne is in over her head and is making up stories about customers to protect herself — then she’s eventually going to get caught in one of her lies. Perhaps someday and Will will realize that it is his office manager, not his customer (s), who has a problem.
There are plenty of good painters out there … go find someone else who will give you the respect you deserve as a customer.

I hired CertaPro because I thought they did a great job persuading me of the quality of their services. I was willing to pay more, like twice as much as other bids, because I thought, «Finally, i won’t have to work at getting the work done right.» Unfortunately, the work in one of the rooms was very poor – no straight line between wall and ceiling, paint on sink, faucets and floor, poor quality control. I asked for the job to be redone, and they were great about fixing the problems, but even with fixes, it wasn’t a high-​end paint job. The workers didn’t do the quality of work that they promised in the contract. There’s a big disconnect between the business managers, who are quite strong, and the people who do the actual work. Part of the contract included a walk-​through with a foreman. There was no foreman, as far as I could tell, and no walk-​through. I did the walk-​through myself and noted too many issues that escaped their notice – and I’m not a professional painter.

Will is respectful, helpful, organized, and runs his business with integrity. There is no guesswork when it comes to price, and their bids are very exact and thorough. You are in good hands when you work with CertaPro Seattle.

I would hire CertaPro Seattle again in a heartbeat. Work is top notch, and the whole process was effortless. I start any job with three quotes. For a job this large I through in a fourth quote. I was confident from the get go. Will met me and quoted the job in detail. There is a level of risk when you hire for a big job. I hope that this review helps you make the right decision.
The level of professionalism of the owner to the painters and the quality of the job allows me to give the highest rating.
5 stars to CertaPro, Way to go!

My contractor (who otherwise did an incredible job on my whole-​house remodel) subcontracted with this company to paint the inside and outside of my home. The positives: Will was nice, their pricing was good and they provided a color consultant, who gave us some good recommendations. The negatives: they didn’t show up when they were supposed to… over and over again. When they did show up, my neighbors told me that the painters spent most of the day taking breaks. And their finished work was VERY POOR. You can see the primer through the paint in quite a few places, there are colored paint drippings on the white trim on the outside of my house, I can see brush strokes in some places where they should have used a roller, there are paint splatters on my newly refinished wood stairs, and I actually took the paintbrush away from one painter to repaint around the hardware on the front door… where he left several centimeters of unpainted wood. I understand my contractor is working with other painters now… and I don’t blame them at all.

The finished paint job looks very unprofessional. Cutting in on the accent walls and around windows is very sloppy. Many areas do not appear to have more than one coat applied as the original color still shows through. (We bought the paint and expected more of it to be used) Even my pencil marks indicating which walls were which color still showed when the painter left.
There are dried paint drippings on the walls. Paint drippings on the floor were wiped up but not completely leaving paint smeared in the tile grout.
The price seemed reasonable compared to the other quotes received but for the poor quality of work not worth the price!

I found them through this Unilocal review actually, and I was pretty happy with their services. We hired them for a commercial paint job against 2 other contractors we got quotes from.
Their pricing seemed fair and Will, the estimator and owner, was professional and on-​time. The only gripe was that Will is mostly responsive during evening hours because he’s busy doing estimates all day. Another positive was that we got a free color consultation that was extremely helpful because it somewhat doubled as an interior design consultation as well.
As for the painting itself, James was our painter and he was really cool and down to earth. He was also very accommodating to my constant change in color plans, and was willing to really go above and beyond his hours. Though he went beyond his hours which meant I had to sit there watching him paint longer too haha.
He’s cool though, we talked about skiing and snowboarding. So overall, I’d definitely hire them again.

Professional quote presentation, complete with pictures of the house and work detail. I believe this is a privately owned franchise somehow associated with Sherwin-​Williams, though I was told I could choose another paint brand.
Their price came in the middle. They accepted VISA, so I went with them based on presentation, professionalism, and the fact that I could get Alaska Air miles.
The painters’ lead was very accommodating with scheduling.