COLLEGEWORKS

the paint job was great. They are college students and were as professional as anyone would hope... the job was not easy as it is an old house with cedar shake shingles some of which had to be replaced or sanded in spots. it is also a very tall house but they did everything with the utmost safety and precaution and they did a extremely thorough job in total.. we are very very pleased and would highly recommend them. Thank you to Hollis and all of your crew Good luck to you all.

The team was very professional and helpful. They were finished a day earlier than scheduled in spite of a last minute color change on our part. Very happy with the company and the quality of the student workers and the job they did.

.

Mitch Dean was the local college intern who painted our garage this spring. Two summers ago I had CollegeWorks paint the bottom, brick portion of my 1924 two story and I was fairly pleased with the results. Since this was my second contact with CollegeWorks, I knew what to expect. Obviously Mitch was a different intern than the one two summers prior, but the process was basically the same. Mitch was professional and did not try to up-sell. I believe he gave his honest opinion regarding which quality of paint would give us the best value and which portions of the garage would benefit from an additional coat of paint. He kept in touch leading up to the day the job would begin and he kept his schedule of three days for the work to be completed. His crew of Colin, Chris and Trey were polite and careful. Their clean up was meticulous which is very important to me as we have a shared drive with good neighbors. If I had anything left to paint I would hire these guys again but for next eight to ten years I should be good thanks to their work.

Reid, my student representative was very good at keeping me apprised of the status of the project before and during the process. Everyone involved in the job was professional and courteous. We unfortunately experienced some rain during the process but Reid was punctual and ready to begin the process again each time the rain stopped. As a business owner I would be pleased to have an entire staff made up of people with Reid's initiative, professionalism, drive and energy. His focus on customer service was evident and very successful. I am completely satisfied with the results and would hire College Works Painting again.

The day I was moving into my home some door to door sales people stopped by. They said they would like to schedule a no obligation free estimate to paint the exterior or interior of my home. I agreed as the exterior needs some work. I get a call a week later from Sarah Greear who wants to confirm our appointment for July 8th. We agree on 10am. 9:30am on Sunday morning and I get a call to move the appointment back to later in the afternoon. We settle on 2pm. Sarah arrives in what appears to be workout geat. Short shorts and a tee. I am out front in my garage working on some lawn equipment. She asks if she can speak with my wife as well. I bring her into the house and I explain that we just want the estimate. She said that if we say yes today we can get a 10% discount. I tell her that we would not confirm work today. I just want an estimate. She then says that if we don't want to have them paint they why waste 2 hours of both her and our time. Seriously? What happened to the free no obligation estimate I was offered when I gave out my personal contact information to the door to door sales people? I get her card and send her on her way. I can tell you now i will not use this business just based on their service skills alone. I would pay $800 more to someone else if they could provide good customer service. STAY AWAY FROM COLLEGE WORKS PAINTING.

It was not a good experience, and we would not advise anyone to hire College Works to paint their home. This company does not provide the training, supervision or equipment needed for the student painter to do a professional job. The estimate of time for completion was two weeks - it took four. When a student bid the contract for painting the house he stated that there would be an on-site supervisor/manager and a trained crew who would paint the house. The College Works web site leads the reader to think the same thing. The student stated that trained painters would do the painting, not him. In reality, the young man who bid the house showed up as the working crew leader with a "crew" of one other student. The students were not prepared to paint a three story house, or any house for that matter. Th students tried to do a good job, but it seemed that our house was a training ground for them. Areas were painted that were not dry from the power wash and needed repainting, painting was from the bottom up, we frequently had to note missed areas. The College Works company was short on hoses, ladders, extension cords, and sprayers and seemingly expected the student to buy or rent equipment. There were constant delays waiting for equipment to become available as it was being used on other jobs. The students normally showed up about 11:00 to 11:30 a.m., and left about 7:00 or 7:30 p.m. Plants were crushed and over sprayed along with over spray or drips on a fence, a window, gravel walkways, and the porch. An area to store supplies and equipment was available. However, at the close of day, ladders and equipment were left standing in our driveway or leaning against an upper story window; hoses and paint buckets were left out in walk ways or the porch. Calls to the College Works company regarding safety and other issues were needed to resolve safety and other issues. The above and the lack of support and oversight from the manager Chris (he was on-site for a couple of hours one day and the rest of the time managed by phone) are just some of the reasons we will never use College Works again.

They got our job because they gave the most comprehensive bid and we felt like we really knew what we were going to get. That was the best part of the experience. When they came for the final walk around BEFORE painting, they forgot the paint color book. So we were given instructions how to get samples from the store on their account. It didn't work and so we paid for our samples (samples are a great investment though!). We were told a power washer would be coming the weekend before painting, so we rushed to do our portion of the prep despite vacation plans. He didn't come for four more days. Five days past the day they said they would start working, I called and asked where they were. When they finally showed a week after the stated start time, they said they hoped to be done in two days despite bidding 3-5 days. The garage was so poorly painted we got it at a 50% discount and they left us paint to finish the job. It was less than a quart of paint! There were lots of obvious issues with the paint job and there was no feathering whatsoever from the scraping. There was no clean up of the paint chips, even in the garden area where we had specified extra care with that was needed. There were paint spills in the soil and they did not bother to UN-tape most things. I'm still finding their trash throughout the yard. We were very unhappy during the walk through but were told that as College Works only works during the summer and that school was starting the NEXT day, there was nothing that they could do to fix it. I signed the "work was completed to satisfaction" under duress. I found even more issues after they left.

At first, the reps were very attentive and gave a good description of the services they planned to perform, so we gave them the contract. They didn't live up to their contract in even the simplest areas. They didn't take care of plants/soil around house, their "feathering" of the hard edges of the old paint was well below standard (they even had the paint company come out, and the paint company rep agreed with US), and we had to ride them daily to be sure they were completing the tasks promised. They also had no way to dispose of the dirty paint water from their brushes and ended up tossing the water in our back yard. The job turned out okay in the end, but not after a lot of stress and time consumption - exactly what we had hoped to avoid by having someone else paint our house. Generally, their attitude seemed to be "What do you expect? We're only college students". We wouldn't work with them again and would not recommend them to our friends.

On Mar.26.2005 CollegeWorks gave me a bid to do the work and said I would be contacted in a few weeks to get it scheduled;I paid $230 earnest. No call back so on June 21 I called them;was told someone would call me back. On Aug.5 I was finally called and told a James Lund will call me back on Aug.10 with start date. No call back so I called and was told that pressure washing would be done on Aug.19 or 20. On Aug.22 an uninformed man came to wash my house. He seemed totally uniformed and thought it was a one-story house; his ladder was too short. He came back several days later and performed a poor to mediocre wash job on my house. Since there was no follow-up from CollegeWorks to my repeated calls during the next several weeks and since it was getting so late in the painting season and I was so thoroughly disgusted I told them I would consider the money I had paid as payment for the washing and I did not want to hear from them again. They are incompetent and should not be in business

THEY DID A GOOD OVERALL JOB. THE OPERATOR IN MY CASE WAS A VERY GOOD BUSINESS PERSON. THEY CAME WHEN THEY SAID THEY WOULD, AND WORKED LONG DAYS TO GET THE JOB DONE. THEY SEEMED TO NEED A LITTLE MORE SUPERVISION THAN PERHAPS EXPECTED, BUT THEY ARE COLLEGE STUDENTS, SO DEFINITELY WORTH THE MONEY, AND THE HOUSE LOOKS GREAT. THE CLEAN-UP LEFT A LITTLE TO BE DESIRED HOWEVER.

THESE LOCAL COLLEGE PAINTERS PROMISED TO HAVE MY HOUSE PAINTED BY THE END OF JULY. THEY FAILED TO SHOW UP AT MY HOUSE EVEN ONCE. THEY LEFT CONTINUAL PHONE MESSAGE PROMISES: "WE'LL BE THERE ON FRIDAY MORNING AT 4:30 PM, ON WED 8:30, ON SAT. MORNING," ETC. THEY LEFT MANY OF THESE PHONE MESSAGES, BUT LEFT ME WITH NO PAINTED HOUSE. THE BEST MESSAGE: "WE DROVE AROUND FOR AN HOUR, AND A HALF, AND COULDN'T FIND YOUR HOUSE". CUSTOMER SERVICE (NO SERVICE) AT COLLEGEWORKS WAS ABLE TO DO NOTHING. I ASKED FOR MY CONTRACT TO BE CANCELLED, AND AN IMMEDIATE REFUND. THE CUSTOMER SERVICE LADY DIDN'T HAVE THE COURTESY TO CALL ME, OR KEEP ME POSTED, WHICH FORCED ME TO CALL, AND CALL, AND CALL, AND DEMAND THE RETURN OF MY DEPOSIT. SHE REFUSED TO GIVE ME PHONE NUMBERS OF COLLEGEWORKS OFFICERS! MY DEPOSIT SHOWED UP IN THE MAIL, JUST AS THE OREGON RAINY SEASON WAS BEGINNING, WHICH PUTS ME IN A POSITION OF BEING UNABLE TO GET MY HOUSE PAINTED AT THIS TIME. SHAME ON YOU COLLEGEWORKS!