Gregory C Hains Painting

My husband and I contracted Gregory Hains to paint the exterior of our home. He gave us a quote for our whole home and window painting in March 2024 for $9,000. He was supposed to arrive 7/9/24 to begin the work, however we had received nothing in writing and had no information re: preparations we may need to make for his crew. We had to contact him the night before to confirm his arrival the next day. He was then an hour and a half late the following day, walked the house with me and tried to renege on part of the project. I let him know that this was our initial and express concern at the time of the estimate and per our notes this was discussed and included in the quote given. He could provide no notes from that estimate. He had a man here 7/9 for a few hours to powerwash the house, after his worker left my husband and I noticed that there was still visible debris and cobwebs, dirt, etc on the house and wondered if they planned to prep this again. His crew arrived 7/10 at 8 am, his crew started work around 8:30 on 7/10 and was off property by 1 pm. During that time they scraped and sanded our wet house and several times Gregory attempted to start to paint the wet house, the dirty and unprepped windows and was told firmly that under no circumstances would we allow the house to be painted while it was wet. We had to tell him this over 4 times. Ultimately this day was frought with anxiety for me because as this was going on and from the outset of his arrival Gregory continued to insist that he would have to "call my husband" to get approval for each decision needing to be made. I told him repeatedly (and again in writing later that night) that this was uncalled for, inappropriate and offensive and would not be tolerated going forward, but he continued to insist this nonetheless. The work his crew was doing was terrible, his crew was smoking marijuana on our jobsite the entire time and were climbing on ladders, using sanders etc on our home. We expressed concern repeatedly during that 4-5 hour workday about the quality of the work, that we needed better communication from him, that he was being rude and offensive, he did not change his behavior or attitude at all. He has since expressed zero concern that his workers were under the influence of marijuana; we maintained that him and his crew had done an unacceptably poor job and would not be allowed to continue with this job. We had a new painter come out who says he cannot pick up where Gregory's prep crew left off bc the work is of such poor quality and not consistently effected on any area of the house, including powerwashing. We have attempted to recover our deposit from gregory but he is being difficult about speaking to us, maintaining that we did not give him any complaints at all (lies) and that this is just his prep process. he maintained the house was not wet but it had stormed violently all night on 7/9 and visually even to my untrained eye, the wood was completely saturated. He is lying, dishonest, and is now only willing to return half of my $3,000 deposit. We offered to pay for the paint if he could provide a receipt but he could not provide one and we ultimately had to call the paint store where we discovered that Gregory hadn't actually PAID for any of the paint he was telling us to pay him for. He refused to take a check for the deposit (seemed very odd to me) and insisted I electronically transfer him the money, only now to have him claim that he cannot electronically return my money because he doesn't know how and that he would have to come deliver cash to me(zero chance this was going to be allowed to happen with no paper trail). When I informed him that we would need a trackable form of payment and should he not return the amount in full, we would be pulling him into small claims court to recover the funds. At this point he magically discovered how to electronically return half of our deposit, leaving him still with $1500 of my $3000 deposit. In addition to all of the above, Gregory and his crew left a black plastic trash bag (which I believed was filled with drop cloths) with their ladders in my driveway for now 5 days and I woke up this morning to discover that it was in fact a garbage bag filled w paint scrapings, food wrappers, takeout containers from his crew's lunches and drink containers. All left on my driveway in an untied, unprotected garbage bag, which was this morning torn open and rifled through by a bear, who has since returned three times to my property looking for more food. I cannot believe anyone in connecticut would be so callous and lazy about food waste, leaving a homeowner unaware that there is bear-attracting-debris sitting on the other side of your stack of ladders. Overall I am exceptionally disgusted by Gregory Hains behavior and am extremely concerned about his tolerance for drug use on site and impaired workers, as well as his inability to maintain even the most meager professional attitude at any time. DO NOT HIRE THIS MAN

I had my living area painted which included a cathedral ceiling and loft area the first week of September 2023. He and his crew did a great job. They arrived on time; they were neat and cleaned up well before they left. I was very pleased and would recommend them to anyone looking for a good paint job.

We would not recommend or hire him again. The paint job was not done completely nor properly. Paint is already coming off after one month after paying top dollar and using quality paint. A number of areas were not painted even though he said that they did.... can see the original color that were untouched. We can see where they actually painted and the areas that were not. Many paint drip marks on the walls plus patch work never done prior to painting. Will have to redo many of the areas we paid him and his crew to do. Not an honest and professional company. VERY DISAPPOINTED!!!

Amazing job, professional and so efficient. Excellent work !!

I depend on Greg for his thoughtful, practical approach to every job. He’s a master at painting edges and he’s extremely efficient. He gets the job done. It always looks professional, and he’s extremely fair in his pricing... which is why he’s still our “go-to” painter after all these years. This job went well. As expected.

The service Mr. Hains delivered was not just of poor quality but ultimately, non-functional and will require us to spend considerably more money to have it corrected. We contracted with Mr. Hains to paint the interior and exterior of a 2 story house we had just purchased. The red cedar plank exterior was showing significant peeling and would require prep work to ensure a good repaint. Because it was still winter (2/20/2018) we agreed he would start with the interior while the house was still empty and that he would return in the Spring when the weather was warmer and drier to complete the outside. The interior painting went as planned and was finished within the projected three days. We were shocked and concerned when Mr. Hains called a few days later to tell us the outside was completed as well. From 2/22-25, the temperature exceeded 40 degrees, the minimum temperature recommended to apply the paint for only a few hours and it rained every one of those days ensuring a wet starting surface. The temperature rose slightly in the next two days breaking 50 for only a few hours, hardly enough to thoroughly dry the exterior surface. When we finally arrived in town to inspect the work, our worst fears were confirmed. The lack of prep work was evident as previous areas of peeling were poorly feathered in or merely covered over. All of the windows were painted shut with paint smears on many of the glass panes. Despite us showing these issues to Mr. Hains, he insisted his work was to standard. We could not agree on corrective actions and ultimately agreed to pay $ 2000 less than originally contracted. Nearly a month later, the trim work is bubbling up, confirming that the paint had been applied incorrectly under poor conditions and will have to be redone. Mr. Hains’ disregard for customer concerns and worst, for fundamental painting practices disqualify him as a painting contractor.

They did fine.