CertaPro Painters® of Des Moines

Painter substituted lower quality paint (Latitude) vs specified Duration. Received nothing but bad attitude when I contacted the Des Moines office for resolution. I understand the risk when using Certa Pro as they typically use subcontractors for the work, but was shocked by the poor customer service from the actual Certa Pro operations person. She actually offered me $0.79 (not a typo, actually less than $1) as a resolution. This is the first negative review I have ever posted, so yes, very poor

Outstanding job. I would recommend them to anybody.

The paint job of the house was good. Everything else was horrible. The painting crew showed up and did not know what color and finish of paint to use. There is paint on our house where it should not be. There is paint on our shingles, windows, screens, doors, deck and down spouts. Their staff is not professional and non-apologetic and lack a good basis of good customer service.

Would not recommend this company. They came out and gave a quote that was very favorable and promised a timeline of 2-3 days completion. Our painter showed up late everyday (they have a window to arrive between 830-930 and he was there around 10) and seemed like he was done at 330-4 everyday. The job ended up taking a week to complete. There were some scuffs/drywall repair on the walls that were failed to be discussed during the estimate, so that ended up costing us extra in the long run.

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These people came out, this guy and his wife and his family and they just did a horrible job and they didn't back it up.  They didn't back it up at all like they said.  They tell you their going to come out and do all this garbage and then they have all these subcontractors and then they drive around and see if they want to bid your house.  The manager came out and he was a jerk.  I already told them that I'm done.

Very detail oriented.  Fast workers and consistently showed up!  Only missed one day of work which was a rain day.  Worked Some Saturday/Sunday's.  Were respectful and consistently wanted feedback which allowed me an opportunity to communicate expectations.

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Initially the process went well to set up the painting. They promised as much as everyone else but for a better price. When the first crew came out they had the wrong areas to paint did not what kind or color of paint to buy. That should have been our first red flag. When they started they barely sanded and did not use primer or caulk. When we raised concerns they began to do them the next day. I don't think they even knew how to caulk. It looked horrible, clumpy and all over. Their painting was horrible. It was spotty and didn't even cover some areas. We asked to apply another coat as thought maybe that would help and raised more concerns with the manager. He was not very professional during the process. We finally asked for a new crew after the second or third day. Our carpets by this time were dirty and they has spilled paint and water over the wood floor. We we're able to get the paint off but had to buff ourselves and had to get the carpets cleaned. The second guy was much more detail oriented but I am disappointed he did not notice they had been using the wrong type of paint. When we had a second company come out to do the rest of our home, he immediately noticed they used wall paint on the trim and not trim paint when looking at the can!! So now it is peeling and scratching easily and we will need to have redone eventually. The second guy did not speak English so was very hard to communicate with him but he continued to say very bad as he tried to fix the first crews mistakes. All the caulk had to be torn out and redone and most everything repainted. When they finished they did discount the job because it was such a horrible experience and poor work. They also offered to come back and paint the walls since when they went to trim the paint they got didn't actually match right. We said no way we would rather just do ourselves then have them back. We had thought the second guy was much better but now with the new company here, he is pointing out all sorts of issues. It just has made me sick that we trusted a painting company to do our job, but knew so little about painting or hires contractors with little experience in detailed jobs. We will never use this company again and have since heard many other complaints from others who also had bad experiences with them.

Reflecting on this over the past few months, and now having another painter do the other sides, I would have to say it did not go very well.  I can't believe how much better the other sides of our house look after another painter did those.  With Cetrapro, I believe the service was contracted out to another man and his helper, who both did a terrible job.  I called him a few days after he was finished because it looked like the two painters each started in an area and planned on meeting somewhere in the middle.  However, there is STILL a huge area which looks like it did not get painted/stained, like they didn't meet on the boards, a strip of about 8 inches all the way down the side of the house.  After I called the painter and he came back, he said it was just the "sheen" and it would be fine over time.  Well, four months later it still looks like crap.  Plus another painter did the other sides and they have nothing that even remotely resembles what was left by the Certapro painter.  Bad news!

The first crew was very unreliable and very unprofessional. When they were relieved of their duties, the second crew was great.

I could not have been more disappointed in how this project went. I decided to use CertaPro because I was assured by the salesman, Mike, that they would follow the lead paint guidelines, (necessary since this is an older building) and do a job that I would be happy with. Painting was supposed to begin on 5/15/13. The painter (Jack) then called me and delayed start date to 5/17/13, and asked if I would meet him at the building on that date, (I do not live close---it is a rental property) and that he would call me for a time to meet. He finally called at 4:30PM and said he wouldn't be able to start the job until Monday. (5/20/13)  
   I made a trip to my rental to check on the progress during the week of 5/20/13. I felt that I was paying a premium for the paint job because of the special precautions that were SUPPOSED to be implemented due to the lead paint. When I arrived at the building I saw one tarp on the ground to catch the paint chips that had been scraped off on the west side of the building. However, the painters were currently working on scraping the second floor on the north side of the building. I did not see a tarp or any effort being made to collect the paint scrapings on this side of the building at all. The workman were friendly (apparently this was Jack's crew--however he was not there) but they started immediately talking to me about how they weren't getting paid enough for this job and how they only got 40% of the price I was paying and they had to pay for the paint themselves. I mentioned the lead paint scrapings all over the ground and they said they would go around the house and vacuum them up.
   A few days later I made another trip to the building to check on the progress. There were still paint chips all over the ground. This time Jack was there and he also began complaining to me about how CertaPro took 60% and only gave them 40%. This was awkward and uncomfortable for me. He then proceeded to ask me if I could go ahead and give HIM partial payment since SOME of the painting had been completed. I said NO----I had no contract with him, and Mike the salesperson had assured me up front that I would not be asked for money until the job was completed and I was satisfied.
   Jack asked me more than one time to pay before the job was finished and I continued to say no. On 6/1/13 I made a trip back to the property to inspect it since I had been told by Jack that the job was complete. There were still paint chips everywhere, several areas had clearly not been scraped or painted at all, paint on one door was peeling off already, and a siding repair that was supposed to be included had not been done. (they spray painted the insulation) I called Mike, told him my concerns, including the fact that I didn't appreciated the workmen badgering me for payment before the job was done and whining that CertaPro wasn't paying them enough and he said he would go over the things we talked about with Jack, and that Jack should not have asked me for money.  On 6/3/13 Mike called and said all my concerns had been taken care of, so we set up a time to meet on 6/4/13. I called Mike to reschedule this meeting to the next day due to a death in the family. HE THEN ASKED ME FOR PAYMENT BEFORE I HAD A CHANCE TO MAKE SURE EVERTHING WAS SATISFACTORY. I again said NO. We then set a meeting with Dave (person apparently in charge of customer complaints) on 6/6/13 because Mike was unavailable. There were still things wrong with the paint job (for example the door with the peeling paint had been touched up with a completely different color of gray) Dave assured me that he would personally take care of this and I (unfortunately) gave him payment because I was so sick of dealing with the situation. He did take care of the door satisfactorily.
   On 4/30/14, I noticed that the new paint job had completely peeled off one part of the front of the building, and was bubbling/peeling in other areas also. I promptly called the CertaPro office and was put in touch with Dave who it seemed wasn't paying much attention to what I was saying, but said he would have Jack come back and take care of it. A month later nothing had been touched so I called the office again. This time the secretary (Michelle) set up a time for both Jack and Dave to meet me at the building so I could show them my concerns. I made ANOTHER trip and neither of them showed up. I waited for them for 15 minutes and then called the office. Michelle put me on hold while she checked to see why they hadn't met me when they were supposed to. She got back on the line and said that Dave had forgotten (the meeting had just been scheduled earlier that morning) and was currently in Indianola. I told Michelle that I was fed up with this company and to just send me a check for a minimum of $500 and I would find someone else to finish the job correctly. She said that would be fine. I asked her if she had the authority to make this decision, and she said "I'm making this decision," and told me the check would be in the mail on Monday.
   By 6/20/14 I had not received the check so I called the CertaPro office again. Michelle said the owner had vetoed the idea because he wanted to give Jack a chance to make it right, and that Dave was supposed to have communicated this to me. She told me that she would personally stop at the building on her way home from work and take pictures of my concerns to show the owner and I would hear back from her no later than 3PM the following Monday. (6/23/14) Another 2 weeks went by so I called the office YET AGAIN. This time Michelle apologized for not getting back to me, but said she had shown the pictures that she had taken to the owner and to Mike the salesman and they had both agreed to just go ahead and send me a check for $500.
   I did finally receive the $500 check later that week. There was no apology or acknowledgement of any kind for all of the stress and trouble I had been through. I had asked several times during this process why the owner had not contacted me regarding this. He appears to hide behind his hired help. EXTREMELY NEGATIVE EXPERIENCE!!!!!

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The sales person from Certapro provided us with an estimate for the project in March 2014. We were able to get scheduled right away. I quickly found out that they sub-contract the job, perhaps ignorance on my part, but nonetheless this was not discussed in the estimate. The crew that was sent to my house was very unprofessional. They showed up on a Saturday to begin work. They showed up without a ladder and had to use my hose to the power wash.  In their prep work they taped my doorbell down. I came home to my dog going crazy inside from the doorbell ringing all day. They sealed my dryer vent shut and failed to let me know or take it down. They removed my shutters and left them laying in the front lawn. But my real gripe with this crew is that they just completely stopped showing up. They would call and promise to be out to work the next day and never show up. This happened 4 or 5 times and my attempts to contact them were never answered. The project manager assured me he would take care of the problems, but nothing was ever resolved. In the 3 weeks I employed them they showed up for 2 days. I did have to have some siding replaced and I went with another crew to do this since Certapro's estimate was over 2x what these guys did it for. But after the siding project was complete I was left hanging for 12 days of empty promises to show up and complete work. I ended the contract at that point with the project incomplete. I would absolutely not recommend this company. They are a middleman for, in my experience, unprofessional contractors.

I would like to respond to the companies assertions in their response.

1. The only time Certapro offered a new crew to me was when I informed them the contract was being terminated. The assertion that they had a to line up a different crew and that contributed to the delay is not true.

2. Certapro demanded an 80% payment for the work that was no where near 80% complete. I did refuse to pay this amount. 1 side of my house was haphazardly painted and had to be completely redone by the next crew I hired. No trim work was done. The other 3 sides of my house remained untouched. We mutually agreed upon 20% payment for what amounted to about 1 days worth of work.

3. I understand weather delays are a big factor in this industry. I also understand I had to have siding replaced which affected their production schedule. Weather delays aside, the ultimate reason the contract was ended was because I would call and ask when people would be out to work and each time was told "tomorrow". After the 4th or 5th time this happened I lost faith in their word. With the previous unprofessional work and the failure of anyone to show up to work for nearly 2 weeks I decided to cut my losses and go with another company.

A+ sales team, F on execution in my experience. 

The job went very smoothly and they were done in 2 days.

I was really disappointed with CertaPro. The person that came out to do the estimate was prompt, friendly and professional. He really sold me on the fact that they were more expensive, but performed at a more professional level. Since this was the first time my fence was ever stained, which sets the tone for the life of the fence, I decided it would be worth the extra cash.
Unfortunately, the level of service was inferior to what I could have had a couple of high school kids do. The painter seemed confused about how to work his equipment, and accidentally sprayed stain all over my garage (which he did a good job of fixing with the extra paint I had). Despite that, my main disappointment was with the quality of the actual job. I was told that it would take 15 to 20 hours of painting?the painter was done in about 5, and it showed. It was very streaky and uneven. When I mentioned how streaky it looked, he told me thats how the stain goes on, but will dry quite evenly. It did not.
I've since looked into estimates to have it restrained?CertaPro certainly was not on the list of people I contacted.

They stated in contract that they would replace bad boards or siding on house, scrape and paint 2 layers of paint, seal all doors and areas needing sealed. Replace wood around roof fireplace, and wood on shed. They did not replace all the wood that needed replaced, and did not seal around front door and windows, so it is leaking inside house when rains. There are many areas that the siding or wood is water logged, and the wood is falling apart. On the entire east and west side of the house they did not seal the nail holes in siding, so all the nail holes are all waterlogged/warped with a blister around each one.  Only did one layer of paint, so many areas of the trim have already pealed off less than a year later. You can see that the boards underneath were bad and needed to be replaced. Another painter came a week ago, and said it had been a terrible paint job, and would require at least $3500.00 to repair current paint. But he said it would be better to just repaint the entire house. After the painting was done, we had a pest control check the house, and there were termite tunnels all over the base of the house that the painters would have seen and did not let us know about. We called multiple times to the owner last summer, and requested that he come out to see the bad work, and he stated he would come and fix it and never showed up.

CertaPro itself is very professional. I really liked the guy that came to the house. He sold me on being insured & bonded and a pretty nice guarantee program... If I was every unhappy with the job, they would get it fixed even if it was a year down the road. It all fell apart at the quality of work. The contractor that CertaPro hired to do my job was terrible. When he said a room was done, it was clear that another coat was needed. The cutting was all over the place; I couldn't convince him to paint a straight line. There was paint on my wood trim and cabinets in my kitchen, on my granite countertop and on outlets. In a room where I just wanted the ceiling done, he again was incapable of cutting a straight line so the white ceiling paint found its way to the colored wall. When I pointed it out the CertaPro project manager, he did get that fixed. The bathroom was (and still is) a mess. I again wrote the project manager to let him know that the job was not complete. I sent pictures clearly showing where he missed, where the lines were not straight and where paint fell onto my tile. When the painter came back to fix, I made to sure point out everything that needed to be addressed... But, it became clear that my expectations for a "professional" painter were above his capabilities.
I wrote the project manager again afterwards and said that if he really wanted to make it better that he would send a different painter to fix and finish the job... My note was met with silence. 
A+ on the sale. F on the quality. Not recommended unless you don't actually care about the outcome.

I think they should have not charged me anything. Also I had to replace a light that cost me a couple of hundred dollars. They promise but don't deliver. The couple that ended up doing the job were reliable and good. I would recommend them but not CertaPro.

it was 6 months since discussing the job and the work starting; that was due to our part.  I should have had a meeting to go over the job before they started since it had been so long.  We have lead paint and we were told about all the things they had to do to remove it safely.  The contractor didn't lay down any plastic to catch the chips and they were everywhere.   We called two times to report the mess and the fact that he didn't follow the strict guidelines of lead paint removal.  We were told it would be addressed with the painter but it continued on day two.  They also painted over maintance free window wrapping which I didn't want.  When asked about it the painter said he had called the office to ask if it shoudl be painted and was told yes.  They should have called the homeowner, not someone in the office. The paint on the facia was cracked and curled to the point where I could pick it off with my fingers.  The painter said Mike had warned us this would happen.  He did not mention this.  Had he mentioned this possible outcome we would have looked into other alternatives; perhaps replacing the facia or covreing it with other material.  They talk a good game at the beginning but didn't follow through.  Won't use again or recommend.

The CertaPro estimate was punctual and fully detailed. I was notified of the date of the work to begin.
Due to rain on the scheduled date, it was started and completed the next day.
Very courteous and professional job completed.

Experience overall was very good!