College Pro

unknown

The painters stripped and stained my deck and overall the quality of the service performed was good. The stain looks good, they cleaned up afterwards, and there were no drips.

The problems started after the job finished. I paid the painters by check, and when I reviewed my account a week later it showed that they withdrew the amount twice. I went in to my bank and they said that would be easiest to contact the painters to get them to resolve the issue. I did so and the painter said that he would look into it. I waited a week and did not hear anything so I sent him another message. He then replied that his bank made a mistake and that it would be resolved within a week. I waited for a month, and did not get my money back or a response from the painters. I sent another message to the painters and have yet to get a response in over a week. I also contacted the company headquarters and never received a response from them either. I ended up going to my bank and disputing the withdrawal, but had to take time off of work to do so. I am disappointed in their lack of communication and professionalism.

unknown

We were very pleased. They did an excellent job. They outbid everybody else on the bid. We would absolutely use them again.

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I could go on and on but don't have the time or desire to rehash the stressful 4 days college pro spent at my house.

College Pro was very friendly and responsive at first. I called for an estimate, and they sent a guy out who wrote up an estimate for me. Later, as I looked it over, I realized there had been a miscommunication, and the estimate was too low (they had not included part of what I wanted done). Anyway, no problem, the guy came back a couple days later and wrote up a new estimate, and it only ended up being a couple hundred dollars more.
Their estimate was WAY lower than anyone else's. I was a little concerned with such a huge gap in pricing, but the reviews were decent, so I figured I'd go for it. I could have CP paint my house 2 or 3 times for what the other guys wanted.
So, I put down a deposit and waited to get on the calendar. Things took a little longer than expected, and what was originally supposed to be done in July didn't end up happening until September. No big deal, as I wasn't pressed, and just wanted the work done before winter.
After the work was done, I paid up, and figured it was all done. Then a few weeks later, while checking out an unrelated project, I noticed a section of the eaves had been skipped completely. So I called CP, explained what happened, and was told someone would be in touch to schedule a time to come out and take care of it. Again, I wasn't pressed, I wasn't mad, I just wanted it done before winter.
A couple weeks went by, and I hadn't heard back, so I called again. Again, I was told the same thing. Again, no one called back.
I repeated this process maybe three or four times, and no one ever returned my calls. Now, about 18 months later, as I take a look at the house to plan another spring and summer set of projects, I notice a lot of cracking and peeling paint. Now, in theory, I have a 2-year warranty on this paint job, but I have to wonder what good it will do me if no one ever calls back. I'll probably try again to get hold of someone this spring before the warranty runs out, but I'm not very optimistic. I'm hoping maybe this review will attract their attention so that someone will listen when I call.

*UPDATE*

Just a quick update. I tried a couple more times to get in touch with CP before the warranty ran out with no luck. Then, just by coincidence, they emailed me asking if I'd like to hire them again for another project. Well, I took advantage of that to try one last time to get in touch with someone at CP. That was two months ago, and I never received a response. So, it looks to me like CP absolutely, positively, will NOT return my calls or return my emails or honor their warranty.

I would not recommend College Pro Painters.  They did sub-standard work and failed to rectify the situation once it was brought to their attention.  Specifically, their crew walked all over our deck within minutes of applying stain that they themselves had just applied.  Unbelievable!  Upon seeing the footprints they had made in the freshly applied stain, they took a garden hose and tried to "fix it".  Again, unbelievable!  Once the issue was brought to their attention, they re-did the deck (after some prompting).  The screened in porch area of the deck is still tacky over a month after they applied the stain.  When I called the general manager (Mr. Ty Anderson) of the crew that had performed the work, he said we should wait until next spring and then file a claim under our two year warranty.  When I pressed the issue with him, he hung up on me.  Totally unprofessional behavior.  I would definitely NOT recommend College Pro Painters in the Twin Cities.

They were fast and courteous.

They did a fantastic job and cleaned up after themselves.  It was just wonderful.  We had no problems.  They charged us the same price that we had paid when we had our house painted 12 years ago.  We got other estimates that were much higher.  College Pro had an excellent price.  They were very professional.  They stuck to their job.  I would talk to them about what their majors were and things like that.  It was a really nice experience.  We would definitely use them again.

It started off well - I thought their price was fair and he showed up on time, but it went downhill from there. It took more than two weeks for them to start the job - even after we were very upfront about when the job needed to be completed. When they started the work they came over with a power washer to clean the fence but neglected to tell me that I should put something up to protect my garden areas - and they did nothing to avoid the damage that was done - I lost several plants because the sprayer tore them apart. The quality of work was okay - I could have done it better myself but didn't have the time which is why we hired it out. My mistake - that I won't make again.

They did a good job. The project manager was involved throughout. The project was more work than they planned on, and they kept to their bid. Overall, they did a nice job. They were conscientious and they were pleasant to deal with.

They were pretty reasonable price wise. They were not punctual and were late by 2 months. They didn't return my calls. I would not hire them again or recommend them to others.

Their price was good. They were punctual. I would probably not use them in the future.

They did a really good job! They finished in the time frame they had quoted. The cost was the lowest bid I had received.

They did a really good job. They were very pleasant to work with.

It went awful. It was the worst experience I ever had. The trim around the house wasn't too bad. They got some paint around the front door and on the screen. The deck around the pool they stained the wrong color and they did a very poor job. They were supposed to move the table on the pool deck before they stained the deck but they didn't and we found it shattered. On the exterior of the screen porch they did an extremely poor job and they got stain on the siding and the soffits and also on the downspouts. They were supposed to remove the downspouts but they didn't. They also put a hole in one of the screens. Also they did not properly prep either decks although it was stated in the contract that they would do that. They didn't use drop cloths like they were supposed to so they got stain on the maintenance free floors. On the interior of the screen porch, according to the contract they were supposed to use a certain stain to seal the wood without color change. Without our knowledge they changed to a completely different type of product and use Spar Urithene which changed the color of the wood and put a glossy finish that we didn't want and the product's fumes made us sick for weeks. They got the urithene all over the screen and maintenance free floors as well. Half way through the interior I tried to ask the manager if he was using the correct stain and he snapped and bit my head off and never told me whether or not they were using the correct stain. The only way we found out it was the wrong product was because we found a leftover can. After consulting other painting professionals we found out that the urithene would be nearly impossible to remove, the only option would be to replace the wood. When they were done the manager walked through the job site and realized the bad job that was done and later that night still had a crew member call and ask for payment. After complaining to corporate the regional manager and vice president came to our house and said the job was an embarrassment. The vice president later sent us a letter offering to pay a third of the cost to repair also he said in the letter they have the right to change anything without the customers consent but it clearly states in the contract that you need the homeowners consent and signature to change anything. They basically tried to hide from us that they changed the product. Not only did it make us sick but we were unable to use the deck during the summer but it made being on the deck unbearable. Also the fumes would leak into the house. We contacted the manufacturer of the urithene and they said for it to smell like that it would have had to been improperly applied. Also on the side of the can it says it will change the color of the wood and that it is not recommended for decks or siding. The lack of response on the corporate level to both us and our lawyer has been astounding. The estimate to fix the damage was 17,000 and the original work was supposed to be 2,200.

They were always on time and it only took about a week. Their pricing was pretty competitive. They were very polite and cleaned up their mess when they were done.

Cian is the local College Pro team manager, and he is very professional and personable. He does do his best to be accommodating, for example, I needed them to move their equipment one evening from their regular storage space in the yard to the driveway so our lawn service could come. The came back to do that without a problem. Also, they helped move furniture off the porch to begin the job, and cleaned the concrete floor of debris. However, I'm not sure the concrete floor was prepped properly because the paint started peeling within weeks. Cian handled the situation very well, came out with a Sherwin Williams expert to assess it. Then he came out on his own weekend time to re-do the concrete floor with a different product. I can't tell yet how the floor will fare, but the rest of the paint job looks great and the team was efficient, clean, and courteous.

Worst "professional" paint job I have ever seen. Left incomplete and much of the completed work was unacceptable. Will need to pay another contractor to repaint the house. The workers were untrained and under supervised. Even after repeated requests to fix issues, and multiple times of pointing out problems, they were either unwilling or incapable of addressing the deficiencies. Specific examples include: failure to powerwash high areas on house. (Answer: They could't do that without bringing the powerwasher into my house. Ha!) Failure to caulk around window trim and door trim. Failure to remove loose glazing on windows and failure to re-glaze where missing. The glazing that was put in literally looks like it was applied with their finger tips. They failed to paint several areas of the fascia and left multiple windows unpainted - even after repeatedly pointing this out. Several areas on the fascia and soffits were never scrapped, primed, or painted.