Dassoc Painting

I hired Daryl Walker doing business as Dassoc Painting, LLC, 409 Meadow Lane, Somerset, Wisconsin, for an exterior painting job during the summer of 2015. A former business name was Appalachian Painting. My wife and I are extremely dissatisfied with his work. Unfortunately, we did not begin to discover the results of Walker’s omissions and shortcuts until several days after I had paid Walker as he was leaving. Walker uses a common type of industry contract. The second sentence states: “All work to be completed in a substantial workmanlike manner according to specifications, per standard practices.” Walker did not follow standard industry practices. Walker did not cover our windows prior to spraying stain. As a result he coated our windows with a fine mist of stain. That is 33 glass sash panels of approximately two by four feet each plus two glass door panels. It took us many hours over three days to clean the stain from the windows. Walker also did not renew the caulking, as is standard industry practice, and despite my comments to him about the need for such caulking prior to him even writing the contract. As a result, within two days the new trim paint near some areas of deteriorated caulk puckered and could be peeled off with a finger nail. Moisture had evidently infiltrated the deteriorated caulk prior to painting. Some areas of trim that had been primed appeared to have not been painted at all and one end of the house and garage had areas of non-matching paint splotches of a cream colored flat paint on the white of the trim. The front dormer window trim, after painting, showed a spot of bare wood, barely noticeable from ground level, surrounded by cracked, flaking original paint. Light scraping enlarged the area to hand size. This area was part of the scope of the project. Despite working on adjacent trim, Walker managed to miss this one segment with his pressure washer, and while scraping and priming and while painting. As we discovered the problems with Walker’s work, I sent Walker several letters outlining the issues and enclosing photographs for illustration. After receiving the first letter, Walker returned and did a cursory job of painting the primed but unpainted areas and covering most of the mis-matched paint. While Walker acknowledged missing some areas of painting, he said he couldn’t understand how the windows could have been misted while spraying because he had rolled and brushed around windows, and he also couldn’t believe the new paint had peeled in spots; no apologies, just disbelief. Despite the peeling new paint Walker’s position is that he was not required to renew caulking because he did not write it in the contract. He ignores that the fundamental language of his contract requires: “All work to be completed in a substantial workmanlike manner according to specifications, per standard practices”. Caulking prior to painting is a standard practice. While I worked at replacing deteriorated caulk, removing puckered new paint, repainting and viewing up close Walker’s poor work or lack thereof I became exasperated. I sent Walker a second letter demanding a partial refund for cleaning the stain coating from our windows and for present and future (back of the house I didn’t get to) repairing of Walker’s failed paint and work he didn’t do. Walker sent a letter response that is a piece of work. In his letter Walker accepts no responsibility for anything and blames all of his shortcuts, errors, omissions and poor results on me; including his buying of one can of non matching paint. Apparently a Walker customer has no reasonable expectation that his new paint won’t peel within two days. I gave Walker until November 10, 2015 to remit the partial refund. Walker sent no refund, not even for the window cleaning. Prior to Walker we have had this house painted and stained three times without issues so we have a general idea of what should occur and what the results should be. Walker's bid was not particularly low to begin with. His results have made him very expensive. I give Walker an F for his poor quality work and for his refusal to accept responsibility and try to learn from his shortcut mistakes.

I hired Daryl Walker doing business as Dassoc Painting,
LLC, 409 Meadow Lane, Somerset, Wisconsin, for an exterior painting job during
the summer of 2015. A former business name was Appalachian Painting. My wife
and I are extremely dissatisfied with his work. Unfortunately, we did not begin
to discover the results of Walker?s omissions and shortcuts until several days
after I had paid Walker as he was leaving.
Walker uses a common type of industry contract. The second sentence states: ?All work
to be completed in a substantial workmanlike manner according to specifications,
per standard practices.? Walker did not follow standard industry practices.
Walker did not cover our windows prior to spraying stain. As a result he coated our
windows with a fine mist of stain. That is 33 glass sash panels of
approximately two by four feet each plus two glass door panels. It took us many
hours over three days to clean the stain from the windows.
Walker also did not renew the caulking, as is standard industry practice, and despite my
comments to him about the need for such caulking prior to him even writing the
contract.  As a result, within two days the new trim paint near some areas of deteriorated caulk puckered
and could be peeled off with a finger nail. Moisture had evidently infiltrated the deteriorated caulk prior to painting.
Some areas of trim that had been primed appeared to have not been painted at all and
one end of the house and garage had areas of non-matching paint splotches of a
cream colored flat paint on the white of the trim. The front dormer window trim,
after painting, showed a spot of bare wood, barely noticeable from ground
level, surrounded by cracked, flaking original paint. This area was part of the
scope of the project. Despite working on adjacent trim, Walker managed to miss
this one segment with his pressure washer, and while scraping and priming and while painting.
As we discovered the problems with Walker?s work, I sent Walker several letters
outlining the issues and enclosing photographs for illustration. After receiving
the first letter, Walker returned and did a cursory job of painting the primed
but unpainted areas and covering most of the mis-matched paint. While Walker acknowledged
missing some areas of painting, he said he couldn?t understand how the windows
could have been misted while spraying because he had rolled and brushed around
windows, and he also couldn?t believe the new paint had peeled in spots; no
apologies, just disbelief. Despite the peeling new paint Walker?s position is that
he was not required to renew caulking because he did not write it in the
contract. He ignores that the fundamental language of his contract requires:
?All work to be completed in a substantial workmanlike manner according to
specifications, per standard practices?. Caulking prior to painting is a
standard practice.
While I worked at replacing deteriorated caulk, removing puckered new paint, repainting and
viewing up close Walker?s poor work or lack thereof I became exasperated. I
sent Walker a second letter demanding a partial refund for cleaning the stain
coating from our windows and for present and future (back of the house I didn?t
get to) repairing of Walker?s failed paint and work he didn?t do. Walker sent a
letter response that is a piece of work.
In his letter Walker accepts no responsibility for anything and blames all of his shortcuts,
errors, omissions and poor results on me; including his buying of one can of
non matching paint. Apparently a Walker customer has no reasonable expectation
that his new paint won?t peel within two days. I gave Walker until November 10,
to remit the partial refund. Walker sent no refund, not even for the window
cleaning. I have heard nothing further from him
Prior to Walker, we had had our house stained and painted three times over the years without issue so we have some concept of what should happen. Walker talks a good game but substitutes shortcuts and omissions for quality work. Walker was not low priced to begin with so in the end his poor quality work and refusal to take responsibility makes him very expensive. 

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I purchased a home and had very little time between closing and when I had to move out of my apartment. On top of that it was during the Christmas holiday. Not only did he find time to fit me in, but came out a couple days early to help me pick out colors. On the day the work was done he even finished earlier than he estimated. The work was very well done and I will use him again in the future.

Daryl is terrific. He came out twice prior to the job to provide estimates. We had heard that he was particularly good at chosing wall colors, so we had him guide our choices and were very happy with the colors. He painted the paneling in the family room. I had my doubts about painting the paneling, but it turned out fantastic. We wanted the painting done before Memorial Day because we wanted to put the house on the market. He worked with our timetable with time to spare. He is so nice to work with - I'd call him again in a minute!

From the beginning Daryl was very professional and helpful. He was very efficient. We were startled by his estimate, we were prepared to pay much more. His estimate included repair of the walls, picking up the paint, the paint itself and his labor.(We had washed the walls because my husband is a believer in that so that was not an issue.) The job was a two bedroom condominium, all rooms but only portions of the kitchen. We called Daryl in the evening to let him know the paints we had selected. He was here within the week. He knew that we were under pressure with our move so he did everything he could to finish the job around his prior commitments. He was always professional, personable and very cheerful. Some of the colors that we had picked required a second coat-it didn't faze him, he just let us know and did it. The work he did is wonderful. He told us how to treat the walls as they "cured, set" (?) Like the bathroom and corners. He did this all under bid.