Selecting Paints for Your Project

Preferred suppliers
Most house painting contractors recommend paints from their preferred suppliers. The painter often has a revolving credit account at one or two paint merchants, which allows him to obtain the lowest possible price based on volume purchases. So when you ask a painter what paint he recommends, he will make a suggestion from the products available only from those merchants.

Your painter wants to buy as much paint from his preferred suppliers as possible because:

• it helps him with his volume discounts
• the paint costs him less
• he doesn't need to run all over town for his paint
• he has experience with the paint

These are good reasons; you certainly don't want your painter using your home as a training exercise! But it also underlines the importance of choosing the right painter—one who uses the best paint.

Best available paint
Many paint manufacturers produce good paints, but all paint manufacturers produce various lines of paint. What are "lines of paint?" Manufacturers realize that not every buyer is willing to pay the cost of a top-line product, so they produce various other paints in which they have compromised the quality in some way.

For example, the paint may not have as high quality ingredients or may not provide as good coverage. This means the paint can be sold for a lower price. Many consumers (and house painters) will consider this to be a bargain—but you usually get what you pay for.

I've seen house painters lie to clients, explaining that an inferior line of paint is "just the same" as the top line of paint, but that the manufacturer uses a different label for its contractors. Why would a contractor lie like this? Probably to be able to bid the job a bit lower. Also, some of the really top line paints—like Aura® from Benjamin Moore—are more difficult to apply, so the painter may be trying to simplify his task by choosing something easier to use.

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