I have been in the Painting and Construction business for almost 22 years now and every year I see people making the same mistake when it comes to home improvement projects. Not planning far enough ahead. We are in the middle of one of the largest construction and real estate booms in many years in the Portland area. This means that we have a huge shortage of skilled labor force to do all of the work that is out there. When this happened in the 1990’s and early 2000’s it caused major problems on many construction projects. Many jobs had to be redone completely due to lack of skilled or trained workers.
If you are planning on doing a project of any size you really need to plan far ahead right now so you can not only get a good company to do the work but also to get on their schedule within a reasonable timeframe. It is best to call for any exterior work you need to have done either in the Fall or Winter to get the job done the following Spring or Summer. Contractors in Portland have a very short window of time each year to work outside as we cannot paint when it is too cold or wet out. This makes us very popular for about 6 months out of the year. Customers that call us in the winter time and commit to having exterior painting done can always get scheduled easily with us when the weather turns nice. Typically by June or July we are completely full for our exterior painting schedule which typically ends in October sometime. If you do find a painting contractor that is not booked out pretty far in advance you have to wonder why are they not busy?
It is very easy to not think about your Summer projects when it is cold and wet outside but you will likely get a much better deal and a better contractor if you do your homework early. Not all contractors give early season discounts but many of them do. If you are planning to do exterior painting in 2017 or 2018 don’t hesitate to give us a call and we are happy to assist.
