Unlike the popular thinking, painters are neither not precisely un-skilled workers nor people with minimal skills. The concept of modern day paints being coatings than mere colored covering brings to focus the roles played by the painters contractors in construction activities across the world. Often the fact that painting jobs occur right at the end of projects when the budget would be at the lowest point or even going into an overdraft; would mean that customers are seeking to cut costs with the paintings.
Who are painters contractors?
It would be pertinent to point to the role being fulfilled by the painters who more or less gets to do a thankless job. A painter gets to work from the beginning to the end of the whole painting process. The majority of painting works can be divided into a number of smaller activities. Each part of the process has its significance to the entire application of paint procedures and cannot be played down.
The estimate: The very first step to engaging a painter to work in an area is to ask the person to provide the estimate for the work at hand. It is important to specify any particular requirement that the customer would have in the work. Like the preferences to a brand of paint, or is the specific use of branded putty and so on. The more direct the customer is in letting the painter know what is expected of the job, the better the chances of the worker providing a reasonable estimate.
Often disputes arise with the work as the customer might not lay out the full terms of engagement. Not only is this frustrating for the painter as he faces delays in getting his dues and for the customer getting the paintwork done, would mean unnecessary delays. The experienced contractor would provide a non-binding estimate to the customer and at no extra cost. As for the customer, he gets to compare the estimates provided by competing contractors to come to a conclusion as to who could provide the most cost-effective work.
The estimate does point to the actual competencies of the painter. This is because if the contractor is not experienced enough he is bound to miss out key points to the estimate and this can easily be seen by the customer.
Preparatory works: It is never that paint works are taken up immediately to landing a contract. Most painters need to get together a team of workers to do the work, and this assumes great significance in the large contracts. Equally important is to prepare the surface for the paintwork before the application is made. Often this could involve plugging of leaks and seepages that would have formed over time.
A good part of the painters work involved selecting the correct type and amounts of paint for use. Most of the experienced hands would have preferences to the brand and kind of paint to be used in each situation. There are significant differences in the type of paints used in indoor applications as opposed to the outdoor uses.
Many specialized painting applications need proper calculations to be done as to the amount of paint to use and the right number of personnel to be used in work. In such cases, the painting supervisor needs to be trained and specialized in the use of these paint types.
Application of the paint: The actual coat of paint is applied after the surfaces have been duly prepared and made to get dry. The experienced painters contractors would take into consideration the particular seasonal features when undertaking paintwork. So the wet or rainy seasons have to be provisioned with slower drying times and consequently takes that much longer to dry out.
If it were the dusty conditions of the year, then proper steps should be taken to ensure that the dust is not blown onto the surface soon after the completion of the painting. So for the best parts, the painters are usually people who have excellent local knowledge as to the kind of conditions that would prevail at a specific location.
The licensing norms for the painter
Some of the specialized applications of paints are made by painters or contractors who are licensed to do such works. The reason is that these are areas that need a high standard of performance that the statutory bodies engaged in the field maintain a specific minimum requirement to be met before work can be entrusted to such workers.
Each functional field does have standards which are suited for the operational areas. Thus the petrochemical industry would have a set of criteria which are entirely different from the shipping industry and so on. A number of bodies have the bonded painters who are essentially contractors who are insured out for any adverse incidents.
The aim of the licensing bodies in the case of painters contractors is to establish a minimum set of operational standards right across the field. This would be of significance to the larger body of workers to introduce high standards of performance of the work.
It would be evident from the above that a good painter does not get to be one overnight. But that it takes years of hard work and learning to attain skill levels of the standards needed for a particular job. Another important aspect of the painting work is the increasing mechanization that has occurred in the field which makes the ordinary applicator redundant in the whole process. This would mean that it takes a certain level of skill sets and knowledge to perform well in the field.
With time, still, more advanced systems for paint works are going to be introduced. And here the skill levels would be much higher than at present. The excellent painter worker is going to find his place no matter the kind of completion or the level of expertise that is to be applied in the field.