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What should an exterior repaint bid state before an HOA board compares it?
Each bid should list the surfaces it covers and how each one will be prepared, name the product and the coating system, give the gallons of paint the job will take, set out the contractor's own warranty terms, and, for any building built before 1978, say how the firm will handle lead-safe work.
A board that asks three painters to price the same exterior repaint can get three numbers far apart. Before you read the gap as one painter overcharging or another cutting corners, check whether the three bids describe the same job. They may not, because each painter has to decide for itself whatever the request left out.
The painting trade has written defaults for some of those gaps. Under the industry standards published by the Painting Contractors Association (PCA), contract documents that don't state a level of surface preparation "will be assumed to imply Level 2." Level 2 is the second of the standard's four levels. Where the bid documents leave the number of colors and their placement open, the painter assumes Color Level II, which allows at most two exterior colors per building. And unless the contract states otherwise, the painter isn't responsible for pre-existing conditions. A painter who prices to those defaults and one who prices a fuller job can both be bidding honestly, on different work.
When a project goes wrong for reasons other than payment, the trouble usually starts with an inadequate scope of work. That's the view of a best practices report on association maintenance from the Foundation for Community Association Research. It adds that painting can look simple, but a board that wants to hold down its cost still needs a defined scope for it.
Start With One Request Every Bidder Prices
Write one request for proposals and send the same document to every painter. Detailed specifications let a board be fair to every bidder, as Ronald Fenstermaker, then president and CEO of an association management company, wrote in a 2020 article for the Community Associations Institute's HOAresources site. His advice for working with the contractor is blunt: "Don't anticipate getting more than what is contained in the contract and specification sheet."
One model text takes the idea further: the exterior repainting guide specification from the Master Painters Institute (MPI), which specifiers edit for their own projects. It has the owner give every bidder a list of the surfaces to be repainted, with a rating for how far each one has deteriorated. The guide also has any difference between those ratings and a painter's own site review settled before bids are submitted. You don't need MPI's rating scale to borrow the idea. Walk the property with your manager, note what's failing and where (a seasonal HOA maintenance checklist helps here), and give every bidder the same notes.
Surfaces: Every Painted Item and How It's Prepared
A bid's scope is its list of painted items. Under MPI's guide, the finish schedule should list every exterior painted item, with walls, trim, soffits, doors and frames, sills, decks and railings as examples, plus the gloss level. If one bid names the walls and trim and another adds the doors, sills and railings, the cheaper bid may simply cover less. Some items stay outside the painter's scope unless the contract documents state them: PCA's list of typical exclusions names roofs and the items mounted on them, gutters and downspouts among them.
Preparation belongs on the same list. PCA's Level 2 adds basic patching and filling, caulking, light sanding and feather-edge sanding to basic cleaning, and the standard allows different levels on different surfaces, such as a higher level on doors and trim than on walls. By the standard's own terms, Level 1 doesn't warrant that earlier coats are bonded well to each other or to the substrate. Ask each bidder to name the level, or the steps, for each surface.
Three more items need a line of their own on every bid:
• Washing. Pressure washing, where required, comes first in MPI's guide, to remove loose paint and dirt before repainting. Ask whether it's included and on which surfaces.
• Sealant joints. If the board expects exterior joints resealed, the bid should say so. Under PCA's caulking standard, caulk and sealant on exterior surfaces don't count as painter's caulk unless the plans or contract documents call for them.
• Damaged substrate. Ask for a unit price for each kind of repair, so every bid stands on the same footing when damage turns up. In one example in the Foundation's report, a balcony deck rebuild contracted at $150,000 turned up unforeseen dry rot, and the report concludes that specifications setting out the work, the products and the pricing, unit costs for unforeseen conditions included, would likely have avoided the misunderstanding.
Buildings Built Before 1978
If any building in your community was built before 1978, ask each bidder how it will handle lead paint. EPA's Renovation, Repair and Painting Rule requires anyone paid to disturb painted surfaces in pre-1978 homes to hold certification, with workers trained in lead-safe practices, and the federal rule counts sanding and scraping as renovation. Its carve-out for minor exterior work covers no more than 20 square feet of painted surface, and only where the job uses none of the work practices the rule prohibits or restricts and involves no window replacement or demolition.
Where the rule applies, the firm has to lay plastic sheeting or a similar impermeable cover on the ground 10 feet out from the work, or farther where falling paint debris would land beyond that, unless a property line is closer. In the common areas of multi-unit housing, it also has to notify every affected unit in writing before work starts, or post signs about the work while it's under way. And it has to give the building owner its compliance information with the final invoice or within 30 days of finishing, whichever is earlier.
Some states run their own programs in place of the federal one, so ask the bidder to state in writing which program it works under and to attach its firm certification.
Product: The Full Name and the System
Contracts should name materials as precisely as possible, with brand, color and quantity as examples where they apply, as California's Contractors State License Board (CSLB) advises homeowners. On a repaint, the brand alone gives a board little to compare. Two bids that each promise two coats of Sherwin-Williams paint could put very different amounts of coating on the same wall. The maker's data sheet for SuperPaint Exterior Latex Flat gives 350 to 400 square feet per gallon at 1.5 dry mils. Its ConFlex XL Smooth sheet, for an elastomeric coating, gives 100 to 125 square feet a gallon for each coat in a two-coat system, at 6.0 to 7.5 dry mils.
Ask for the product's full name and the system on each surface: any primer or conditioner, then the finish coats. With the name, the board can pull the maker's data sheet and read those figures for itself.
Gallons: The Figure a Board Can Count
Coats are hard to check once the paint is dry, but gallons can be counted. Ask each bidder, in writing, for the number of gallons of each product it expects the job to take.
That figure can't be read off a data sheet. Benjamin Moore's Ultra Spec Masonry sheet, also for an elastomeric, gives a spread rate of 80 to 100 square feet per gallon, depending on the surface's texture and porosity. So the gallon figure comes from each painter's own reading of the property. Put side by side, the figures show whether the bidders expect to use similar amounts of the same product on the same walls, and a figure far below the others is a question to ask before the vote.
On the stucco homes my company repaints in the Phoenix Valley, a gallon covers closer to 250 square feet per coat, not the 400 to 475 Dunn-Edwards lists for its EVERSHIELD paint. That's why the paint quantity standard we publish at Crash of Rhinos Painting & Garage Floors puts two gallon figures on every proposal: a minimum and the likely amount.
The paint ordered can also be checked against the bid. In MPI's guide, if requested, the painter submits an invoice list of the paint ordered for the project, with manufacturer, types and quantities, to the project's paint inspection agency. Your contract can require a similar list, sent to your manager.
Warranty: The Painter's Promise and the Paint Maker's
A bid that only says a warranty is included leaves out what a board needs. Two different warranties can stand behind a repaint, and they cover different things.
The contractor's warranty covers the work. Under PCA's standard, the painter repairs defects in its own materials or application for whatever warranty period the contract stipulates. California's CSLB puts it plainly in its consumer guide on home improvement contracts: "The contract should specify which parts of the work are covered and the duration of the warranty." Ask each bidder for its warranty in writing and compare its terms as closely as you compare the price.
The paint maker's warranty covers the product, and three makers' published terms show where that cover ends. A one-page Sherwin-Williams limited warranty, written for an exterior product the page doesn't name, counts its claim period from the date of purchase and carves out damage caused by faulty application, structural defects, poor surface preparation, or an earlier paint that failed. That warranty, Dunn-Edwards' lifetime warranty and Benjamin Moore's Ultra Spec EXT warranty all exclude the cost of labor. Dunn-Edwards' is for homeowner customers only, and Benjamin Moore's for the original residential consumer who bought the paint. If a bid leans on a product warranty, ask the bidder to show in writing whether it applies to the association's contract.
Check the Bidder as Well as the Bid
Vetting contractors sits alongside the board's other responsibilities, and it starts with the license. In most states, the Foundation's report notes, a job above a threshold amount needs a contractor's license for that kind of work. Its checklist for boards asks three things of that license: that it's held in the name of the contracting party, that it's active, and that its designation covers all the work. The report also tells boards to keep the contractor's insurance certificates on file and, in some cases, endorsements that name the association an additional insured, with legal counsel consulted on whether that's advisable. A certificate of insurance doesn't make its holder an additional insured; that takes an endorsement or being named on the policy as an insured, as Connecticut's insurance department explains in a 2010 bulletin.
Put the Bids Side by Side
A one-page sheet with the same rows for every bid, like Table 1 below, makes your comparison quick. Where a bid leaves a row blank, ask the painter to fill it in before the board votes, and check the final number against what your HOA reserve fund has set aside for exterior painting.
Table 1. Seven items to get in writing on every exterior repaint bid, and what applies when the request and the bid are silent.
Keep every bid, contract and warranty in one place
When a repaint goes out to bid, the paperwork piles up fast. ManageCasa's management tools give boards and management companies one place to store vendor documents, track work orders and keep owners updated. See how ManageCasa supports HOAs and community associations, compare plans on the pricing page, or book a live demo with the team at ManageCasa.
Related HOA Guides
• HOA Maintenance Checklist: A Complete Seasonal Guide
• HOA Reserve Funds: Funding Levels, Studies and State Rules
• HOA Board Member Responsibilities, Roles and Duties
Frequently Asked Questions
Does a board have to collect more than one bid?
That turns on state law and the governing documents. Florida's homeowners' association statute requires competitive bids once a contract would cost more than 10% of its total annual budget, including reserves; for condominium associations it's 5%. Neither requires the lowest bid. Nevada calls for at least three bids, whenever reasonably possible, on projects costing 3% of annual budget or more, or 1% in communities of 1,000 units or more.
Can a board check how many coats went on?
MPI's guide has each coat tinted progressively lighter, so the number of coats can be confirmed, and you can ask for the same in your contract. The gallons give a second check: the paint ordered against the figure in the bid.
What does PCA Level 2 surface preparation include?
Level 2 is what the Painting Contractors Association's standard assumes when contract documents don't name a level. It includes solvent cleaning, basic patching and filling, caulking, light sanding and feather-edge sanding to basic cleaning. The standard also recommends tape tests to check how well the existing paint is holding. A contract can call for a higher level on doors and trim than on walls.
Does a painter need lead certification to repaint an older HOA building?
Usually, if any building was built before 1978. EPA's Renovation, Repair and Painting Rule requires a certified firm and trained renovators for paid work that disturbs painted surfaces in pre-1978 housing. The carve-out for minor exterior work stops at 20 square feet of painted surface, which a full repaint will pass easily, so ask every bidder for its firm certification.
Is a contractor's certificate of insurance enough to protect the association?
Not on its own. A certificate shows the painter carries coverage, but it doesn't make the association an additional insured, as Connecticut's insurance department explained in a 2010 bulletin. That takes an endorsement or being named on the policy. The Foundation for Community Association Research suggests asking legal counsel whether to require that endorsement.
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Owner of Crash of Rhinos Painting
Mike Ricker is the owner of Crash of Rhinos Painting & Garage Floors, painting Phoenix Valley homes, HOA communities and commercial properties since 2006.
