University Painters

If you are considering University Painters for any kind of home improvement work, I seriously urge you to pursue other options. This company uses subcontractors who may select anyone to work on their crew, regardless of their skill level. We learned this from Dennis Herzog, the owner of the company. The results we received were exactly on par with what you’d expect from a company that does not oversee its own hiring: very sloppy and unprofessional. These were our experiences:
We hired UP after getting quotes from several companies to paint 4 rooms, cabinets in the kitchen and bathroom, and the installation/​painting of new doors throughout the interior of the house. We ultimately selected UP based on their competitive bid and how likable we found the owner (who was the one who came by to do the estimate). Although the reviews online were fairly divided, we felt confident that we’d receive great customer service from him. Though to some extent we did, what we did not receive by any stretch of the imagination was good or remotely professional service from the crew assigned to us. The end results were what you’d expect from a group of your college buddies who agreed to help paint in exchange for pizza and beer, not a company purporting to be «the best in the business,» especially where the kitchen cabinets were concerned. In fact, after expressing concern to the crew leader about the quality of the work being done on the cabinets, we were informed that they «don’t actually do cabinets.» Additionally:
–Despite having covered the floor, the crew managed to splatter paint on the carpet throughout the entire house, and across a stone floor in our bathroom.
–Several light fixtures and ceiling fans had paint smeared across them.
–The hardware on each of the new doors that had been installed was covered with paint.
–Not all the tape had been removed from fixtures or doorknobs; when removed, it pulled dried paint right off the ceiling and doors.
–The crew used our outdoor spout to rinse their supplies. A flag, bush, and hose we had nearby were covered in paint that would not rinse off.
–Most of the walls featured ceiling paint along the top of them, while the ceilings in most of the rooms featured colored paints splattered on them. There were almost no sharp, professional lines at all between the ceilings and the walls; just shaky, wavy intersections of white and color paint.
–Door frames and ceilings were found to be painted with the wrong – or even more than one – type of white paint.
— A project estimated to take 2 days (possibly 3) lasted until 9PM on a 4^th day, with the crew leader trying to rush out the door (the rest of the crew was already in the truck with the engine running), despite messes that were not cleaned up and issues that had not been addressed.
Following the crew’s departure, we documented all the remaining issues, took pictures of things that were damaged, and put it all in an email to the owner, feeling depressed and regretful. We felt a bit better when he quickly offered to come out and see the results himself. When he made it out, he was appropriately embarrassed and apologetic about the sloppy, unprofessional work. This is when he revealed that he has virtually no control as to the skill level of crew members brought to perform the work. He then offered to send a couple different guys out to fix the issues. We were skeptical reluctant to dedicate another stretch of days to painting, but of course took him up on the offer because the house looked so bad.
The second crew was better than the first in many ways, despite arriving hours late. But it wasn’t long before we could see that there’d be no way to get the results we wanted without having the entire house repainted, which we’ve no financial means to do. In particular, anywhere they «fixed» sloppy work, the paint dried in a way where you can easily see that someone applied an extra coat of paint only to one specific area, especially because they inexplicably only used brushes in their work, no rollers at all. Not to mention that the leader of the two guys would leave on errands, like to get paint, and be gone for 4 hours at a time (no exaggeration) without any explanation. Did the house look better when they left than when they first arrived? In many ways. But generally, we were left with a new kind of less-​than-​ideal results. For that reason, we appreciated when the owner offered to refund us some money to make up for our experiences– until we received the amount: a pittance equal to approximately 3% of what we paid. So our real coping mechanism has been to train our eyes not to see all the lingering issues, which is sad.
I know there are other reviews of UP from people who had better results. But we hope you can see that the only way that happens is if you are lucky enough to get assigned a crew leader who brings along individuals that actually have some painting proficiency. And we can tell you, it’s not worth taking the chance.