BUYER BEWARE! Company refused to honor contract and left us with exposed raw wood and construction debris (rusty nails, sharp metal stapes, splinters of wood and paint) all over our deck, roof and lawn.
This company has several negative reviews that we should have listened to prior to signing a contract. The first warning was having to sign a contract and pay $ during the sales presentation or else the 20% offer wouldn't be valid. Huge RED FLAG that we didn't heed.
So many issues I don't know where to begin. First, we were told to pick out a color at Sherwin Williams since no color wheel was presented until the day they started work (their contract states a color wheel will be provided). They had to color match our SW selection and the color was a pink-brown, nowhere near the tan color we picked out. When we refused the color they matched, the owner, Mike, rudely told us his $30,000 color matching machine is 98% accurate in color matching. Obviously it isn't! I think he definitely overpaid for that machine. LOL!
Our home is 25 years old and there were many caulked areas around the windows that needed to be removed and replaced. We were promised these areas would be taken care of prior to painting. NOT! They taped the windows, scraped a few boards and were ready to begin painting. The scraping left large, loose chunks of paint still hanging on the wood. For anyone that has owned a wooden home, scraping and priming are vital in ensuring the paint does not bubble and peel off shortly after the repainting. I would expect a home painting company to know this and take steps to prevent issues however as previous posts state, the prep work this company performs is subpar and when issues occur, which they definitely will, the company apparently will not honor their 15-year guarantee or any guarantee for that matter.
The only saving grace in this whole horrible ordeal is the wood on our chimney chase needed to be repaired so it stopped the entire process until the chase was repaired. If that had not happened, our house would be pink toned with areas of bubbling and water leakage around our windows.
We hired Home Shield Coating (HSC) to paint our house in 2012. Before the contract was signed, HSC explained how their product works. The bonding agent (primer) and the paint both contain ceramic microspheres, which promote exceptional bonding of the paint to the wood and, at the same time, allow the wood to breathe underneath. The bonding agent and the paint penetrate through the wood (and existing paint, if house has been painted) and would not chip, peel, or crack for years ahead. They demonstrated a piece of bare cedar (the type of siding our house has) covered with the bonding agent. Its surface was tacky, which is a characteristic of the product.
We sought references provided by the paint contractor to verify the quality of the product and were able to talk to one customer, who had his house painted 5 years prior and he assured us that the paint was still holding well and he was very happy.
Our concern was that our house was stained/painted 4-5 times before and the bonding agent and paint may not adhere to the wood through the layers of old primer, stain, and paint. However, the HSC agent assured us this was not the case, and we signed the contract.
The painters were nice and worked hard, but they did not speak English so communication with them was very difficult. At the same time, the HSC owner and CEO was very responsive. He had promptly responded to every email we sent to him.
The house was painted in May of 2012, and we were relieved to think no more painting for at least another 8-10, maybe, even the twenty years (before, we had to paint every 3 years).
In the spring of 2013, when we inspected the house, we found multiple areas of bubbled paint and cracks. Water was collected between the paint and the siding since the new paint acted as a barrier, thus making wood wet. We contacted HSC, and they came and fixed the affected areas.
The story repeated in 2014. There were areas of bubbled and cracked paint. The paint did not chip much; however, when one starts peeling it where it bubbled or cracked, it would keep peeling and peeling like a sheet of plastic until the whole cedar board was exposed. We literally had to stop it by cutting paint with a knife because it would continue peeling. The new paint penetrated through the old paint and peeled with it but did not adhere to the wood as we were assured by HSC it would. As we suspected, the primer and the new paint did not penetrate enough through the old paint but rather loosened the strength of adherence of the new paint.
HSC again fixed the troubled areas in 2014. This time, the CEO at the very first time (he never mentioned this before) suggested that our rain gutters are too small and do not collect all the rain water allowing it to get behind the paint, thus stimulating its peeling. He immediately offered us to replace our standard 5-inch gutters with 6-inch ones with a discount.
However, this judgment of the gutter size shows that the CEO does not have the basic understanding of house protection by painting. His explanation may sound correct to some who is not familiar with the science of water (rain) flow; however, it is not correct. Ultimately, we paint houses to protect them from rain and the paint is constantly exposed to rain water at the moment of the slightest wind.
We have asked other several building contractors whether the size of the gutters is too small. None supported this theory. Additionally disproving this was the fact that the paint was peeling and cracking on the walls where there no gutters. However, HSC insisted that was the problem.
In 2015, we discovered the wood trim around the windows and on the wall corners started to rot under the paint so we ourselves replaced the rotten wood where we could. We suspect this new paint would not let the moisture to escape and it collected between the siding and paint causing the wood to rot.
HSC came one more time in 2015 to repair the whole wall, and the CEO stated they would not come any longer to do the warranty repairs, which is 30 years on product and labor, until and unless we replaced the gutters.
When we reached to HSC in 2016 for more repairs, the CEO refused to come. We asked for more product because we started fixing the problematic areas ourselves in 2015. We spent over $14,000.00 on the HSC work in 2012 and did not want to spend more, hoping to prolong the life of the paint to have some return on our huge investment. Additionally, the CEO refused to give us more of the product for free for touchups but offered to sell it to us for the outrageously high price.
We had to hire a contractor to replace the rotten trim and siding, which we could not do ourselves. We plan to keep fixing the paint where we can reach and hire another painting contractor to fix the areas up high, which we cannot reach. Gradually, after fixing a lot of problematic areas, it appears that the rest of the paint holds more or less OK for now although constant touchup is needed.
The bottom line is this: if you have bare siding, this product could work for you very well. If your siding was stained one or two times, you may consider using this product, but we would recommend to test it on the wall, which gives you the most trouble by first making sure the paint would penetrate through the old paint. If your house was painted more than two times previously, we do not recommend using this product.
We also recommend to obtain several references and not from those people who painted their houses this year or year before and recommended by HSC. You should ask for references of people who painted their houses 5 years ago or more and, very desirably, from the area where you live. Only then, you can get a clear picture if this product is good for your siding
Business Response to Initial Review
I ‘ve had numerous email exchanges, phone calls and have made personal visits at the Anonymous home to discuss this matter. I certainly appreciate her saying that I have been very responsive and proactive in this matter. When we met Mrs. Anonymous she was repainting and replacing rotting wood on her home almost every year; according to her, she would have it professionally painted every three years and then touch it up herself every year. We have gone out to the Anonymous residence on four separate occasions and performed repairs. The first time was to inspect mysterious white spots that appeared on one side of the house and driveway. These spots ended up being bird droppings, which isn’t covered by our warranty, but we cleaned it up anyway. I have tried to explain to Mrs. Anonymous that this is not normal and that having that much water behind the cedar is indicative of a water management problem. Water blisters are a sure tell sign that water is getting behind the wood siding. I told her to have a gutter installer come out and take a look at her gutters because I’m certain they’re the cause of her problem. I suggested she replace her gutters with bigger 6” gutters because they catch 40% more water than her current gutters. She stated that her gutters are fine and that she isn’t spending money on gutters. I explained to her that gutters are a cheap solution to her problem. I even offered her employee pricing on new gutters, which is labor and materials. I told her that we would not be coming back a 5th time until she gets new gutters. I even offered to re-coat her house FREE of charge after she got new gutters. Because Mrs. Anonymous has said that she has used the product previously left behind to touch up areas and has allowed a contractor that she hires to do carpentry repairs to apply our product without proper training, I have explained to her that these application actions are grounds for us to void her warranty. For that reason I have told her that I will not give her any more of our HSC product at any price. “I sought references provided by the paint contractor to verify the quality of the product and was able to talk to one customer, who had his house painted 5 years prior and he assured me that the paint was still holding well and he was very happy.” This customer she met five years ago is going into his 10th year with HSC on his house and has had no problems. He’s still very happy and we still send people to his house. If any positive can be taken from this negative review is the fact that we actually honor our warranty.
Anonymous Reply to Business Response.
We provided a constructive, fair, and honest review of HSC. We would like to correct several statements made in the business’ response.
It is not true that the wood on our house rotted prior to the HSC project while it is correct that the existing stain was peeling and cracking and would not stay for more than a couple of years. The wood rotting started after the HSC product was applied.
There were no “mysterious white spots” on one side of the house or the driveway. This was never an issue and, therefore, not a true statement
It is very important to note that, prior to applying the HSC product, we had never experienced blistering stain on the wood. We had cracking and peeling, but never blistering (by blistering we mean an unbroken peeled off coat of paint with water lodged between the paint coat and the siding). It started after the HSC product was applied and we described in the great detail that the HSC product was most likely responsible for it, maybe, not because it is a bad product, but because it was misapplied on the surface that was stained several times before. The HSC product did not penetrate through the old stain to adhere to the wood but adhered only to the old paint and created a vapor barrier around the wood, thus preventing some moisture that may have been present before the product was applied to escape.
Mr. CEO has so far consistently refused to address the fact that his product’s poor performance he keeps attributing to our undersized gutters was demonstrated not just on the walls where the gutters are installed over the walls, but also on the walls with no gutters over them. This underscores his lack of knowledge and attempt to justify misapplying the product on the surface that was stained several times before and did not allow the HSC product to penetrate through the old stain and adhere to the wood. Moreover, Mr. CEO had never indicated a problem with our “undersized” gutters before we signed the contract; he mentioned them two years after the house was painted with the HSC product.
The contractor who replaced the rotten wood around one window provided a professional painter with over 20 years of experience to help us paint the replaced part because it was not reachable for us. We had to do so because Mr. CEO refused us any additional warranty service but offered to paint the replaced window part for $580.00, which we refused for obvious reasons. Mr. CEO states that the contractor was not professionally trained to apply the HSC product. At the same time, we observed how Mr. CEO’s crews applied it. While we fully followed the instructions on the product labels when doing touchups, the HSC painters did not wait required 2 hours between applying the bonding agent and the paint. On another occasion, they pained during rain, and, on yet another occasion, they pained when the outside temperature was above 90 degrees, which was prohibited per the instructions. These are hardly the indicators of professionalism.
While Mr. CEO refused to give us more of the product for free, he quoted $120.00 for the bonding agent and $198.00 for the paint. Since it was grossly overpriced, we refused.
On one occasion, Mr. CEO stated that he refused to honor the warranty because we refused to replace the gutters. Another time, he stated that he refused the warranty because we were doing touchups ourselves. He would do good to be more consistent in his statements. HSC left some paint for us to do touchups. We started doing touchups because the HSC would not come every time they were called. When a crew came the last time, they did not do the inspection of all the walls as Mr. CEO assured that the crew would stay for 2-3 days if necessary to fix everything. They only fixed the obvious areas of paint cracking, peeling, and blistering we pointed out to them. Again, the communication was nearly impossible as only one on the crew spoke broken English. The promised full inspection was never done.
We tried to ask for more references before we signed the contract. HSC provided us with a couple, and we were able to get in contact with only one happy customer. If there are many happy customers as Mr. CEO insists, why has none of them posted a positive review of HSC on the BBB site so far? AT this time, there are two complaints on the site, and one of them is strikingly similar to ours.
We do not contact Mr. CEO or his company any longer. We strongly disagree with HSC abandoning the warranty. HSC did not remain committed to their warranty when things turn out to be not as expected. They looked for reasons to get out of the deal, which certainly puts a big question mark on the business’ integrity.
This review is about the product that was clearly misapplied. Mr. CEO told us the product stayed well, painted over latex paint in his other projects. This may be true, but the fact remains that the product did not fully penetrate through the layers of old stain to adhere to the wood on our house.
The purpose of our review is to warn other potential customers about this product. When someone promises a 30-year warranty on their product and charges quadruple of what other similar services would charge, it should be a red flag for a potential customer to do more research before signing a contract. It just sounds too good to be true.
The bottom line:
HSC offered us to repaint our house, guarantying the paint life of thirty years. The surface preparation was to be conducted by HSC, which is normally done to achieve the requirements of warranty. HSC did not suggest or noticed any obstructions to achieve the goals of warranty. For their work, we paid quadruple amount of money we would normally pay to other contractors and they painted the house, but the paint started to peel off a year after, thus violating the warranty. HSC did not want to honor their warranty of either correcting the problem or returning us the money we paid and we are stuck with the product that was misapplied.
Home Shield Coating Reviews
BUYER BEWARE! Company refused to honor contract and left us with exposed raw wood and construction debris (rusty nails, sharp metal stapes, splinters of wood and paint) all over our deck, roof and lawn.
This company has several negative reviews that we should have listened to prior to signing a contract. The first warning was having to sign a contract and pay $ during the sales presentation or else the 20% offer wouldn't be valid. Huge RED FLAG that we didn't heed.
So many issues I don't know where to begin. First, we were told to pick out a color at Sherwin Williams since no color wheel was presented until the day they started work (their contract states a color wheel will be provided). They had to color match our SW selection and the color was a pink-brown, nowhere near the tan color we picked out. When we refused the color they matched, the owner, Mike, rudely told us his $30,000 color matching machine is 98% accurate in color matching. Obviously it isn't! I think he definitely overpaid for that machine. LOL!
Our home is 25 years old and there were many caulked areas around the windows that needed to be removed and replaced. We were promised these areas would be taken care of prior to painting. NOT! They taped the windows, scraped a few boards and were ready to begin painting. The scraping left large, loose chunks of paint still hanging on the wood. For anyone that has owned a wooden home, scraping and priming are vital in ensuring the paint does not bubble and peel off shortly after the repainting. I would expect a home painting company to know this and take steps to prevent issues however as previous posts state, the prep work this company performs is subpar and when issues occur, which they definitely will, the company apparently will not honor their 15-year guarantee or any guarantee for that matter.
The only saving grace in this whole horrible ordeal is the wood on our chimney chase needed to be repaired so it stopped the entire process until the chase was repaired. If that had not happened, our house would be pink toned with areas of bubbling and water leakage around our windows.
We hired Home Shield Coating (HSC) to paint our house in 2012. Before the contract was signed, HSC explained how their product works. The bonding agent (primer) and the paint both contain ceramic microspheres, which promote exceptional bonding of the paint to the wood and, at the same time, allow the wood to breathe underneath. The bonding agent and the paint penetrate through the wood (and existing paint, if house has been painted) and would not chip, peel, or crack for years ahead. They demonstrated a piece of bare cedar (the type of siding our house has) covered with the bonding agent. Its surface was tacky, which is a characteristic of the product.
We sought references provided by the paint contractor to verify the quality of the product and were able to talk to one customer, who had his house painted 5 years prior and he assured us that the paint was still holding well and he was very happy.
Our concern was that our house was stained/painted 4-5 times before and the bonding agent and paint may not adhere to the wood through the layers of old primer, stain, and paint. However, the HSC agent assured us this was not the case, and we signed the contract.
The painters were nice and worked hard, but they did not speak English so communication with them was very difficult. At the same time, the HSC owner and CEO was very responsive. He had promptly responded to every email we sent to him.
The house was painted in May of 2012, and we were relieved to think no more painting for at least another 8-10, maybe, even the twenty years (before, we had to paint every 3 years).
In the spring of 2013, when we inspected the house, we found multiple areas of bubbled paint and cracks. Water was collected between the paint and the siding since the new paint acted as a barrier, thus making wood wet. We contacted HSC, and they came and fixed the affected areas.
The story repeated in 2014. There were areas of bubbled and cracked paint. The paint did not chip much; however, when one starts peeling it where it bubbled or cracked, it would keep peeling and peeling like a sheet of plastic until the whole cedar board was exposed. We literally had to stop it by cutting paint with a knife because it would continue peeling. The new paint penetrated through the old paint and peeled with it but did not adhere to the wood as we were assured by HSC it would. As we suspected, the primer and the new paint did not penetrate enough through the old paint but rather loosened the strength of adherence of the new paint.
HSC again fixed the troubled areas in 2014. This time, the CEO at the very first time (he never mentioned this before) suggested that our rain gutters are too small and do not collect all the rain water allowing it to get behind the paint, thus stimulating its peeling. He immediately offered us to replace our standard 5-inch gutters with 6-inch ones with a discount.
However, this judgment of the gutter size shows that the CEO does not have the basic understanding of house protection by painting. His explanation may sound correct to some who is not familiar with the science of water (rain) flow; however, it is not correct. Ultimately, we paint houses to protect them from rain and the paint is constantly exposed to rain water at the moment of the slightest wind.
We have asked other several building contractors whether the size of the gutters is too small. None supported this theory. Additionally disproving this was the fact that the paint was peeling and cracking on the walls where there no gutters. However, HSC insisted that was the problem.
In 2015, we discovered the wood trim around the windows and on the wall corners started to rot under the paint so we ourselves replaced the rotten wood where we could. We suspect this new paint would not let the moisture to escape and it collected between the siding and paint causing the wood to rot.
HSC came one more time in 2015 to repair the whole wall, and the CEO stated they would not come any longer to do the warranty repairs, which is 30 years on product and labor, until and unless we replaced the gutters.
When we reached to HSC in 2016 for more repairs, the CEO refused to come. We asked for more product because we started fixing the problematic areas ourselves in 2015. We spent over $14,000.00 on the HSC work in 2012 and did not want to spend more, hoping to prolong the life of the paint to have some return on our huge investment. Additionally, the CEO refused to give us more of the product for free for touchups but offered to sell it to us for the outrageously high price.
We had to hire a contractor to replace the rotten trim and siding, which we could not do ourselves. We plan to keep fixing the paint where we can reach and hire another painting contractor to fix the areas up high, which we cannot reach. Gradually, after fixing a lot of problematic areas, it appears that the rest of the paint holds more or less OK for now although constant touchup is needed.
The bottom line is this: if you have bare siding, this product could work for you very well. If your siding was stained one or two times, you may consider using this product, but we would recommend to test it on the wall, which gives you the most trouble by first making sure the paint would penetrate through the old paint. If your house was painted more than two times previously, we do not recommend using this product.
We also recommend to obtain several references and not from those people who painted their houses this year or year before and recommended by HSC. You should ask for references of people who painted their houses 5 years ago or more and, very desirably, from the area where you live. Only then, you can get a clear picture if this product is good for your siding
Business Response to Initial Review
I ‘ve had numerous email exchanges, phone calls and have made personal visits at the Anonymous home to discuss this matter. I certainly appreciate her saying that I have been very responsive and proactive in this matter. When we met Mrs. Anonymous she was repainting and replacing rotting wood on her home almost every year; according to her, she would have it professionally painted every three years and then touch it up herself every year. We have gone out to the Anonymous residence on four separate occasions and performed repairs. The first time was to inspect mysterious white spots that appeared on one side of the house and driveway. These spots ended up being bird droppings, which isn’t covered by our warranty, but we cleaned it up anyway. I have tried to explain to Mrs. Anonymous that this is not normal and that having that much water behind the cedar is indicative of a water management problem. Water blisters are a sure tell sign that water is getting behind the wood siding. I told her to have a gutter installer come out and take a look at her gutters because I’m certain they’re the cause of her problem. I suggested she replace her gutters with bigger 6” gutters because they catch 40% more water than her current gutters. She stated that her gutters are fine and that she isn’t spending money on gutters. I explained to her that gutters are a cheap solution to her problem. I even offered her employee pricing on new gutters, which is labor and materials. I told her that we would not be coming back a 5th time until she gets new gutters. I even offered to re-coat her house FREE of charge after she got new gutters. Because Mrs. Anonymous has said that she has used the product previously left behind to touch up areas and has allowed a contractor that she hires to do carpentry repairs to apply our product without proper training, I have explained to her that these application actions are grounds for us to void her warranty. For that reason I have told her that I will not give her any more of our HSC product at any price. “I sought references provided by the paint contractor to verify the quality of the product and was able to talk to one customer, who had his house painted 5 years prior and he assured me that the paint was still holding well and he was very happy.” This customer she met five years ago is going into his 10th year with HSC on his house and has had no problems. He’s still very happy and we still send people to his house. If any positive can be taken from this negative review is the fact that we actually honor our warranty.
Anonymous Reply to Business Response.
We provided a constructive, fair, and honest review of HSC. We would like to correct several statements made in the business’ response.
It is not true that the wood on our house rotted prior to the HSC project while it is correct that the existing stain was peeling and cracking and would not stay for more than a couple of years. The wood rotting started after the HSC product was applied.
There were no “mysterious white spots” on one side of the house or the driveway. This was never an issue and, therefore, not a true statement
It is very important to note that, prior to applying the HSC product, we had never experienced blistering stain on the wood. We had cracking and peeling, but never blistering (by blistering we mean an unbroken peeled off coat of paint with water lodged between the paint coat and the siding). It started after the HSC product was applied and we described in the great detail that the HSC product was most likely responsible for it, maybe, not because it is a bad product, but because it was misapplied on the surface that was stained several times before. The HSC product did not penetrate through the old stain to adhere to the wood but adhered only to the old paint and created a vapor barrier around the wood, thus preventing some moisture that may have been present before the product was applied to escape.
Mr. CEO has so far consistently refused to address the fact that his product’s poor performance he keeps attributing to our undersized gutters was demonstrated not just on the walls where the gutters are installed over the walls, but also on the walls with no gutters over them. This underscores his lack of knowledge and attempt to justify misapplying the product on the surface that was stained several times before and did not allow the HSC product to penetrate through the old stain and adhere to the wood. Moreover, Mr. CEO had never indicated a problem with our “undersized” gutters before we signed the contract; he mentioned them two years after the house was painted with the HSC product.
The contractor who replaced the rotten wood around one window provided a professional painter with over 20 years of experience to help us paint the replaced part because it was not reachable for us. We had to do so because Mr. CEO refused us any additional warranty service but offered to paint the replaced window part for $580.00, which we refused for obvious reasons. Mr. CEO states that the contractor was not professionally trained to apply the HSC product. At the same time, we observed how Mr. CEO’s crews applied it. While we fully followed the instructions on the product labels when doing touchups, the HSC painters did not wait required 2 hours between applying the bonding agent and the paint. On another occasion, they pained during rain, and, on yet another occasion, they pained when the outside temperature was above 90 degrees, which was prohibited per the instructions. These are hardly the indicators of professionalism.
While Mr. CEO refused to give us more of the product for free, he quoted $120.00 for the bonding agent and $198.00 for the paint. Since it was grossly overpriced, we refused.
On one occasion, Mr. CEO stated that he refused to honor the warranty because we refused to replace the gutters. Another time, he stated that he refused the warranty because we were doing touchups ourselves. He would do good to be more consistent in his statements. HSC left some paint for us to do touchups. We started doing touchups because the HSC would not come every time they were called. When a crew came the last time, they did not do the inspection of all the walls as Mr. CEO assured that the crew would stay for 2-3 days if necessary to fix everything. They only fixed the obvious areas of paint cracking, peeling, and blistering we pointed out to them. Again, the communication was nearly impossible as only one on the crew spoke broken English. The promised full inspection was never done.
We tried to ask for more references before we signed the contract. HSC provided us with a couple, and we were able to get in contact with only one happy customer. If there are many happy customers as Mr. CEO insists, why has none of them posted a positive review of HSC on the BBB site so far? AT this time, there are two complaints on the site, and one of them is strikingly similar to ours.
We do not contact Mr. CEO or his company any longer. We strongly disagree with HSC abandoning the warranty. HSC did not remain committed to their warranty when things turn out to be not as expected. They looked for reasons to get out of the deal, which certainly puts a big question mark on the business’ integrity.
This review is about the product that was clearly misapplied. Mr. CEO told us the product stayed well, painted over latex paint in his other projects. This may be true, but the fact remains that the product did not fully penetrate through the layers of old stain to adhere to the wood on our house.
The purpose of our review is to warn other potential customers about this product. When someone promises a 30-year warranty on their product and charges quadruple of what other similar services would charge, it should be a red flag for a potential customer to do more research before signing a contract. It just sounds too good to be true.
The bottom line:
HSC offered us to repaint our house, guarantying the paint life of thirty years. The surface preparation was to be conducted by HSC, which is normally done to achieve the requirements of warranty. HSC did not suggest or noticed any obstructions to achieve the goals of warranty. For their work, we paid quadruple amount of money we would normally pay to other contractors and they painted the house, but the paint started to peel off a year after, thus violating the warranty. HSC did not want to honor their warranty of either correcting the problem or returning us the money we paid and we are stuck with the product that was misapplied.