Why the paperwork deserves your attention
A painting job is easy to agree to on a handshake. Someone walks the house, names a number and a start date, and you say yes. The trouble starts later, when the trim wasn't included, the second coat was "optional" or the crew left for another job when it rained. A clear written proposal prevents most of that. In Virginia, the state's own rules also say something about how contracting is organized, so it helps to know what they say.
What Virginia's law says
Virginia law requires a Board for Contractors license for repair or improvement work on a building when a single contract or project is over $1,000; a Class C license covers contracts over $1,000 but less than $30,000.
Virginia's Board for Contractors regulations define a Painting and Wallcovering Contracting (PTC) specialty, covering the application of materials common to the painting and decorating industry.
Those two statements are quoted here exactly as the sources give them. This page doesn't add to them or apply them to any particular painter. If you want to know how a painter's business fits those rules, ask the painter directly; that's a question they should be able to answer plainly.
The scope: what's actually being painted
The most useful part of a proposal is the list of surfaces. Before you compare prices, check that each bid includes the same things:
- walls, by room or by side of the house;
- ceilings, and whether they're a different color;
- trim, doors, window casings and baseboards;
- exterior extras such as shutters, porch floors, rails, soffits and fascia;
- any staining work on decks or fences.
If one bid leaves out the soffits and another includes them, the prices aren't comparable yet.
The prep: where bids really differ
Two painters can quote the same house very differently because one plans to wash, scrape, sand, fill, caulk and spot-prime properly and the other doesn't. Ask each painter to describe the prep in writing. Our drywall repair and surface preparation guide explains what good prep looks like indoors, and the exterior painting page does the same outside.
The products and coats
A proposal should name the primer and the finish by product line and sheen, not just "premium paint". It should say how many coats each surface gets. Changing color, covering stains or painting bare wood often needs more than the usual number of coats, and a bid that doesn't account for that will either cost more later or look patchy.
The schedule and the weather
In an average year at Roanoke, NOAA counts about 305 hours with the wet-bulb temperature above 73°F and about 1,604 hours above 67°F.
The wet-bulb temperature folds heat and humidity into one figure. When it runs high, paint gives up its water slowly, so recoat times stretch and fresh exterior coats are at risk from evening dew. A good schedule leaves room for that. Look for:
- the recoat interval the painter plans to allow between coats;
- what conditions will stop exterior work for the day;
- how they'll protect fresh paint late in the afternoon;
- who decides when a delay is needed, and how you'll hear about it.
Payment and changes
Agree on how and when payments are due, and what happens if the job changes once it starts. Hidden rot, extra coats or added rooms should be priced in writing before the work is done, not on the final invoice. Our pricing guide explains the factors that move a price up or down.
Putting it together
A Roanoke homeowner comparing painters should end up with proposals that list the same surfaces, describe the prep in plain terms, name the products and coats, set out a realistic schedule and explain how changes will be handled. With those side by side, the choice gets much easier.