Spray that again? Why more people are choosing NPA long life exterior wall coatings

If you own a house, and the outside walls are painted, do you dread the day when it needs to be re-done?

That time seems to come around only too often, but now there is a way to alleviate that, and its quite a simple solution too, but there are one or two pitfalls the consumer should know about.

So there you are, sitting and relaxing in your garden, not a care in the world, taking a sip of your drink, and then your eyes are drawn to the outside walls of the house;

And then it dawns on you¦. It looks awful! You paid a small fortune for someone to paint it last year. I guess paint doesnt last that long, does it?

But do I have to do this every year? I suppose pebble dash is an option………….

But i HATE pebbledash!!!!!!!

Whats the solution?

There is now a special type of long life paint coating that actually lasts for up to 25 years, stops damp walls, insulates your house & banishes repainting!

Sounds too good to be true? Well, if the manufacturers website and testimonials are anything to go by, actually it might just work. It looks good too; Lots of different colours and textures available, plus I can email them at my leisure.

The NPA wall coating systems is the most famous brand people seem to recognise, although the only genuine and trademarked one is here in England, as there have been many copies, especially in Spain.

NPA wall coatings are not essentially like good quality paint as they are very thick, viscous coloured coatings and are professionally applied by an industrial spray machine, rather than a paint brush and typically involve a tremendous amount of preparation and work to get it right, especially as a guarantee is often included, should the product not live up to the claims of the manufacturer. If the job is implemented “by the book, this should not occur.

Where the chap down the road would paint your house cheaply without really doing any preparation at all, an exterior wall coating company would spend the majority of the time on site doing the preparation. Well, the good ones would anyway!

It is this attention to detail and fine craftsmanship, combined with a high performance product that ensures that the coating will last for anything up to 25 years! If you choose a company carefully, there should be no need to ever claim under a guarantee, but its worth looking into the back ground of a company to check they are who they say they are.

Long life paints arent particularly a new thing, as long ago as 30,000 BC, Cro-Magnon cave dwellers painted the walls of their caves, using natural mineral pigments, and as we know, many of these primitive works of art have survived to the present day

While I am not suggesting that we all go and live in caves, I would suggest that a long life exterior wall coating would be the ideal solution to repainting the walls every year, consumer choice usually coming down to the cost; whether it is affordable or not, as you can guess, its going to be more expensive than normal paint, but I would suggest only in the short term.?

How does one go about getting an exterior wall coating then?

Well, theres two options essentially; wait to be pestered or canvassed (cold called) by one type of wall coatings company, or do your own research on the internet and choose which companies you want to quote you and what level of involvement you want from them and let them come to you.

Why 2 options?

Well traditionally, wallcoatings have been given the hard sell.

The companies who are looking to sell exterior wall coatings in the raditional fashion, will approach you 1st, usually by means of a leaflet arriving unannounced through the mail, a knock at the door from the “marketing and promotions manager, i.e. a door canvasser, or a telephone call out of blue, usually offering you a free survey, or free damp test of your home. By sheer coincidence, they happen to be in YOUR area this week. (!) Arent we the lucky ones!?

If you agree to this, nine times out of ten, a high-pressure sales person will call at your home. If you have a partner, they want them to be there too. The main reason for this is that they will try and sell it to you whilst they are in your house, and if youre both there, theres no excuse for talking it over with your other half or thinking about it.

This type of sales person visiting you will more often than not, stay until they sell you the wall coating, or until you kick them out the door. Most high pressure sales pitches (the memorised and carefully worded sales patter) from textured coating companies last about 4 hours! They will spend the 1st hour warming you up and getting your trust before they launch into their pitch.

Also I GUARANTEE you that they will give you one price, almost always far too expensive, and then they do what is known in selling textured wall coatings as the drop close, whereby, they have a fantastic discount for you, but its only available today. They will tell you that they want your house as a show home or something similar.

We’ve heard it before from kitchen companies, driveway companies, bathroom companies, timeshare companies, and it is so unprofessional its laughable. Unfortunately, the joke wears thin when you realise that these companies get away with this type of selling every day, especially to more vulnerable members of society, such as senior citizens.

If you called them back tomorrow, you apparently would pay the higher price, so you MUST sign the contract today. Hows that for pressure? Legal reasons prevent me from mentioning which companies (in England at least) who still carry out this practice, but as a general rule, if you are approached out of the blue by one of these companies, be very wary!

Saying that, many exterior home improvement contractors, actually do uphold their claims and actually do a sterling job of repainting the outside, using quality materials and with excellent and polite workmen, but its often best to talk to someone who has dealt with the company before, if possible go and see some of their previous jobs.

The author of this news article, implemented this policy 3 years ago at NPA and into the masonry wallcoatings & decorating industry, against widespread laughter and derision from those established in the textured coating industry. However several millions of dollar$ down the line worth of orders & as consumer choice now favours this new model, whos laughing now?

ONE OF THIS COMPANIES FRANCHISES ARE NOW PROMOTING THE MODEL ON THE “NEW” AND NOT VERY GOOD WEBSITE. IF ONLY THE PAINT SUPPLIER HAD LISTENED TO ME!!!!!!

They told me not to reinvent the wheel. Just the motivation I needed!

So what’s the other option?

There are some really good home improvement companies that can give you an excellent service, but as always its usually the saying that you get what you pay for! (and i dont just mean NPA coatings either!

There are some great companies around, even ones nothing to do with our group, who would do a brilliant job to your exterior walls, however pettiness and back stabbing in the industry prevents me from naming them and giving them free advertising, or me writing a glowing report on them!! (Why we have no idea, just experience has shown this???!!!!)

Take a look around the internet and choose a selection of the companies that you find. Just because one of these companies has a website, it doesnt necessarily mean they are any good; (NPA has been copied many times, always without success!) look deeper;…………

• are they mentioned anywhere else on the internet?
• Have you heard of them before in the news, or in a magazine?
• Are they well known?
• Try and click on the actual organic search engine listings rather than the paid adverts, a Google page rank or high ranked listings shows the relevance and credibility of the site.
• Has anyone ever reviewed their site?
• Has the website been in any major publications?
• Was your initial enquiry dealt with courteously and quickly?
• Are they easy to contact?
• Is their website original & unique or have they simply copied it from some one else? (mentioning no names……..
• Check the background of the site, they may own several wall coating websites and even choosing 3 sites to quote you, it may be a trick, it could be the same person. (NOTE, WE ONLY HAVE ONE WEBSITE!)
• Is there an address and land line phone number?
• Have they posted bad comments about their competitors on the internet?
  
• Are there testimonials or at least photos of jobs they have done?
• Are the photos on their site genuine?
• Ask as many questions as you can about these people. If they are genuine, they will be only too happy to help and assist you.

Pick around 3 companies maximum, you should be able to get a decent idea what you are looking for from them, and any more than that, one must question whether the product is perhaps not for you?

Most wall coating companies in the UK charge around the same sort of price.

Dont ever choose the cheapest (you’ll regret it) and if a price is much more expensive than all the other quotes, donât choose that one either. Be wary of some credit agreements also, often referred to as a home improvement plan. It may be suggested that the best way to pay for an exterior wall coating would be, re mortgage, savings, share dividends or a personal loan from the bank.

The reason that many exterior wall coatings companies will offer you credit, despite some of the reasons they may give, especially high APR credit, is that they get a kickback, a commission from the finance provider, often to the tune of around a £1,000 per sale.

Guess who pays for that lovely bit of commission? The consumer!

Dont bother getting in 10 companies to quote you. Ask yourself, What am I looking for? Is price the major factor? Is it quality? Do they have an office near me? Or is it just the sales person or surveyor who came to see us was really nice??

Whatever external wall coating paint finish you choose, choose carefully.

And remember dont muck these people about either!.This article is intended to highlight some points that the industry doesn’t want you to see, but don’t get the wrong idea; there are many fantastic exterior coating companies around now, and by no means are they all bad! Some also offer other services like UPVC replacement gutters and fascias, cladding etc.

But please give them your time, it’s an important decision and not one to be taken lightly. Exterior wallcoatings are designed to last a very long time, so be sure that you really want it!

As the coating paint products outlast virtually everything other product you could put on your home, it’s not a short term solution, nor is it a quick cheap fix. This is the “Rolls-royce” of exterior paints and any decision must be treated with seriousness.

Representatives or surveyors from textured coating companies are often very busy people, and are not impressed if they have to drive a hundred miles to see you and you only give them 5 minutes of your time!

By no means all the home improvement sales people people in the UK are high pressure, far from it. Many are seasoned professionals with many years in the industry, who can help and advise you of the best course of action.

For example: If you went into a car showroom, and the salesperson said hello! to you, pointed to a car you may be interested in buying, and then vanished, saying he will put the quote and the details of the car in the post would YOU buy his cars??? No, thought not. By all means give the wall coatings salesperson or surveyor at least some of your time, they are there to help you, just dont bother being talked at for 4 hours!

Thankfully, things are changing; consumers are more aware of their options; there is more information available to them, and more ways to verify the claims made by people offering goods or services; and in an industry (home improvements) that has had its fair share of bad press, caution and information gathering are perhaps the most prudent ways when choosing a company to do work on your home. There are some good companies out there, but remember, we are all only human and some do make mistakes, but many go out of their way to help you, even with minor problems and issues, so don’t worry!

Ask questions to see if the wall coating system really is the solution for your home, or is it the alternative to pebbledash that you need?. If you have any doubts about the company quoting you, get someone else in to quote. It’s your money!

After all, if your house is worth around £200,000 for example, are you selling short your home if you only spend £2,000 on a quick lick of paint for the outside!!!!

Remember when people look to buy a house, estate agents  tell us of Kerb Appeal. The outside must look good or you wont sell, and this will also cause problems within the house possibly in years to come.

Your home is often your largest asset. Look after the exterior walls and dig into your pocket and get something good on there, its worth it.

Never Paint Again

Spray that again?!

If you would like to comment on this wall coating related article, based on practical experience, then please email me.

The exterior wall coatings industry is changing, and I am happy to be partly responsible for that……………..

This article, written by the NPA ed  originally appeared on PR leap, CNBC news, click2news.com, www.free-press-release.com, Ezine articles, and other trade publications.

Originally published 2005.

Call (0800) 970 4928 to contact NEVER PAINT AGAIN

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