Brad Stoner's employees did an excellent job painting our home (trim, siding and stucco). I'd recommend them for that. But I can't recommend them for painting of rain gutters or redwood decking. Here's why...
1) Most of our rain gutters were brand new. Since the rain gutters were going to be painted to match the trim, the rain gutter company recommended an off-white color of pre-painted gutter that was textured to take paint better. I contacted Bill at Brad Stoner and he told me NOT to have the off-white installed. He wanted me to install gutters that were darker in color so it would need less paint to cover. So, that's what I did, against the recommendation of the rain gutter company. And, sure enough, I've already discovered that the new paint Brad Stoner applied to the gutters is REALLY easy to scuff away. I walked by one of the gutter downspouts and accidentally rubbed my mobile phone's case (which was on my belt) against the downspout. That simple contact scuffed the paint away extremely easily. Brad Stoner's painters did NOT sand or otherwise rough up the factory paint on the new gutters before painting. In addition, his painters painted the gutters with flat paint before putting on the two coats of semi-gloss (which was per the contract). I'm not sure if the coat of flat paint reduced the ability of the semi-gloss paint to stick but it doesn't stick very well at all. I guess it will be OK as long as I don't rub against it.
However, I now regret not following the recommendation of the rain gutter company and feel I received bad advice from Bill at Brad Stoner. He was, apparently, thinking about saving his company money more than he was thinking about giving us the most professional job possible.
2) Brad Stoner also painted a long redwood deck which was a mix of new wood and older wood. Unfortunately, the paint bubbled up a bit on some of the older boards. Brad came out to take a look at it and set up an appointment for one of his painters to come take care of it. Three days before the appointment I received a call with a request to have a different guy do the work and sooner. He came and sanded the boards that were bubbling on one day and left to let the boards dry out. He returned the next day to prime the boards and, after about a 40-minute wait, proceeded to put 2 coats of the color paint (about 30-minutes between coats). Well, before he left, there was already paint bubbles on some of the boards. Not as bad as before but bubbled nonetheless. The employee said it was because there was still too much moisture in the older boards. If that was the case, then why didn't he allow more time for the boards to dry out?
Our deck has been painted in the past (twice) by a company that specializes in rebuilding and painting decks. We've NEVER had this problem before, even when it was older boards that they were painting. I guess they are simply more experienced with painting decks and the challenges that holds.
If all you need is your house trim, stucco and/or siding painted, then I can recommend Brad Stoner. If they are going to paint your rain gutters or any decking, I'd say look elsewhere.
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