Our Painting Warranty

Three years of touch-ups for anything at all, whosever fault it was, and five years against our own workmanship. What follows is all of it, including the parts that don’t suit us.

Nice painters. Nice paint job.

Michael Hines Painting · Ione, CA · CSLB #984519

3 years

Worry Free Guarantee

Touch-ups for anything. Our fault or yours.

Ask, and it goes on the schedule. It does not matter whose fault it is: our miss, a scuff from moving a couch, a mark the dog left.

One visit a year, up to an hour, and it doesn’t roll over. Nothing higher than we can reach from a four-foot ladder. It is a brush and a can of paint, so it can’t be used to put in an accent wall or change a colour.

This one does not transfer if you sell. It works because both sides are reasonable about it, and we have no way of knowing that about someone we have never met.

5 years

Workmanship Warranty

If our prep or our application failed, we fix it.

Peeling, blistering or adhesion failure that traces back to how we prepared or applied the coating is repaired at no charge. Labour and material.

This one transfers once, to the next owner. The test is the coating, not the person holding the deed, so a new owner is no more expensive to look after than you were. If you are painting before you list, it goes with the house.

Stained homes carry a shorter term than five years, and decks carry none. The table below says exactly which is which.

By service

Not every surface gets the same thing.

Work	Worry free	Workmanship
Interior painting	3 years	5 years
Exterior painting	3 years	5 years
Cabinets	3 years	5 years
Log homes and siding, penetrating stain	3 years	3 years
Log homes and siding, film-forming stain	3 years	None
Decks and other horizontal surfaces	None	None

Why stain is different

A penetrating stain weathers off gradually, so when it wants another coat that is obviously maintenance and nobody has to argue about it. A film-forming stain, Sikkens and the like, peels the way paint peels, which means a claim at year two becomes a disagreement about whether our prep failed or the finish simply reached its interval on a wall that takes full sun. We would rather not sell you a term we would have to argue our way out of. The touch-up hour still applies either way.

Worth knowing before you choose a product: a film-forming stain needs a two-day cleaning process before it can be recoated, so the touch-up hour is realistically for trim and doors rather than walls. We will tell you the real maintenance interval for your product and your elevations at the estimate.

Why decks get nothing

A deck takes full sun, standing water, furniture dragged across it and everybody’s shoes. An exposed one can need redoing inside twelve months no matter who coated it or how well. Warranting that would mean pricing every deck as though it will fail, or writing a promise we would have to wriggle out of. The same goes for stair treads, pool surrounds and concrete flatwork.

What has actually happened: we have gone back and redone three of them, two decks and a pool and concrete deck, where the coating failed early and that was down to the coating rather than the exposure. That is history, not a term you are being offered, and you should know the difference before you hire us rather than after.

How to use it

You ask us. We won’t chase you.

We are not going to email you every spring to ask whether anything needs touching up, and we are not going to arrive to inspect your house. Plenty of companies say they will. We would rather tell you we don’t than promise it and let it quietly not happen.

So it is on you to call it in. Each year of the term carries one visit of up to an hour, and an unused one does not carry into the next.

When you do call, it goes on the schedule rather than into the same day. We cover five counties, and a twenty-minute touch-up can be a two-hour drive each way. Grouping them is exactly what lets this be included instead of priced into everybody’s job. You get a date, not a promise.

1
Call or text
(209) 256-4587. Tell us what you are looking at and where it is.
2
We look at it
Sometimes a photo settles it. Sometimes we come out and see it.
3
It goes on the schedule
A real date. If it turns out not to be covered we say so and give you a price, rather than quietly doing nothing.

Exclusions

What isn’t covered, in plain sight.

The rule behind this list is one sentence: anything that attacks the coating and makes it fail that was not in our control.

Most companies don’t publish this part. It is here so you can read it before you hire anybody, instead of after something has gone wrong.

If a failure came from an outside force such as impact or water getting in, we will tell you that is what we are looking at, and give you a competitive price to put it right before any work starts.

Neither warranty covers:

Damage from accident, impact or abuse, and any consequential or incidental damage arising from it
Temperature movement, and cracks caused by expansion or contraction. Cracks are prepared as specified at the time of the job, but the crack itself is not warranted against reopening
Settlement and structural movement
Water reaching the coating from behind it: failed flashing, blocked gutters, sprinklers hitting the wall, leaks
Failure of the surface rather than the coating: wood rot, failed siding, stucco cracking
Wood at or touching ground level
Drywall repairs
Anything altered, added to or worked on by someone else after we finish
Products supplied by the homeowner
Normal fade within the manufacturer’s tolerance
Decks and other horizontal surfaces, and film-forming stains, as set out in the table above

These terms are current as of 9 August 2026, and this page is the version your proposal refers to.

It comes with the job.

There is no upgraded version of our work that carries a better warranty, and no charge for this one. Book the estimate and it is part of what you are quoted.

Book Your Estimate Online Call or text (209) 256-4587