Why I Do Not Like Behr Paint
I recently did a job that I used Behr paint. As every time that I use Behr, I did not purchase the paint. The home owner bought it. I have worked for these customers before, and they are very nice people, and I enjoyed working for them very much, but by the end of the job I had had enough of working with Behr. I essentially have a policy that as long as the customer is willing to spend the time to get the paint, I will use Behr. However, I am seriously considering adding on extra labor hours when using the paint. And, here are the reasons why:
Drag: When I cut in the ceiling and trim the paint dragged. The average person might not f drag. But, if you paint for a living you will feel it. The best way to describe it is that you have to work much harder to get a nice straight line in the cut. The paint is essentially working against you.
Drips: When I moved the paint from the cut can to the wall drips would go all over the place. This does not happen with higher quality paints. Why does this matter to a painter. When you step off the ladder and step on the drop cloth there is a good chance your foot is going to step in wet paint, which can then be tracked all over the house.
Drips and Sags on the Wall:. A drip is pretty self explanatory to most. A sag is like a really wide drip. I rolled out the wall and go back latter on to find drips and sags all over the place. This happens every time that I use Behr, and it is a pain to go back to fix, and I am always concerned that I am missing some. If you are a professional painter, you do not want to have to constantly going back to look for sags and drips.
HIde: This is the ability of a paint to hide the color underneath it. Some colors have a really hard time doing this, such as reds and some yellows and oranges. I was covering a blue with a peach. This should have not be a problem, but I had to roll a third coat of the peach.
Backrolling: This was only a problem with the ceiling paint, which I believe was Behr’s lowest quality ceiling paint. When you roll a wall or ceiling, the roller is often moved all over the place to make sure that everything is covered. Periodically a back roll is done. This is done with a dry (not a lot of paint on it) roller. The roller is very lightly rolled over the paint in a straight line. This is to get a smooth and even appearance. The Behr ceiling paint set up so fast that it was almost impossible to back roll. And, in general just rolling with it was like working with paste. It did not want to roll.
There are also some things that home owners should really think about when purchasing Behr.
.Touch Ups: Behr paint does not retain its color very well. The few times that I have attempted to touch up with Behr it has not gone well. One time I had to repaint an entire great room because a few small touch ups stuck out like a sore thumb.
Knowledge: The people working at Home Depot behind the paint counter know nothing about paint. They are not the people to ask about advice. Over the summer I painted an exterior with Behr. After I had gotten a big chuck of the first coat on, I took a close look at the paint I was using. The Home Depot store had given the home owner interior paint.
Cost: The argument that I always make to customers is it really worth the cost and time to drive well out or your way to purchase a few gallons of paint that is of lower quality just because it cost $10 less a gallon
Trust Your Painter: I did a big repaint of an entire house. Customer bought the Behr paint. He bought way too much. I could have purchased a much better paint and a more appropriate paint (they bought paint for the trim that really was not well suited for trim) for less money than what they spent on the Behr paint.