How to Read Painting Specifications Without Getting Caught Out

A specification is the written half of a construction contract, and the painting section of it is where a bid quietly becomes either profitable or unrecoverable. Painters who have come up through residential work tend to skim it, because residential work has no equivalent document, and skimming it is how a job that looked like two coats on plasterboard turns into a five step system with sample panels and inspection hold points.

The site level version of this discipline is in the commercial painting checklist. This is the reading job that comes first.

Where the painting section lives

Specifications are organised by trade into divisions and sections, using a numbering framework maintained by the Construction Specifications Institute. Finishes sit in division nine, and painting and coatings sit near the end of it, which is why painting is usually one of the last sections in a specification book and one of the last trades on site.

There may be more than one section that concerns you. Ordinary architectural painting is one. High performance and specialty coatings are frequently specified separately, as are shop applied finishes and, on industrial work, protective coatings. A bid built from only the first section you found will miss the others. Search the table of contents for every section in division nine, and check division five for structural steel finishes and division ten for anything applied to specialty items.

The framework itself is public and worth understanding once, since it explains why the book is arranged as it is. The MasterFormat standard is the reference.

The three part structure every section follows

Almost every specification section, whatever the trade, is written in three parts. General, products, execution. Knowing that means you can navigate a section you have never seen in about a minute.

Part one, general, covers administrative obligations: what you must submit, what qualifications you must hold, how materials are to be delivered and stored, what conditions must exist before you start, and what warranty is required. It contains almost no information about paint and almost all of the information about what it will cost you to comply.

Part two, products, names the systems. This is what most painters read first and often the only part they read.

Part three, execution, describes how the work is to be done: preparation, application, tolerances, protection, cleaning and touch up. It is the part with the labour in it.

Read them in the order one, three, two. General tells you what you are signing up for, execution tells you how long it will take, and products tells you what to buy, which is the easiest of the three to price.

Part one, and the obligations buried in it

Submittals come first. Almost every commercial painting section requires you to submit product data and usually physical samples before you may start, and some require a sample area applied in place for approval. Each of those has a cost and, more importantly, a lead time, and the whole subject is covered in the painting submittal package.

Qualifications come next. Language requiring a minimum number of years in business, or projects of comparable scale, or manufacturer approved applicator status, is common. Approved applicator requirements are the most consequential, because you either hold that status or you cannot bid the section as written.

Then delivery, storage and handling, which sounds trivial and is not. A requirement that materials be stored in a heated space, or that containers arrive unopened with legible labels, or that mixing happen off site, all have cost consequences on a tight urban project.

Then site conditions, which set the temperature and humidity limits under which you are permitted to apply anything. On a project running through winter, those limits decide whether you can work at all without temporary heating, and temporary heating is somebody cost.

Finally warranty. Read what is asked and compare it against what you normally give, as described in painting warranty. A specification asking for a longer term than you offer is not automatically a reason to walk away, but it is a reason to price differently.

Part two, products, and what or equal really costs

The products part names systems rather than tins. A system is a sequence: a primer suited to the substrate, then a stated number of finish coats of a stated product and sheen. The system is the requirement, and substituting one coat of it is not permitted even where the finished appearance would be identical.

Where products are named, look immediately for substitution language. A section that names one manufacturer with no alternative is a closed specification, and you are pricing that product at whatever it costs. A section naming several is competitive. A section naming one followed by wording that permits an approved equal looks competitive and frequently is not, because approval takes time, requires a submittal comparing the two, and is at the discretion of somebody with no incentive to grant it.

Price the named product. Bid the alternative separately if you want to offer it. Never assume approval, and never build the saving into your base bid on the strength of an equivalence you have not had accepted in writing.

The other thing to check in part two is coat count and film build, expressed as a number of coats over a stated preparation. Compare it against what the substrate genuinely needs, using how many coats of paint do I need as a sanity check, and where the specification asks for fewer coats than the substrate will take, that is a question rather than an opportunity.

Part three, execution, and the hidden labour

This is the expensive part and the least read. Preparation requirements here can multiply your labour without changing a single square foot of area.

Look for the required substrate condition before painting, the moisture content limits, the requirement to test for those, and who is responsible for achieving them. Look for mandated cleaning methods. Look for filling and sanding standards, particularly on new plasterboard, where the required level of finish is a decision made by another trade that your paint will expose if it was not achieved.

Look also for protection and cleaning obligations, which frequently include masking to a standard, protecting adjacent work, and removing and reinstalling hardware. Removing hardware rather than masking it is a genuine cost and it is often specified.

Then look for touch up. A clause requiring touch up after other trades have finished means a return visit that must be in your price. A clause making you responsible for damage caused by others until handover is worse, and belongs in your risk assessment rather than your labour rate.

Surface preparation language decides the price

On repaint and industrial work, preparation language is the single biggest cost variable in the section, and it is usually expressed as a reference to a published standard rather than as a description.

The practical effect is enormous. A requirement described in a couple of words can mean a wash down or can mean full mechanical removal to bare substrate, and the difference between those two is not a percentage, it is a different job. Where a preparation standard is referenced and you are not certain what it demands, find out before you price rather than assuming the lighter reading.

Standards for protective coatings work are maintained by the Association for Materials Protection and Performance, and their standards programme is the reference specifications point at for surface preparation on steel and industrial substrates. Where the specification is silent on preparation and simply requires a sound surface, the risk moves to you, and the primer decision becomes yours too, which is where do I need primer before painting earns its keep.

Reference standards you do not own

Specifications routinely reference published standards by designation. You are not expected to own them all. You are expected to know which ones bind you and roughly what they require.

The workable approach is to list every referenced standard as you read, then deal with them in three groups. Ones you know, which need no action. Ones you do not know but that are clearly about a product rather than about your method, which the manufacturer technical department will explain in a phone call. And ones that govern your method or your acceptance criteria, which you need to understand properly before bidding because they define whether your work is acceptable.

That third group is short, usually two or three items, and it is where the risk lives.

The general conditions override everything

The painting section is not the whole contract. Sitting above it are the general conditions and the supplementary conditions, which apply to every trade and which frequently contain clauses that matter more to your bid than anything in division nine.

Payment timing, retention, notice periods for claims, liquidated damages, insurance requirements and dispute procedures all live there. So does the precedence clause that decides which document wins when two disagree. A painter who reads the painting section and skips the general conditions has read the least binding part of the contract, and the clauses that actually cost money are set out in commercial painting subcontract clauses.

Reading for conflicts before you price

Conflicts between documents are normal, not exceptional. The specification will disagree with the drawings, the finish schedule will disagree with both, and an addendum will change one of them.

Keep a running list as you read, with the sheet or section reference for each side of the conflict. Then decide, for each one, whether it changes your price materially. The ones that do become questions submitted before the deadline. The ones that do not become stated assumptions in your bid.

Doing this makes you look organised, which is a side benefit. The real benefit is that a conflict you identified and priced on a stated basis is a conflict you can be paid to resolve, whereas one you absorbed silently is one you resolve for free.

A method for a specification and one evening

Read part one of every relevant section and write down every submittal, every qualification and every warranty requirement. Read part three and mark every sentence that creates labour. Read part two last and list the systems. Then read the general conditions with a highlighter for money, time and risk.

Finish with the conflict list, turn the material half into a purchase list and the labour half into hours through painting production rates, and only then start pricing. The order matters because the specification decides what the job is, and applying a markup to a job you have not finished reading is how careful people lose money, whatever painting contractor markup percentage says about the number itself.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to read the whole specification book

No. You must read every section in division nine that touches coatings, the general conditions, the supplementary conditions, and division one, which covers project wide requirements such as submittal procedures and closeout. The rest you can skim for anything that mentions painting.

What happens if the specification contradicts the drawings

Most contracts contain a precedence clause that answers this, and the answer varies. Where there is no clause, the safest commercial position is to price the more onerous reading and state that you did. Silence is the expensive option.

Can I substitute a product I prefer

Only through whatever substitution procedure the specification sets out, and only with written approval. Substituting quietly is a breach that can be discovered at any point up to the end of the warranty period, and the remedy is usually to redo the work.

Why does the specification ask for products I have never used

Because it was often written by adapting a manufacturer master specification, which names that manufacturer products throughout. That is also why substitution language exists, and why it is worth asking early rather than assuming the specifier is committed to the brand.

Who is responsible if the substrate is not ready

Read part one for site conditions and part three for substrate acceptance. Most sections say that starting work constitutes acceptance of the substrate, which means painting over a defect makes it yours. Raise it in writing before you start rather than after.

Is it worth bidding a job whose specification I do not fully understand

Not without asking questions first. A specification you cannot price confidently is a risk you are being asked to carry unpriced, and the honest options are to ask, to qualify your bid clearly, or to decline. The last of those is a real option, as when to walk away from a painting job sets out.