While both commercial and residential painting may seem similar due to the painting services provided, stark differences put them apart. Commercial painting exclusively involves painting contracts with huge spaces like schools, business premises like warehouses, hospitals, etc. On the other hand, residential painting includes painting various spaces within people’s homes, interior and exterior. Commercial contractors involve a large team of expert painters working in sync, while residential painters involve smaller teams. However, some large painting contractors like Surepaint have subsets of residential painters who assist in providing residential painting in the Greater Brisbane Region.
Knowing the differences between the two is crucial in ensuring that you only engage with the best painters befitting your particular job. For instance, you do not want to engage a residential painter for a big project like a football stadium as they indeed won’t have the needed infrastructure and equipment to finish the job on time. Commercial painters work tighter schedules and deal with a broader variety of premium-grade paints.
This article will explain the 9 most notable differences between residential and commercial painters to aid you in settling for the best to suit your particular painting needs.
- Project Scale
The size of the project in question determines if it is a commercial or residential painting. All living spaces such as townhouses, homes, and condos are classified under residential painting. The painting can be limited to a few spaces within the living space or all of it, including the exterior.
On the other hand, commercial painting involves painting large complexes such as business stores, factories, hospitals, and similar premises. They require almost everything residential painting needs, from the workforce to equipment and even time.
- Differences in Experience
Commercial projects often require more specialized and sophisticated tools due to their different painting needs than residential painting; This means that the experience levels of the painters will vary greatly. A painter specializing in residential buildings may find it hard or impossible to use some of the tools and equipment used in commercial painting. Likewise, a commercial painter may not have the skills to guide homeowners in their various painting needs, such as choosing colors, as they lack the experience.
- Size of the Painting Team
Besides being large-scale projects, commercial painting projects are almost always on tight schedules and must be completed in a given time: This calls for a larger team of professional painters working in sync to complete the project in time. Residential painting requires only a small team of painters to complete their projects.
- Range of Services Provided
Commercial painters offer a broader range of unique painting services than residential painting. Some include decorative painting for business premises like hotels and clubs, power washing services, and brick waterproofing. House painting services are more relatable with most homes. They include garage painting, interior and exterior painting, cabinet painting, and others.
- Differences in Scheduling
Scheduling commercial projects can be more demanding since businesses often want the painting done without disrupted services. On the other hand, residential painters usually have fewer scheduling problems as they work at defined times weekly. However, they might have to schedule odd hours, sometimes like nights and weekends depending on their customers’ various time needs.
- Varying Risk Levels
A residential painter can easily control their environment and significantly mitigate the risks of accidents. On the other hand, commercial painters deal with a wide variety of environments with far more exposure to more significant risks. Commercial painters have stricter safety rules than residential painters due to these varying risk exposure.
- Project Management
Commercial painting involves centering the management of the project along with strict timelines meaning that emphasis is always placed on the rate of productivity and efficiency to avoid potentially costly delays. Project management emphasis is less demanding, although necessary, for house painting since the main objective is to satisfy the homeowners’ painting needs.
- Quantity and Quality of Paint Needed
Commercial painting involves using large amounts of paints, and while they don’t compromise on quality, it isn’t the chief priority. Business owners may be unwilling to spend vast amounts of money on expensive painting, increasing the overall painting costs. On the other hand, paintings used in house painting are much lesser in quantity but are often higher and more expensive per unit price; This is because house painting is more about aesthetics and quality of services.
- Equipment and Materials Needed
Since residential painting involves smaller units, most of their equipment is standard and readily found in local hardware shops. They include rollers, paint brushes, ladders, drop cloths, etc. On the other hand, commercial painting requires more complex tools and materials such as paint sprayers, sandblasters, scaffolding, aerial blasts, and more. Their work involves various unique surfaces and designs.