The Ranking
Our top 7 painting companies in Tampa
Tampa is a repaint city. South Tampa, Hyde Park and Seminole Heights are full of 1920s bungalows with wood siding that has been scraped, patched and repainted for a century, and the layers of old paint are where the trouble hides. Most of the rest of the city is 1950s to 1970s block and stucco, where hairline cracks, chalking and mildew show up fast. Add year-round humidity, strong sun and summer storms, and exterior paint here often needs refreshing every 7 to 10 years. Good painters spend more time on pressure washing, patching, caulking and priming than on the final coat, and that prep is what you are really paying for.\n\nHomes built before 1978 may contain lead paint. Federal rules require contractors who disturb paint in those homes to be EPA Lead-Safe certified under the RRP rule, so ask any painter about it before they sand or scrape a bungalow. Of the companies here, Peach Painting says on its website that it is EPA certified.\n\nCheck the licence before you hire. Florida's DBPR licenses contractors for structural and larger trades, but painting on its own is often handled through local licensing and a Hillsborough County or City of Tampa business tax receipt, so a company without a state licence number is not automatically breaking any rule. Ask for the receipt and a certificate of liability and workers compensation insurance, and look up any licence a company gives you at myfloridalicense.com. Several companies on this list say they are licensed and insured on their websites, but none prints a number on the pages we read, so ask.\n\nGet at least two written quotes that name the brand of paint, the number of coats, the prep for each surface and the warranty on labor. Four companies here state their warranty lengths on their sites: Presto at 3 years, Peach at 5 years, Five Star at 2 years and Jumbo at 2 years.
