About Indygrace

We Diagnose Before We Quote

Indygrace paints houses in Long Beach. We work out of Studebaker Rd in the 90804 ZIP, and most of what we do is exterior work on homes where somebody has already been let down by a repaint that did not last.

The reason we describe ourselves as a crew that reads paint rather than a crew that applies it is that the reading is where the money is either saved or wasted. Three houses on the same block can all need painting and need three completely different jobs. One has bubbles on the south wall because a gutter joint has been dripping behind the siding for two winters. One is chalking because the last coat went on nine years ago and the sun has been eating the binder ever since. One looks fine from the street but has door casings cracked into small plates because five owners have each added another layer of enamel. Quote all three the same way and two of them come back.

What the Walk Actually Involves

We look at each elevation separately, because the sunny side of a house and the shaded side are not in the same condition and should not be priced as if they were. We cut a blister open where there is one, since the bottom of that void tells us whether the coating lost its bond to the substrate or only to the layer beneath it. We wipe a dark cloth down the wall at a few different heights to see how much pigment is coming off as powder. We check the trim and the sills, which are where alligatoring shows first. Where a wall keeps failing in the same place we go looking for the water, and that usually means a flashing, a gutter, a sprinkler head aimed at the siding or a downspout that stops short.

The Housing Stock Here

Long Beach makes this interesting. The 1920s and 1930s bungalows in Belmont Heights, Rose Park and Bixby Knolls have wood siding, deep eaves and decades of accumulated paint on the trim, which is where we see the worst alligatoring and where lead-safe practice matters on anything built before 1978. The post-war stucco tracts further east chalk hard on their west elevations and crack in fine map patterns that sometimes suit an elastomeric coating and sometimes absolutely do not. Mid-century flat-roof houses bring their own problem, which is parapet and fascia detail that holds water. Two-story duplexes and alley-access garages usually get skipped entirely and then need the most work.

How We Talk About It

We will tell you when a wall does not need painting yet. We will tell you when the honest answer is that the cheapest version of the job is a waste of money and the correct version costs more than you wanted to spend. Both of those conversations are more useful than a number invented from the driveway.

Call (562) 586-5087 or come by 2520 Studebaker Rd, Long Beach, CA 90804 and we will walk your elevations with you.