Should Trim Carpenters apply caulking with their exterior work?

Dayflo

I am having an addition built on my home and my two contractors are giving me conflicting information. The Trim installer installed the trim but did not caulk anything! He said it was the painter's responsibility. My drywall guy said that the trim guy should always caulk and that its not the painter's responsibilitliy. My husband and I are are doing a lot of the painting so is it our responsibility to caulk if we are paying them to install trim???

SeanB

I have already seen and heard that it is the painter's responsibility.

joecaption

I've seen it done all kinds of ways, I like to do my own caulking when I install the trim, So no one sees and makes fun of my mistakes. LOL
For what your having to pay to get the trim installed and how little time and money it takes to caulk I'd just insist he do it for you. I use painters putty or Fast and Final spackling when filling the nail holes so it does not shrink.

mae-ling

My choice is to caulk my own trim, however I let the painters fill nail holes. (I'm, such a nice guy!)

woodworkbykirk

if the job has a hired painter, caulking and nail hole filling is part of the painters job description they prep for paint. now if your doing the painting yourself you should have stated it to the trim carpenter when they started

DannyT

if you have a contractor and he hired the painter and the trim guy it is his responsibility to make sure it gets done regardless of who does it. the jobs i worked on over 40 years the painter always did the caulking. the few that someone else did it the painters usually complained that it wasn't done right and wanted extra to fix it.

Millertyme

Always painters job around here

woodworkbykirk

the painters we use, will caulk all the trim and fill all the nail holes before any paint hits it. the reason being they spray it all with semi gloss trim paint, by having it all filled anything missed will stick out like a sore thumb after the paints on it. also the caulking will turn yellow after a few years if its not painted. which looks terrible on white trim paint

oh'mike

Painters job--unless other arrangement are made----

Like Joe--on remodeling work I will often include the caulk and putty in the price--The service is not free---The customer is paying for that.

Recently I bid out a whole house crown molding job----My painter recommended me---

I turned down the job----customer was setting off my warning bells---

Bottom line---her 'cheaper' trim quote did not include caulk and putty---so the painter added two days labor to the bill---

Caulk and putty take a lot of time----no one will do it for free.

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scottktmrider

I have allways seen thats its the painters job. "a little caulk a little paint will make a carpenter what he aint"

woodworkbykirk

a little bit of caulking means to just caulk the joint for where wood meets drywall. other wise 1/16 max gap. stuff will move and the caulk will shink.. keep the trim tight !!

AtlanticWBConst.

Standard practice: Trim carpenters don't caulk.

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hand drive

I keep caulk in the truck for back caulking some exterior trim. Usually the painters want to prime raw wood before applying caulk so I usually do not caulk unless I mess up a cut and the joint shows...

kwikfishron

Interesting how things vary from place to place. I always caulk my exterior work and can’t think of any siding crews that don’t.

Polyurethane based caulking is all I’ll use on siding, something I’ve never seen in a painters gun around here. Also nothing can make a good siding job look bad than a lousy calking job, something I don’t want to entrust to the next guy.

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AtlanticWBConst.

FWIW - We always caulk our exterior AND interior paint-grade work, as I feel it delivers a better finished product and properly seals new exterior materials from the weather (unless we are also doing the paint work, and then we live it for our painting crew to do).
That still is not something that is generally practiced by the majority of trim carpenters.

This is especially the case on larger scale projects (I see it all the time, as we also do work in that sector), such as state, town, large-private, commercial, new office-spaces, industrial level & most prevailing-wage projects. Each trade handles their own aspects, per bid outline. We never include caulking in our carpentry bid work. We do include it in our painting bid work.

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