The 90% Rule

When we meet with customers, we like to tell them about our 90% rule. Bathroom refinishing is not a perfect process. It is done by hand, by a human – not a machine. The setting is a bathroom, not a dust free paint booth. The fixture is not brand new, but something that has likely been used for decades, and is probably dirty and damaged.

Its not a perfect situation, and therefore not a perfect process, no matter how skilled the technician is.

The 90% rule is a general rule of thumb, that our goal is to get whatever we do to look 90% as good as new. Its never going to be perfect. That’s just not possible. Some customers expect that, and those customers should probably spend the thousands needed to completely replace the fixture.

Our definition of 90%, is that if an average person enters the bathroom not knowing any work has been done, they will see the tub, and from a reasonable distance of 8 feet away or so, think that the tub is brand new. This rule applies to most things we do. Take for example, repair of a chipped bathtub. We recently did a job where a contractor chipped a brand new tub (this happens all the time by the way). We repaired the chip. It was difficult to impossible to see the repaired area after we were done. However a couple weeks later the homeowner called to complain that he could feel the repaired area with this fingers. This is not a reasonable complaint. Our job was done once an average person who doesn’t know where the repair is can’t easily find it.

So again, refinishing will never make anything 100% new. That simply isn’t possible. However, a good refinisher (and there aren’t too many of those) can make a fixture 90% new for 10-20% the cost of new. In our opinion this is an excellent deal. If you have realistic expectations than we think you will be very happy with our refinishing services.

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Oahu Tub Experts