A client questioned why we specify a paint product that is ranked low by Consumer Reports in the March 2008 issue. How would you reply?
The Consumer Reports data is collected from all over the country, right? If you have had good expereiences with it in your local climate/market, then I think you should stick with you know works in your area.
What was the testing procedure used by CR? What did they test? What do you typically use as standards when you specify? What is the owner expecting?
In sum, was the CR test applicable to your project?
Following George’s thought, if we specify products tested by UL, ASTM, MPI (Masters Painters Institute), SSPC (Society for Protective Coatings}, are their test methods comparable, at any level, to CR’s methods? Not aware of any spec using CR as a reference standard.
But this is a tough situation where client questions information that may well be quite divergent, irrelevant one to another and the proverbial apples and oranges.
Most likely, the products tested by Consumer Reports are the manufacturer’s consumer line of products. The products used on construction projects are typically the manufacturer’s professional line of products, and are usually of higher quality.
Except for paint…consumer quality paint is usually of higher solids content than commercial/construction quality paint.
What criteria did CR evaluate? If they are convenience-related, such as packaging, low odor, price, ease of clean-up, then they may not be relevant to a commercial construction product. It would be interesting to know.
I attended a seminar given by Barry Law, the president of MPI, and I happened to mention this discussion to him. Coincidentally, MPI was in process of evaluating the CR tests. Barry emailed me the othert day that the article on CR is now available on the MPI website. For those interested, it is http://www.paintinfo.com/ or click here: MPI