Behr paint isn't as bad as everyone says

[Brian Elfert]

I checked Consumer Reports and the #1 rated interior paint in their last test was Behr Premium Plus Ultra. Based on that recommendation I decided to use that paint to completely repaint the interior of the house I am renovating.

The paint went on as well as any other mid to high grade paint I have used in the past. It covered a bedroom painted bright pink in one coat. I never would have considered Behr paint if not for the recommendation from Consumer Reports.

[David Weaver]

That's what I used to hang my hat on when I bought it instead of S-W.

For that matter, if the inlaws are painting anything in the house, we still buy it because FIL likes it (and I've seen him really work paint for a long time after putting it on - he'd have a nightmare with SW).

[David Weaver]

bright pink in one coat.

Might want to put a sign at the door of that room that says Maricopa Cabana.

[Tom M King]

I think any of the modern paints are better than what we knew as paint ten years ago or more. I've used the Behr from Home Depot or Valspar from Lowes if we were in a hurry, and that was the most easily available. Any of it is decent. If I'm going to spray something, it's much easier to do a perfect job with Sherwin-Williams paint though.

[Chris Padilla]

Sherwin and Benjamin are so darn pricey...it is hard to pay $40-60/gallon for paint but then again I don't do it for a living. I'm sure they are very good paints but I just can't do it. :)

That said, we had a very bad experience with the Martha Stewart brand of paints at the orange borg. That one I'll never buy again. Behr works just fine for us. The Ralph Lauren the orange box used to have was fine, too. Our local hardware store also used to carry Dutch Boy. I like that one as well. DB comes in all plastic square (well, a rectangular cube) container that I really like. No more rusting and it seals well and stores nicely.

[thomas hsieh]

Behr premium plus ultra paint is not bad. If you have to buy behr. This is the only paint I would buy there.

[Jason Roehl]

Consumer Reports lost me on paint years ago when their top exterior choice was Pratt&Lambert Accolade--we used it once on an exterior, and the cursed stuff would both drag and sag. Those are always mutually exclusive qualities. If a paint is tricky (or messy) to use, I don't care what other qualities it has, I won't use it unless it's the only option for a specific situation.

I'd love to see that "one coat coverage". In my experience, that's a myth. Many times I've had clients not be able to tell that something needed another coat, but I could see the deficiency in coverage. If one paint gives 80% coverage per coat and another is cheaper, gives 60% coverage per coat (meaning that both would need a second coat for full coverage) and is easier to use, which would you buy?

[thomas hsieh]

Consumer Reports lost me on paint years ago when their top exterior choice was Pratt&Lambert Accolade--we used it once on an exterior, and the cursed stuff would both drag and sag. Those are always mutually exclusive qualities. If a paint is tricky (or messy) to use, I don't care what other qualities it has, I won't use it unless it's the only option for a specific situation.

I'd love to see that "one coat coverage". In my experience, that's a myth. Many times I've had clients not be able to tell that something needed another coat, but I could see the deficiency in coverage. If one paint gives 80% coverage per coat and another is cheaper, gives 60% coverage per coat (meaning that both would need a second coat for full coverage) and is easier to use, which would you buy?

1. Consumer report are not painters.
2.There is no such thing as "need only one coat coverage" or "primer and paint in one"
3. Even $50 paint like bejamin moore Aura paint needs 2 coat.

[David Cramer]

I always put on two coats, but every room in our house has Behr paint, painted by me. Best paint that I have every used by far...but I am not a professional painter and haven't had experience with "pro paint". For me, a homeowner doing it himself, it's the best paint out there for the price and yes, I've used other paints years earlier that I didn't like. Right now, every color in every room is a Behr paint and I had no issue.

David

[Dave Richards]

I used Behr exterior latex on a sailboat I built about 12 years ago. It worked just fine for the application and it was easily touched up when there were dings in it. I made the mistake of getting a drip of paint on the driveway and after all that time, it's still there.

[Myk Rian]

2.There is no such thing as "need only one coat coverage" or "primer and paint in one"
3. Even $50 paint like bejamin moore Aura paint needs 2 coat.
Sorry, but, nope. We used Behr eggshell paint to do the bedrooms. It was truly a 1 coat job doing a complete color change.

[John Goodin]

I have used quite a bit a Behring over the last few years. The premium plus was fine but the premium plus ultra was too thick and didn't cover better. Their new line called marquee is something else. My daughter's new room looked like coffee with a little cream, and we painted it a light pinkish purple in one coat. It wad a custom color and not from their pallet. Since I had the extra paint I rolled a second but didn't notice any difference. Never seen anything like it. And we'll worth the 40 bucks.

[thomas hsieh]

Sorry, but, nope. We used Behr eggshell paint to do the bedrooms. It was truly a 1 coat job doing a complete color change.

Have you primed first? What color is the new color? What was the old color before? Drywall or texture?
You can get away with bedrooms, but I would never do only 1 coat in bathrooms.

Two coats will outperform 1 coat in terms of durability, protection, wash ability.

[Jerome Stanek]

when we were painting drug stores we used Glidden ultra that was a very good paint.

[Shawn Pixley]

Coverage in my experience is directly proportionate to the amount of white in the color selected. A tint of blue will cover much better than straight blue (substitute any primary or secondary color you like). I have never found any paint that covered in one coat a pure pigment.

That said, "I hate both Behr and Valspar." The previous owner used Valspar on some trim (and then , like a bone head, he covered it with a varnish). I tried to match with Valspar, but after three imperfect coats had the color matched by a different maker. It worked perfectly. LOML and DS started painting his room with Behr but I had to finish it as they could not get it to cover properly. I use other brands currently.

[Mike Circo]

So, I'll go against the grain and disagree.
Behr is some of the worst paint I've every purchased. I even got so frustrated that I returned a couple of gallons.

The ceiling paint was useless. It was thin and ran down my arm, dripped off the roller onto the floor and walls, and didn't cover worth crud. And, Yes, I had it mixed/stirred at the store.
Some Behr latex interior paint was similar. Poor coverage, hard to use, and generally not a quality I would have expected for the price. Some bathroom paint I got from Behr was almost porous after it was dry, not a good quality for a high moisture environment.

In both cases I eventually went with Valspar paint. Much better application, coverage and dried quality. (and made a few miles from me!).
Sherwin Williams is my second favorite.

Maybe I just got unlucky, but overall I was massively dissatisfied with Behr.

[Phil Thien]

I have never had problems getting any name-brand paint to cover.

Most of the people I've seen struggle with this are having problems getting the paint on the wall. Either their roller needs longer nap or they need to load more paint onto the roller or they need better light and to maybe get their eyes checked.

Most of the paint issues I run into are long term durability on outdoor products.

[John Coloccia]

There's no such thing as "Behr Paint", anymore than there's such a thing as "Chevy Car". A Cavalier is not the same as a Corvette. Behr Ultra has become my goto paint. I use it the way you should use paint. It gets a primer, and two coats. I don't paint for a living. I'm just doing tasks around the house. I can use any paint I want. An few bucks here or there for a different brand won't mean diddly squat to me. I started using it over Benjamin Moore and Sherwin Williams for the simple fact that it came highly recommended by several pros I know, and once I tried it myself I decided that it was at least as nice as BM or SW, and it was hyper convenient to simply go to Home Depot and get exactly what I need...because they're always in stock. And if my local one isn't, the one a few miles away is.

Behr Ultra is one of the few things that Home Depot's gotten right.

Just my opinion.

[Ole Anderson]

I don't get all of the trashing of Behr paint. I have used several paints over the years and Behr is now my go-to paint for walls and has been for at least 10 years. I haven't tried the new Marquee yet, but the standard Behr Premium goes on like soft butter and covers all but a drastic color change in one coat, no primer, if you know how to load and use a good roller cover. As stated in a recent thread, I just painted off white over a fairly dark blue in two coats. But like GM trashing, don't bring up a bad experience 20 years ago and keep rehashing it, assuming things don't change.

[David Weaver]

I don't get all of the trashing of Behr paint. I have used several paints over the years and Behr is now my go-to paint for walls and has been for at least 10 years. I

You don't get the trashing, and I don't get why people like it :) I never had it cover well in one coat when covering an already painted surface.

Different strokes for different folks. I like S-W's offerings better, but I don't much like their prices and don't just go buy.

I found something else out at S-W, and that is that my windows came with an S-W number. When I got trim paint to match, it matched *exactly*. When I got exterior behr paint color matched that paint at HD, it didn't. It's not too far off, but if I point it out, people can tell pretty easily.

After reading all of this, I googled paint contractor boards and the contractor talk seems to gravitate toward BM and SW. The contractors thought the behr and kilz ratings on CR were pretty funny (so did I), and noted at least one instance where branding changed on a product but nothing else, and the next test it went from near the top to the very bottom. There are a couple of things that I've seen lately on CR that caused me to cancel my subscription, and that's one. Their scrub tests and such on the paint are fine, but they are somewhat irrelevant to me having used both types of paint. I've also noticed other things (like vacuums) where I don't agree with their ratings at all, because they don't seem to do much to help a consumer who wants to do more than take a vacuum out and test it for 15 minutes.

The same contractors said they charge more if a homeowner demands behr paint, and put a stipulation in the contract that if it doesn't cover, the H.O. has to pay for additional coats.

The one thing I like about CR is their car reliability ratings data (as in actual data from a large pool), but it's not worth the trouble to maintain an entire subscription for it, and they keep trying to create additional content that requires additional dollars to read - and pointing me toward the articles only to find that I'm supposed to pay more than my already paid subscription, and I don't appreciate that, either.

[Myk Rian]

Have you primed first? What color is the new color? What was the old color before? Drywall or texture?
You can get away with bedrooms, but I would never do only 1 coat in bathrooms.
It was Pearl, beige/pink. It's now a Sage green. Drywall, and no primer.
I never said we did the bath with it.


Two coats will outperform 1 coat in terms of durability, protection, wash ability.
Well, yeah. But we didn't need 2 coats.

[Rich Enders]

I went to Home Depot to pick up some Behr, and the sales guy suggested Glidden Premium Paint + Primer. $22/gal...! I haven't done any painting in years, and what a pleasure this was to use. Earlier someone mentioned that paints have improved in general, so maybe this is just typical of the whole field. Either way it went on well, and you cannot tell where the rolling and the edging overlap. It covered easily in one coat (sage green over contractor's favorite bone).

So after such a good result we decided to do another bedroom. I went back to Home Depot and the Glidden was $10 off. One other detail: I since had to punch holes in the drywall to run cables, and then patch and repaint. You cannot see where it was repainted so at least for the moment there has been no fading.