Our story
How this started
Hechler's Painting and Wall Scraping LLC has been working in and around Philadelphia since 1999. Ed Hechler started the company in 2004, still runs it, and still walks every estimate himself. Twenty two years later the business is built on the same thing it started on: doing the preparation properly so the finish holds up.
Ed started painting in the late nineties and went out on his own in 2004. The early work was heavy on wallpaper removal, because that is what Philadelphia and Bucks County homes needed. Decades of layered paper, some of it hung directly on unprimed plaster, most of it painted over at least once by somebody who did not want to deal with it.
Stripping paper the right way teaches you the rest of the trade fast. You learn what plaster looks like when it has failed behind the surface. You learn how to skim a wall flat so it does not telegraph under a lamp. You learn how much damage a homeowner has been living with and did not know about. That work became the backbone of the company, and it is why wall scraping ended up in the name.
What we actually do
What we actually do
The company runs five categories of work.
Our difference
Why the prep is the whole thing
A paint job is only as good as what it is sitting on. That is not a slogan, it is the reason two houses on the same block can be painted the same summer and look completely different four years later.
Philadelphia's housing stock makes this worse than most markets. A rowhome built in 1915 has plaster hung on wood lath, and a century of settling and moisture has done things to it that a coat of paint will not fix. Brick and stone need coatings that let moisture out, because sealing a masonry wall with the wrong product traps water behind it and lifts the finish off in sheets. Freeze-thaw cycles in February and March pull at anything that was not primed properly. Summer humidity slows cure and can wreck a finish that was rushed.
We slow down on the part nobody photographs. Washing, scraping, sanding, stripping, patching, cutting out rot, replacing caulk, and priming with the right product for the substrate. Then the paint goes on, and it stays on.
Who we work for
Roughly half the work is homeowners. Kitchens, whole-house interiors, exteriors, decks, cabinets, and the wallpaper that came with the house.
The other half is landlords, property managers, and commercial clients who need turnover work done on a schedule they can count on. Philadelphia's lead certification rules mean any pre-1978 rental has to be free of deteriorated, flaking, or peeling paint to certify as lead-safe, and that is a recurring need most painters are not set up to handle predictably.
Where we work
We cover 29 towns across two states.
Pennsylvania
Licensing and insurance
Hechler's Painting and Wall Scraping LLC maintains Pennsylvania HIC registration [PA HIC #]. We carry general liability insurance and certificates are available on request. Ask for the registration and certificate before work begins. Any painter who cannot produce them is a problem waiting to happen.
If you are close to that list but not on it, call anyway.
(267) 446-1862
Get Ed out to look at it.
Free written estimate, no pressure, no sales call afterward. Call (267) 446-1862 or send a few details through the contact form.