Standards required of paint

Germans apply extremely high standards when working with paint, a fact that emerges from a study carried out by the Frankfurt PQI (Paint Quality Institute). Their most striking quality criterion is the degree of coverage achieved by the paint. When the survey was carried out for the first time in 2000, 95 per cent of respondents stated that this was their most important criterion. The figure was as high as 97 per cent when the survey was first repeated in 2004. Although the British (81 per cent) and the French (84 per cent) do also appreciate the degree of coverage offered by their chosen paint, the fact that the colour on the wall corresponds exactly with the sample on the tin is more important to the Brits (87 per cent) and equally important to the French DIYer (84 per cent).