Painting jobs – How much does it cost to paint? Paint job estimate

No one wants to work for free, but many painting businesses do when they don’t charge for all the things that go into each job. If you intend to do a complete job and your client requests a complete job, then you should charge for a complete job. Leave something out of the estimate and you’re working for free. Doing a full and complete estimate involves anything that takes time, whether it’s re-bolting that switch plate cover or painting that church altar. Many painters boast of what they describe as an almost mystical experience, like walking into a room and thinking of a price. I never liked that because it’s inaccurate, lazy and likely to end badly, at best you’ll just miss something and work for free on that part of the job. Another reason this lump sum magic is bad is that someone is always surprised when the client finds something that wasn’t done and thought it was part of the job. And they tell you to do it or they don’t pay you. I speak of this when I speak of the Proposal itself.

Setup: Whether it’s driving 100 miles to work or 2 days putting up scaffolding or 20 minutes unloading drips, ladders and paint, it’s part of every job. And because it is part of the job, it is included in the cost of the job and must be estimated. Consider special circumstances as mentioned above, or keep a percentage to use as a formula for each job. For example: if you are erecting scaffolding on the church steeple for scraping and painting, then you need to calculate everything related to this stage, including disassembly. This type of setup is likely to be much more expensive than the actual paint job. While painting the interior of your average client’s home can be done room by room as a percentage of total hours. For example: if you are leaving a room, removing switch plates, moving furniture, etc. So an easy way to do it is to take the total hours painting and multiply by .1 or .2 or whatever you think is an average time. Estimating setup, setup, and cleanup as a percentage of average jobs saves time estimating.

Preparation: Many times this costs much more than the paint job. For example: We did a paint job on a monster big 1840’s clapboard house. 15 weeks removing the paint before a drop of paint fell on the house, the painting itself took about 3 weeks. Not just time, but lots of sanding discs, respirators, disposable coveralls, daily cleaning and removing all dust and chips was all a huge problem due to the size of the job and the old lead paint. The opposite is the interior of an average house which can be estimated like the configuration example above using a percentage. Most of the time, interior preparation consists of minor surface repairs and some caulking, which is the same from job to job. Special repairs or problems should be detailed.

Painting – How long does it take to paint 5 wooden casement windows on the ground level without a ladder? How long does it take to paint those same 5 windows 40 feet up a hill when each window is 8 feet apart? Probably more than 2 times what it takes to paint the ones at ground level, every time you move and place the ladder on uneven ground it will most likely involve 2 people to move and place the ladder for each window. So an easy formula to use at heights over 25 feet would be 2 times or 2.2 times or however long it takes to paint the same window without a ladder. Most of the time, estimating paint costs can be done with a formula that works pretty well from job to job.

Cleanup – This part of the paint job is likely to be overlooked or ignored from an estimate position. This is a big mistake because it can take longer than actual painting, depending on the job. If this part of the job is not done right, the client may view the entire job as poorly done. And if done very well, you can put the finishing touch on the job. Estimating the time required for proper cleaning after each job is critical to your estimate. If you shorten this part of the estimate, by not allowing enough time, then something has to give and the result is probably a dissatisfied customer. Average jobs may use a factor to estimate time. Example, an 8 hour interior job can be cleaned in 8 hours x.1 = .8 hours.

When I watch some of these “home remodeling” shows going through paint like nothing, I laugh, but then I think how much ignorance they create. When Norm does his magic on him with woodworking, it’s an event to behold; but, when Carlos spends 3 hours vacuuming, dusting, and cleaning windows after a paint job, it’s nothing, not even mentioned. Some homeowners are faced with a painting job and have no idea what it really entails. Like the time we were called in to touch up the walls in this multi-million dollar mcMansion after a $25,000 audio system wiring job where the technician punched holes in 11 different rooms. Each room was a different color so we cleaned rollers, brushes, cutting cubes, etc. after each color. The owner gave me a big argument about charging him for the time to clean our tools. If it’s part of the job and you wouldn’t do it except for their job, then they should pay you for it.

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