How to Know How Much it Will Cost to Paint Your House

How to Know How Much it Will Cost to Paint Your House

(By Jesse Bennett: Dec 13, 2018, Victoria, BC, Canada)

Step 1. Measure dimensions of room

Step 2. Look for any conditions (access, process, execution, paint type)

Step 3. Calculate square footage of room

Step 4. Apply labour equation to square footage.

Step 5. Apply conditions to labour rate (ie. paint type, access etc.)

Step 6. Calculate material price with material equation.

Step 7. Total labour and material cost for final number.

 Alright, great, so today I am going to articulate for you how to estimate interior wall painting in a simple and broken down form using a 12’9”7/8” x 13’1”7/8” room. There will be other circumstances that fall outside these estimating parameters, so this is a full disclosure that you will be looking at a small unit version as a reference point which can later be applied as marker for other scenarios. Now you may already have these numbers provided, you may need to go and measure them yourself, with a tape or laser, or you may be guessing based on a picture. This room will have your typical 8 to 9 foot ceiling, with one window, no ledges, no intertwining staircases, no fireplaces, or shelving. This is your basic bedroom and therefore you will have a basic equation. In this case you already have the measurements so we've begun without doing that step. So after you have your measurements you can apply an equation. Now this is a simple equation and doesn't necessarily work in all circumstances, but in this circumstance it will. Other circumstances would include, various different windows, fireplaces, railings, shelving, etc, but here today we just have a simple room.

Alright so the equation that you want to apply here goes as follows:

Labour Calculation Table

Labour for walls: Room square footage multiplied by 2 (100(153.87 x 157.87 = 169) =338

Labour for Ceiling: Room square footage multiplied by 1 (169 x 1 = 169)

Labour for trim: Room square footage multiplied by 1 (169 x 1 = 169)

169 x 2 = 338

169 x1 = 169

169 × 1 = 169

Total = 676

Total labour so far is 676. Now we are expecting to make 42.50 dollars per hour so lets break that down to how long we think it will take us.

676/42.50 = 16 hours

Alright, so the total equals 676 dollars for labour to paint the room inside the house or home. Next we have the price of materials and any extra cost that may be related to the access, process and execution of the job.

Access

Process

Execution

These things can include getting to the jobsite, such as traffic, fuel, time, or the actual jobsite itself, such as getting to the room or setting up inside the room, is the room empty or does stuff need to be removed or moved? This is where you also need to account for your overhead. In this scenario overhead is incorporated into the hourly rate at 5.00 per hours, equalling out to 80 dollars. Contingencies such as, will furniture need to be covered, moved or worked around? Other things like, will the room need extra prep work due to damaged walls or will the walls need major improvements. Unforeseen need to be accounted for and allotted for. This could be entailed in insurance which could be traced to overhead. These are some of the equations that you must consider while estimating. Keeping in mind the previously mentioned and asking those questions here, and it checks out luckily, you do not have anything other then a far distance to the jobsite. Which calculates to be an extra 1 hour per day plus fuel extra at 15 dollars. So these are added into the equation:

Fuel: 40 dollars

Travel Time: 1 hour: 42.50

Days of travel: 2

42.5 × 1 + 15 = 57.50

Total: 99.50

Now we add in the extra for travel and fuel cost to our base equation.

676 + 99.50 = 775.50

So you total estimated labour, overhead, and unforeseens to paint your room inside this home is 775.50

Alright, next you want to look at material cost. Now these will vary depending on your material, so having firm knowledge about what type of paint, coverage of it and expectations from it are needed to be accurate here. Some times the customer will have a preference of certain paint, which has a longer dry-time and now you have to wait in between coats, and that will totally throw your estimate off by far and fast and now you are spending way too much time literally waiting for paint to dry. Now in a full home paint job, this is no big deal because you can juggle between wet and dry rooms for each coat, but if you have come and travelled an hour to paint one room and you have to wait for each coat of paint to dry 2 hours before more, compared to 20 minutes, or you are not able to paint the trim because the walls are still wet then you will run into problems. So lets look at labour expectations.

You have 676 as your total for labour and you still have to find out which paint to use to get your material and total labour cost. Now your expecting to make roughly 42.5 dollars per hour, so take 775.50 and divide it by 42.5 which equals 18.2 hours. Next we have determined that the customer will be using acrylic paint which has a dry time of about 30 min before re-coating. So now you can see that if you alternate walls in the same room, between trim, ceiling and walls, you should be able to alternate accordingly, and based on the total time you can see that there will be enough time to alternate walls in between coats and not be waiting with nothing to do, and ruining this interior wall paint job for your profitability.

Alright so now you want to look at the price of paint. So of course there is an equation for this as well, generally 1 gallon for every 100 square feet.

Walls: 200 = 2 × 1(gallon) = 2 gallons

Ceiling: 100 = 1 × 1 = 1 gallon

Trim: 100 = 1 × 1 = 1 gallon

169 x 2 = 338 =3.38 gallons

169 x 1 = 169 = 1.69 gallons

169 x 1 = 169 = 1.69 gallons

Rounding up, this comes to about 8 gallons

8 x 30.00 = 240.00

So you will need a total of 8 gallons. It is possible you may use less but generally you can only buy in increments of gallons, so you will just keep it in gallons for now. If left over paint does happen just leave it with the customer and I am sure they will be happy for touch-ups down the road. Alright so next you find how much you're paying per gallon and multiply that by four gallons.

Total Labour for walls, ceiling, and trim is

Labour: 775.50

Materials: 240.00

Total: 995.50

So the price for this room is going to be 995.50. Now bear in mind that this is a simple room with two to three coats of paint, the trim and the ceiling. There will be many other rooms where the walls are different, or where customers just want the ceiling painted, or just the walls, or jut the trim, and all sorts of combos in between, But the great thing is you have all the equations to get each part out if they desire to go that route. The break down equations give you the means to analyze the differences and ultimately give the customer an accurate number to paint the walls or just the ceiling, or both.

Alright so you got an estimate for a labour, you got an estimate for materials, you took in consideration travel time and all other unforeseen potential expenses and you came up with your final number of 610, now you can present this estimate to the customer and begin painting as soon as is possible.

Questions and Answers Q&A

Painting a home verse painting a room.

Q1. I have a home that I would like to have painted or potentially paint myself, now my question to you is whether or not your equations will work in those  parts of the home where there are windows, stair cases and fire places and all that jazz?

A1. The most reasonable explanation for this answer is yes the equation will still work however you do have to accurately determine the square footage subtracting the areas that are missing due to windows, or doors or fireplaces etc. So if you have a 100 sf room, you can subtract that 20 square foot for a window, and then use 80 sf as your number to apply all the other aspects to.

Q2. My home is up for sale and I want to paint it fast and it likely only needs one coat on the walls, will your estimating process work for me?

A2. Yes it will,  what you would do there, is go about assessing the home to see how many repairs are needed and then subtracting roughly 60 percent from the totals to account for only 1 coat, verse 2-3.

Q3. I would like to paint my home but it has a 15’ vaulted ceiling with sky lights, and many high places that seem daunting to me and therefore translate into being expensive in my mind to have done. Would your equation still work for those areas, because it seems a little more excessive then just a 8 foot ceiling in a room?

A3. The answer here is yes and no, it will work for the walls, roughly, but for the ceiling we would have to account for the access, process and execution. The access to the ceiling will require ladders or scaffolding if possible, which both rely on the layout and dimensions of the home. We would account for the extra time it takes to setup and pack-up, for those rooms that are beyond the typical. I would use the base equation for the ceiling as the same, but amending it by adding on time for setup, execution and if/or pack-up. There are multiple variable that come into play with execution, such as for skylights and hanging fixtures. So it does take come consideration when deciding how much it will cost to paint your home.

Q4. We have a home that we would like to paint but it has some areas that are damaged and will need repair, will your equation still apply to our home?

A4. Generally yes the equation will still work, however, there will have to be an assessment made that allows you to determine the degree of prep needed to get the areas ready to be painted. Prep does require dry time so it can be an area that does take up time if there is nothing else to be done. When considering prep, always be sure you consider drying time and sanding dust. These are two areas that can be overlooked at times. If this home still has people living in it, then there is always the issue of accounting for covering off rooms and covering furniture if sanding is required. There are also dustless compounds that can help with some of the dust.

Q5. We are considering purchasing a home but do not like the colours and would like to know before hand how much it would cost to paint it so we can know what were in for, will your equation work for us?

A5. You will have to take into account for all the variables that are at play outside of the typical 10x10 room when deciding how much it will cost you to paint this potential home. So you can use the labour equation as a rough estimate if your looking for a ball park figure, but if you want the essential accurate number then looking at the factors that take up time are a key factor. So looking at windows, doors, stairways, access, process, execution, and making detailed considerations. These will be additions to labour, and or subtractions to materials. Windows will be subtractions for material paint space for walls, but more trim for around them.

Thank you for reading and enjoy painting like a professional.