# painting costs?/new construction



## ronny (Dec 7, 2005)

hello everyone,
could you guys give me sum rates on new construction painting.ive been painting for 20/hr last couple yrs.but it seems to be time to get it going on my own.i just painted a small ranch home 3bd,2 bath.interior only.also i stained all casing and trim.painting was one prime,sand,1or 2 finish,
trim-sand,stain,stain,2 coats varnish.im just looking for square footage price on painting,per linear feet on the trim.door jambs on trim stain price, and i paint alot of them white interior hollow doors with the fake grain.how much for them.thanks for you time and effort.....ronny-western new york area


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## slickshift (Jun 14, 2005)

Hi ronny
Welcome
Your question can't really be answered easily, it's not that simple
Try punching in estimating or pricing or what to charge into the search engine

A lot of what you'll find is that the best way to find out what you'll charge is to know your overhead, materials and sundries costs, production rates...etc....

I can give you my numbers, but it really won't help you decide what to charge
You can go by an estimating guide, but you'll quickly find that they are a tool, and can't tell you what to charge

I'm very fast and accurate, and charge accordingly
Someone who's not...well they shouldn't get the same rate
Someone who's better than me should get more

I know labor costs here are twice some other areas, your region can make a big difference

Someone who has crews and someone who is a one-man op will have different overheads...different costs...and charge different
Someone who has the proper paperwork and insurance, they really shouldn't be charging the same as someone who doesn't, the expenses are different


Do a few searches, think you'll get an idea of the best way to know what to charge


On another subject ronny, it sounds like you've already painted this project
Are you wondering if you charged enough?
Or have they not gotten the bill yet?

Just a heads-up, you really want to settle on a price before hand
And make sure it's contracted

If you haven't, but you already did the work then that's easy
Time x fair hourly rate for your area + any materials and sundries you bought
T & M = Price


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## George Z (Dec 23, 2004)

Ronny,
Whatever Slickshift said, I agree.
This is a fair answer, take it as is. There are no shortcuts.
It takes time but when you know your own numbers
things get much easier.


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## ronny (Dec 7, 2005)

thanks for your input,my name is getting around quick.new contruction is my game.dont know how to price it.is asking a $1.00 a sqft. otta the norm for prime,sand,2 finish coats on a brand new home?say i have 12 by 12 room,with 8 ft ceilings.just walls to be painted.that would be 384 sqft of wall coverage.so id charge $384.00 with material.for that part of job,sound alright??your input would be appreciated.ronny


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## slickshift (Jun 14, 2005)

That would be a little low for around here
Your area could be pretty different
I checked the National Estimator labor adjustment chart
New York is all over the map with labor costs
Some areas were lower than here though
Even taking that into consideration, $1 a sq. for prime + 2 is probably low for your area


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## ronny (Dec 7, 2005)

hey slickster:thumbup: .....thanks alot for that input.....gave me some confidence with the pricing game:thumbsup: .what did the estimator say for western n.y.area???I would like to know,might have this big house to paint and look at it tommorrow.sum trim pricing would help,fill nail holes,prime,sand,caulk,spray latex regal.,doors?? $25 a door,sand,2 coats.
thanks again .....ronny


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## Dale (Aug 26, 2004)

...your per door price is waaay low. Depends on the doors, but you should be closer to $100. 

If you have the whole house project and the client wants a unit price, you could make it appear to be cheaper than that, but for your own self you should gross about $100. per door. But thats just my 2 cents. 


Dale


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## nahudso (Oct 26, 2005)

I charge 1.50/sq. ft. (floor space, not wall space) and 2.50 for custom houses. then i add an extra 1.00/ linear ft. for crown. I also charge extra for elaborate staircases and front doors based on time involved. Materials are ususally an extra 10 % of that.


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## ronny (Dec 7, 2005)

*floor space???*

why would you go by floor measurement for estimate in square footage.floor dont get painted,4 walls do.someone else told me the same thing about measuring rooms for painting.they measure floor.so 10 by 12 room 8ft ceiling would be 120 sqft. floor measurement.so that would be the measurement for that room and charge my square ft price.120? dont sound right for painting walls.:nerd:estimating footage,,tell me please.


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## NSolano (Dec 16, 2004)

I also give bids out by square foot sizes. Only for big contracts though, because quantity makes painting cheaper. If you are giving someone an estimate for only ONE house then go inside and estimate labor and material and profit, so the pricing there is more complex, however for big long projects such as new construction, I usually bid on square footage. BTW don't anyone try and bash me on this, I have done three big projects so far and I have made over $200,000 in profit just in paint, this has been in 1.5 years. BTW if you are planning on doing paint try and get drywall in there too, most General contractors prefer to hire a company that does both drywall and paint. Drywall estimating is much more complex than that but I am not going to get into that right here.


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## Brian (Jun 9, 2004)

Ronny,

I agree with you that bidding by the floor area is silly. The variables involved could be immense. A 10'x10' room could have 4 walls, 1 door, and base. Or, it could have 4 walls, 3 doors, base, crown, 2 windows, and chair rail. Obviously the price should be different between these two rooms, but if you only go on the floor area, they should be the same.

I bid by the surface area, that is, what we are actually going to paint. The size of the floor has little bearing on what we are going to paint. The surfaces in that room do.

If all we did was cookie cutter homes where everything was the same the floor area approach might work. But that isn't what we do (we being my company). 

BTW, I do residential repaints. Slickshift and George Z gave you good advice.

Brian Phillips


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## nahudso (Oct 26, 2005)

Hey, if you guys think the way I bid new construction is silly, whatever then, you asked, i told how i do it. Do you think I just made it up on my own? Where I live this is how we all do it for NEW CONSTRUCTION. Its not how i do repaints. That being said, if I forsee a problem with it I will increase my price. Its a starting point for me. So if you prefer to go into a new, unfinished 6000 sq. ft house and measure every stinkin wall, linear ft of trim, door, window, closet, built-in, caulk line, nail hole, speck of dust, etc..... and thats what works for you then great, do that. For me, 15,000 plus materials, plus whatever extra i come up with for crown, staining staircases, fireplaces, front doors, etc... works just fine. Maybe someday I'll be as smart as a Yankee, till then Ill just keep bangin it out the silly way.


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## ProWallGuy (Oct 17, 2003)

Nahudso, nobody is knocking your way of pricing. I think with a cookie-cutter tract home, especially if you have a lot of them all the same, it would work fine. If it works for you, then good. But I've seen many paint companys go down in flames pricing new construction this way. There are a lot of hidden extras in there that could come back and bite you in the profit. I always do a take-off on the actual surfaces to be coated, not the floor space. I'm not painting the floor, I'm painting walls, ceilings, and trim. Then, if they want a floor sq ft price, divide the price I came up with by the floor sq ft, and there it is. I am beginning to think contractors ask for floor sq ft as just one more way to screw the painter out of a decent price.

You mention 'a new, unfinished, 6000 sq ft house'. Would the price be the same for a 6000 sq ft one story, as compared to a 6000 sq ft two story, as compared to a 6000 sq ft w/vaulted ceilings or tray ceilings?
Different trim packages, different variables all over the board. If you truly master your technique, there are a lot of painters out there who would love to know how you do it.

MHO only.


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## nahudso (Oct 26, 2005)

Ok, first off I apologize for being cranky. It was late, I got stuck on a job and was in a general bad mood/sleep deprived when I got home, read the post and had a little ego trip. I can concede that the way I'm doing my bids on new work is not the best way. So instead of lashing out let me use this opportunity to ask for advice. To be completely honest I cant get anyone to give me any straight numbers to start with other than the way I'm doing it. The only advice I can seem to gather is some run around complicated explanation of how its different for everyone, or that I need to estimate how long it will take and charge what I want to make per hour. I realize that its different for alot of people based on alot of different variables, but that doesnt help me get to a starting point for bidding the right way. I can tweak the numbers to what I need or what is appropriate for my speed/ skill levels/ overhead. What I need to learn is the basic correct system. Secondly I feel that Ive made damn good money on all the work Ive done this year even if my method is flawed. Ive been out on my own for about a year now and have a couple builders that are using me and are happy with my work. This is the way they are giving me work and I don't want to rock the boat to be honest. Also I work alone and dont have much overhead. I'm in my final semester of my seinor year of college this spring which is why Im not trying to dig myself in too deep and doing all the work myself. Upon graduation I plan to really kick things up a gear, but right now I've got one foot stuck in school and another in work, and am working full time at both. I'm just happy to be a college kid with a wife who stays home and two kids making decent money, period. In 2005 I doubled what I made in 2004 working by the hour for a big company here in town, so I'm happy with that progress. That being said if anyone can clue me in to at least the basics of a more professional way of doing business and some general numbers to play with for the type of mid level operation I'm running, I would be appreciative. These are two of the houses I recently completed for a reference. Thanks,-Nathan


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## George Z (Dec 23, 2004)

Nathan, no one is giving you the run around.
If most contractors here agree in telling you that the going rate
is useless, then that should be the answer you are looking for.
It does take some time (not too long) to learn your production rates
and figure out your overhead and profit.
Are you asking what MY overhead is? MY profit? MY production rates?
How is that going to help YOU?


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## PlainPainter (Dec 29, 2004)

You know, even though the idea of square foot pricing of floor space to estimate a painting job is totally foreign to me. I can almost see the rationale if you work exclusively with one contractor who likes to build houses in a certain style. Sure you may lose some money on a couple of jobs in the beginning. But after a while - these contractors just keep building houses the same way - and if you know that the last 4 6000sq. foot homes took between 350 - 375 hours of labor and say materials cost was about 2200-2400 bucks each. Then round up on each part say, 375 hours and $2400 to do a 6000 sq. foot home with this particular contractor. So say you want 40/hr that would be a total cost of $15,000 + $2400 = $17,400. And then you can go back to the contractor and say you want $2.90/sq.ft. 

I could see that working - let's see how this works if we extend this logic to a 10,000 sq. ft. home. hmmmm.... we have a labor rate of $2.50/sq.ft. based on painting the 6000sq.ft. homes. And a materials rate of $0.40/sq.ft
So labor is $2.50 * 10,000 = 25,000 and materials is $0.40 * 10,000 = $4,000
or a total of $29,000. so you can see the $2.90/sq.ft. is still preserved. 
But you already knew this if you liked algebra in high school or more exactly the distributive property i.e. aX + bX = (a + b) * X

And another good thing is, these are large homes - another person on this post pointed out the follies of using this system by giving example of different sized rooms which give totally different sq.ft rates. BUT....the law of averages will tell you that for a really big big house - these things will average out and you can use the average sq.ft price as a good predictor.

But for painters who get one and two room residential repaints -like me- this would be a disasterous way to estimate.

-PlainPainter


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## ronny (Dec 7, 2005)

hey guys,
i havent been back in a couple of weeks,just checked thread today and there was some interesting responses.now i read 1.50 sq/ft floor space measurement?thats just for walls right,trim is extra,doors etc.thanks for your responses.-ronny


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## jedipainter (Jan 23, 2006)

*Dry fall Application*

I am looking for some sq. ft pricing on application of dry fall on some drop ceiling panels approx. 15,000 sq ft. . No primer application on a ceiling 16' tall . Can anyon ehelp out , I am in the Chicago area.


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