# How fast can you paint a house?



## CarpenterSFO (Dec 12, 2012)

BugmanBCE said:


> I wasn't planning on getting into all that. I have pics I'll try to upload. $3850. It also included ripping out the bottom 3 levels of siding and putting in hardie plank, 8 on a short side of the porch and repairing 4 rotten soffits. I figured it was a good enough price, about $2500 for painting and the rest for carpentry, maybe a little high, but I thought I was hiring a better than average painter.
> ....


I am always shocked at how little money people will take to paint a house. I am glad I am not in that business.

Edit: I realize it's not a question of the business. I'm shocked at how little money some people will take to remodel a house, wire a house, roof a house, floor a house, etc. etc. etc.


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## kingcarpenter (Jan 30, 2015)

*how fast can you paint a house*

If you think above stated price was " a little high " you have got to be high. Your post states how fast can you paint a house? Maybe their thinking was how fast can you cut me a check. Sounds like you were looking for a hit and run and don't look back.


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## BugmanBCE (Apr 20, 2013)

I don't know why it would sound like that is what I was looking for. Nor do I think that is a lowball price. But if that's your opinion, ok. Having heard what other people pay for similar work around here it sounded like it was in the ballpark. I haven't heard of people paying more than that, unless it's a bigger house, all siding, etc. 

Anyhow, he came out this morning and agreed with me so they'll be back out to redo it. I guess we'll see how that goes.


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## slowsol (Aug 27, 2005)

BugmanBCE said:


> I don't know why it would sound like that is what I was looking for. Nor do I think that is a lowball price. But if that's your opinion, ok. Having heard what other people pay for similar work around here it sounded like it was in the ballpark. I haven't heard of people paying more than that, unless it's a bigger house, all siding, etc.
> 
> Anyhow, he came out this morning and agreed with me so they'll be back out to redo it. I guess we'll see how that goes.


Don't worry about it. Everybody here thinks everyone else is a lowballer.

I've had houses painted for $1,000. And it looked good.


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## WBailey1041 (Jan 31, 2014)

It doesn't matter how much you paid. The contractor agreed to do the work properly for that price. Have them come back again and don't pay until you're happy. I do roofing and gutters but I'm pretty sure that looks like crap.


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## TylerThePainter (Mar 26, 2015)

slowsol said:


> Don't worry about it. Everybody here thinks everyone else is a lowballer.
> 
> I've had houses painted for $1,000. And it looked good.


LOL! I painted an exterior house one time for $1000...

When I first started, I low balled the crap out of it!

it cost $700 in paint and I made $300 in profit.


But i did the best job I could, even after realizing my huge estimate mistake.


And the house turned out fantastic...


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## TylerThePainter (Mar 26, 2015)

WBailey1041 said:


> It doesn't matter how much you paid. The contractor agreed to do the work properly for that price. Have them come back again and don't pay until you're happy. I do roofing and gutters but I'm pretty sure that looks like crap.


Lol it is crap... I wouldn't settle with that poor quality job as a painting contractor.


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## TNTRenovate (Aug 19, 2010)

TylerThePainter said:


> LOL! I painted an exterior house one time for $1000...
> 
> When I first started, I low balled the crap out of it!
> 
> ...


$700 in paint, plus overhead and your salary, how could that be $300 in profit?


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## tccoggs (Dec 17, 2008)

BugmanBCE said:


> Here's the other picture of the chimney. It wouldn't take a minute ago. If he painted it twice I wonder why he wouldn't paint the bottom part either time. When I do a job I step back and look at it. No way I would have ever let this go. I'm not a painter, but when I try I put paint on the entire surface I am painting.


Well your hardie is installed wrong as well. It shouldn't bee that close to the roof surface or it will have water uptake into the ends. That job is setup to fail as is.


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## BugmanBCE (Apr 20, 2013)

They came back out yesterday. Then they just disappeared around 1. I suppose they got there at 10 as that is what he had said and that's when the dew dries up. I had arranged to be off and was going to walk around with those guys but they vanished. I also told the boss I expected him to be there but he wasn't. 

I figured out what the problem is. They didn't spray like everyone was saying, they used rollers. They must keep their rollers pretty dry to avoid drips because this layer of paint, while it covers most of the old paint now, you can still see through in lots of places. If there was a discoloration beneath it you can still see it. The other problem is they don't use brushes. They still haven't hit in the corners, underneath the siding overlaps, and many edges and hangovers because you can't do that without a brush. 

I guess I'm shooting him another email. It's their loss, too. I get asked for painting referrals a couple dozen times a year.


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## stelzerpainting (Feb 27, 2014)

Are they licensed, bonded, insured? How much have you paid them? Did you have a written contract? 

Even if they return again and complete the touch-ups, one of your biggest problems is not knowing whether 1 coat or 2 were applied. The only way to be certain is with a dry film thickness gauge. If the situation doesn't get resolved, buy one and test it in as many areas as possible, and record results. 

There are available avenues for recourse in the event you cannot come to a resolution, most of which are predicated on hiring a licensed contractor.


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## BugmanBCE (Apr 20, 2013)

I don't know whether Texas licenses painters. But they are bonded and insured. It's a franchise. A copy of their insurance was with the quote. 

I know they have been over most of the surfaces 2 times, but each "coat" is certainly thinner than the specifications. Sherwin Williams says a coat of Duration dried is 2.2-2.6 mils thick. Both of their "coats" are probably less than that. 

Will such a gauge work on a surface that had old paint on it? Can it tell you how thick just the new paint is? There are many places with new wood or siding, so all of those could be tested for sure. 

There's no way my paint is 4.4-5.2 mils thick, which is really what I paid for. Even after two trips back out, they still haven't hit all the edges and corners and bottom edge of the siding. Today the boss man came out and did it himself. It boggles the mind. This time it was him personally and he didn't paint places that I had pointed at today.


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## avenge (Sep 25, 2008)

You didn't hire professional painters they are fly by nights. A franchise? What the house painting division of Earl Scheib?


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## VinylHanger (Jul 14, 2011)

Is it College Painters? Or whatever they call themselves these days.

There is no way a couple of guys can give a good coat on a whole house by rolling in a few hours. 

What do you want to bet that we will see this guy pop in here with his first post and complain about how unreasonable this freakin' Bug Guy he is painting for is. Then he will ask about the workman like level a customer should expect for 3,500 bucks. :whistling


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## BugmanBCE (Apr 20, 2013)

I don't think they ever paint houses right or they would have done it by now. I figure part of the problem is that they buy the paint, so the less they use the more money in their pocket. 

I can contest it with the credit card company and get into that whole fight, but I don't think it's worth the time and hassle. I don't know why I thought they would do it right the second or third time. We'll just finish it ourselves.


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## EricBrancard (Jun 8, 2012)

BugmanBCE said:


> I figure part of the problem is that they buy the paint, so the less they use the more money in their pocket.


That's not part of the problem at all. I would expect any painter to supply the paint. The problem was that the price was far to low to provide materials and quality labor for the scope of work.


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## BugmanBCE (Apr 20, 2013)

That may be true in your area. As I said, most people pay less than I did to get their house painted here. 

Even if it is underbid, that's irrelevant, as a fellow said earlier. I have underbid work before, I still did the job properly. It was a reminder to me to price things properly next time, not an occasion of me providing second rate work. 

I understand your point, and have seen that happen. If a job is underpriced and the workers are paid on commission, they aren't going to do great work. These people are his employees, I expect them to do the same job every time no matter how much money the boss makes. He uses the same guys at every job. I doubt he has an A crew that does great work that he only brings in when someone is paying top dollar.


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## hdavis (Feb 14, 2012)

EricBrancard said:


> That's not part of the problem at all. I would expect any painter to supply the paint. The problem was that the price was far to low to provide materials and quality labor for the scope of work.


That's actually a quick and easy job to do right - $3500 would be fine a lot of places in Texas. Normally these are spray jobs.


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## EricBrancard (Jun 8, 2012)

BugmanBCE said:


> That may be true in your area. As I said, most people pay less than I did to get their house painted here.
> 
> Even if it is underbid, that's irrelevant, as a fellow said earlier. I have underbid work before, I still did the job properly. It was a reminder to me to price things properly next time, not an occasion of me providing second rate work.
> 
> I understand your point, and have seen that happen. If a job is underpriced and the workers are paid on commission, they aren't going to do great work. These people are his employees, I expect them to do the same job every time no matter how much money the boss makes. He uses the same guys at every job. I doubt he has an A crew that does great work that he only brings in when someone is paying top dollar.


I understand. I've lost money on jobs and still delivered top quality. But that's what I do. Some companies habitually underbid and deliver poor quality. That's what they do.


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## slowsol (Aug 27, 2005)

EricBrancard said:


> I understand. I've lost money on jobs and still delivered top quality. But that's what I do. Some companies habitually underbid and deliver poor quality. That's what they do.


Don't confuse delivering poor quality with underbidding.


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## hdavis (Feb 14, 2012)

I'm reading this as ~1500 sqft. I'm familiar with the house styles in general. It's a very easy spray, not much labor hours. Maybe 8 gals paint. Brush and roll is obviously slower.


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## EricBrancard (Jun 8, 2012)

slowsol said:


> Don't confuse delivering poor quality with underbidding.


I'm not. I thought I was very clear.


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## slowsol (Aug 27, 2005)

EricBrancard said:


> I'm not. I thought I was very clear.



You've been very clear that you think they underbid the job and as a result provided poor quality. 

I don't know how you would know that they underbid the job anymore than I would know that they did not. 

My point is that in this area, for that price, you can get a quality job. 

Sometimes (a lot of times) poor work is not a result of underbidding a job. It's just bad management, careless employees, a lack of understanding of quality, a million other reasons.


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## hdavis (Feb 14, 2012)

I think we can all agree these guys are scammers?


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## slowsol (Aug 27, 2005)

hdavis said:


> I think we can all agree these guys are scammers?



Hacks. I don't know about scammers. Some people legitimately don't know what quality is. 

But I'll give you a maybe on scammers.


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## shesbros (Jun 15, 2005)

Looking at the picks this is D- work ad best. There are two ways to handle this.
1. Walk him through the problems (you don't want him to "fix" it because judging by the pictures he is incapable of producing even C+ work) AMD tell him it is best that he doesn't get the balance of the job and you will find someone else to do it properly.

Honestly he has painted over a dirty surface and the damage is already done.

2. Get a notebook, walk him around every inch of the house and agree on everything that must be done to remedy the situation (this will take some time). Then take of work for 2 or 3 days and sit in a lawn chair and watch them do it. Then when he says its "done" walk over every inch of it again. I would guess it will take 2 or three tries to get it to passable.

Honestly he is clownshoes. I have seen the student painting companies do better than this.


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## BugmanBCE (Apr 20, 2013)

I understand that, Shesbros. If I were to do it again and actually hire someone I would have hired my dad to handle the entire thing from beginning to end. I don't have time to just take off work for a week. I'm self-employed, business doesn't stop so I can get the house painted. 

I did take time off to be there, not entire days, but I made stops in and talked to the guys and did several half days. That's how I knew that they would have had to put 2 coats on in 3 hours, as I was around and knew what state it was in going in to the last day. Some of it had some paint on it, mostly just the new Hardie plank, but it didn't have a coat on going in to that last day. 

It isn't worth it at all for me to have that much down time, I'd rather just put in a couple hours here and there until I get it done. I already have the back porch almost finished and it's downhill from there. I pulled out one of their patch jobs and fixed it properly and have almost finished 2 other repairs that didn't get done right or they made and didn't finish. I also used a special technique called "magic painting" to get the Hardie plank painted where it slips past the deck. The deck is almost flush up against the walls on the back porch. It looked terrible since the boobs didn't paint it before putting it in, and obviously you wouldn't be able to once it was in. 

Magic painting: With the help of a 5 year old(one of the reasons I wanted to hire this job out) I used my 18 inch or so flat screwdriver "pry bar" (I got it at a pawn shop to use for prying to save my screwdrivers, it is all rounded off) to wedge into the gap, creating a little extra space, and prying just a little. Then I got paint on one side of a foam brush and slid it in the crack. I got little or no paint on the deck(the painters had hit that edge quite a bit anyway). I went through 3 foam brushes, tossing each as they started to soak through. It worked great, so if you ever need to do that, it is a viable technique.


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## EricBrancard (Jun 8, 2012)

slowsol said:


> You've been very clear that you think they underbid the job and as a result provided poor quality.
> 
> I don't know how you would know that they underbid the job anymore than I would know that they did not.
> 
> ...


What I am saying is that some "contractors" consistently bid low to get jobs and produce poor quality results. It's just what they do. They are cheap AND they suck. There could be many correlations between price and quality in addition to what I just said and there could be many cases where the two have no correlation. Clear?


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## slowsol (Aug 27, 2005)

EricBrancard said:


> What I am saying is that some "contractors" consistently bid low to get jobs and produce poor quality results. It's just what they do. They are cheap AND they suck. There could be many correlations between price and quality in addition to what I just said and there could be many cases where the two have no correlation. Clear?



Sure. I guess I thought your statements had more correlation to this thread. I didn't realize you were making general statements about sub par contractors. I understand now.


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## EricBrancard (Jun 8, 2012)

slowsol said:


> Sure. I guess I thought your statements had more correlation to this thread. I didn't realize you were making general statements about sub par contractors. I understand now.


Well, I reread the thread and I guess my responses didn't read the same way they did in my head. So, my apologies.


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## BugmanBCE (Apr 20, 2013)

EricBrancard said:


> What I am saying is that some "contractors" consistently bid low to get jobs and produce poor quality results. It's just what they do. They are cheap AND they suck. There could be many correlations between price and quality in addition to what I just said and there could be many cases where the two have no correlation. Clear?


Oh, ok, I get it. We have the same thing in the termite business. We've got these lowballers, lots of 'em, and it can be hard for people to understand the difference. They aren't doing the same thing I am going to do, or it would be below cost. Clearly, no one is going to sell work below cost, so their materials and methods must be different.


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## BugmanBCE (Apr 20, 2013)

I bought a Hyde Corner Ease on Amazon, should be here Wednesday. Did I just throw more money down the toilet?


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## TylerThePainter (Mar 26, 2015)

slowsol said:


> Hacks. I don't know about scammers. Some people legitimately don't know what quality is.
> 
> But I'll give you a maybe on scammers.


Yeah, I don't know what kind of 'professional' painter doesn't use paint brushes...


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## TylerThePainter (Mar 26, 2015)

BugmanBCE said:


> That may be true in your area. As I said, most people pay less than I did to get their house painted here.
> 
> Even if it is underbid, that's irrelevant, as a fellow said earlier. I have underbid work before, I still did the job properly. It was a reminder to me to price things properly next time, not an occasion of me providing second rate work.
> 
> I understand your point, and have seen that happen. If a job is underpriced and the workers are paid on commission, they aren't going to do great work. These people are his employees, I expect them to do the same job every time no matter how much money the boss makes. He uses the same guys at every job. I doubt he has an A crew that does great work that he only brings in when someone is paying top dollar.


Exactly. if the contractor fails to properly quote the job... well that's the contractors fault...

Own up too it and be a man. Do the best quality job you can do and eat the cost.


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## Driftweed (Nov 7, 2012)

TylerThePainter said:


> Yeah, I don't know what kind of 'professional' painter doesn't use paint brushes...


Me.


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## avenge (Sep 25, 2008)

EricBrancard said:


> What I am saying is that some "contractors" consistently bid low to get jobs and produce poor quality results. It's just what they do. They are cheap AND they suck. There could be many correlations between price and quality in addition to what I just said and there could be many cases where the two have no correlation. Clear?


I know contractors that are high and still suck.



TylerThePainter said:


> Yeah, I don't know what kind of 'professional' painter doesn't use paint brushes...


I use Q-tips.


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## BugmanBCE (Apr 20, 2013)

I wouldn't give their work a D-, or even an F. It's an incomplete, 40 at best. The repair work was the best they did, and I had to pull some of it out and redo it, and it was poorly done all around. The siding seems fine. They boogered up a lot of stuff I'm having to fix. They did about half the caulking, I've been through 6 tubes and am mostly finished now. The actual painting I can't even score, maybe a 25. A fair amount still hadn't had any paint slapped on it. 10% of the surface, maybe more. None of the corners, edges, backsides, siding overlaps, or difficult spots had been painted. The open flat areas in the back probably got about a coat. The front of the house probably only got very lightly rolled with a single pass, no rolling back and forth until it's covered. 

So I guess what I got is my siding replaced, some repair work, gutters and downspouts painted, and a starter coat. I've got the hard part behind me, it's all downhill from here. 

I can see not using a paintbrush, provided you use a sprayer, trim pad, corner roller, or something to get all the trim and nooks and crannies. However, a quick once over with just rollers is simply faking it.


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## BugmanBCE (Apr 20, 2013)

hdavis said:


> I'm reading this as ~1500 sqft. I'm familiar with the house styles in general. It's a very easy spray, not much labor hours. Maybe 8 gals paint. Brush and roll is obviously slower.


He quoted it as 1400 sqft. I figure that's about right. 

Now that I've done most of it and learned how to paint along the way, I can say it isn't a hard house to paint, and $2000 for painting it wouldn't be a lowball price. A lot of people think they have to get rich on every job.


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## 2peterhunter (Mar 29, 2015)

2500 to me is a fair price for labor and a house like that should take 3 guys 2-3 days. As was stated it should of been rolled on and backbrushed or sprayed on backbrushed followed by another coat, standard procedure, yes the caulking should of been done, I am familiar and was considering starting a franchise 6 years ago, the only training you recieve is business wise, not painting. I have had to learn on my own and when I started i produced similar work. But doing this for my 6th year I now am taking pride in my work and thus charging more. Yet sometimes I still make mistakes out of ignorance rather then trying to make a buck. I would never knowingly do shoddy work yet I know I have done some once I learn a new proccess or a better way to do it. For me I would have killed to have a painter mentor me, no one would unless I wanted to hire on at 8 an hour and work my way up. But anyways if it's cause of ignorance cut him a little slack it seems you are well versed in this area, help him out. If he is just trying to make a buck lay into him. I have been accused of the second even though I had no clue I was doing it wrong, thanks to paint talk and my SW reps I have come a long ways.


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## TylerThePainter (Mar 26, 2015)

avenge said:


> I know contractors that are high and still suck.
> 
> 
> 
> I use Q-tips.


Well you would have done better than the guys painting this house.


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