Residential Painting

In the construction service industry, customers typically are concerned about getting three main things from their coating contractors: quality, speed & low price. While coating companies would love to be able to offer all three of them at the same time, it is impossible to do so.

Unfortunately, you only get to choose two of those three for your project. Want a quality job (high-quality craftsmanship, high-quality materials, high-quality level of service, high-quality character people) and you want it done quickly (a crew of workers that can accomplish a lot of work in a short amount of time), then it’s going to cost you more to hire a coating company that can provide those things for you. Want a quality job, and you don’t want to spend a lot of money, then it’s going to take longer to get the job done. This coating guy is a one man show that doesn’t have employees and the costs that come with them. That installer is typically a great craftsman and can produce excellent work. Unfortunately, you will have to endure a longer timeframe to get the work completed since you will only have one person working on your project. Want your coating project completed quickly and you don’t want to pay a lot, then you will end up with a lower quality job. The lower quality is a result of less time spent properly preparing the surfaces, less time spent applying the coating properly and precisely and the use lower quality materials that don’t cost as much. If you are not concerned about the quality and you want it done quickly, you will probably save some money. Roe Painting proudly offers quality work, completed quickly, with great service, by quality people using high-quality coatings. If this is what you are looking for, and understand the costs that come with it, we would love to help you get your coating project completed. Just fill out the form below to receive a quote and we will contact you to set up an appointment.

It depends on if you are painting every surfaces of the house, like walls, ceilings, doors, frames, window trim, baseboards, etc. or just painting the walls only.  If it’s walls only, you could expect the job to take 2 to 4 days depending on the size of the crew.  If it’s everything, you should set aside a week or so, again, depending on the size of the crew.

In general, interior paint jobs don’t “wear out” like exterior paint jobs because they are not exposed to the elements.  So, you only need to paint the interior because of wear and tear due to just living in your home or because you don’t like the colors anymore.  Theoretically, if you liked the color of your home and you were very easy on the surfaces, you may never have to repaint the interior.  If you have kids or pets or are generally hard on the surfaces, then you are going to need to repair dings and nicks and probably spot prime and paint over scuffs and stains.  It’s hard to put a number on it, because each home is different and what bothers one person may not bother another, but in general, you could expect to repaint the interior of your home every 5 to 8 years.  Colors and styles generally have a 10 year lifecycle.  So if your interior was painted more than 10 years ago, those colors are more than likely not in style anymore and you may want to repaint.

If proper preparation is completed before an exterior repaint and if you use high quality exterior paint, you should be able to get 10+ years between paint jobs.  Proper preparation would include pressure washing, scraping and sanding to remove loose paint, spot priming any raw wood areas or repaired areas and then sealing up splits, cracks and gaps with a high quality exterior caulking.  Once that is done, apply two coats of a high quality paint.  We would recommend using a product like Sherwin Williams SuperPaint Exterior or better.  Like anything else, you will get what you pay for in paint quality.  Higher cost paints have better ingredients and for the same labor, will give you more time between exterior paint jobs.

Most paint jobs are estimated using a combination of measuring the square footage of surfaces, like say wall surfaces, and then counting items, like doors or windows.  Baseboards, crown molding and chair rail molding are measured in linear feet.  Once you know the measurements, a good estimator will apply a known production rate that will determine how many square feet, linear feet or count of a surface or item can be completed in one hour.  Total square footage divided by the known production rate for each surface or item will give you how many total hours the project will take.  There will be miscellaneous hours to add in for things like masking time, prep time, clean up, etc.  The total hours multiplied by what you charge per hour will give you your labor cost.  For material, you take the same measurements and divide them by the spread rate of a given material.  For example, standard wall paint has a spread rate of about 300 square feet per gallon.  That means applied properly, you can cover 300 square feet with one gallon of paint for one coat.  Once you have determined how many gallons of paint you will need for each surface, you can multiply that by the cost per gallon and get your material cost.  Add in a little bit for tape, plastic, patching compound, etc. and that should give you a total estimated cost for the material.  Add the labor and material costs together and that will give you the total cost for the project.

Yes, stucco is a cement based product and is absolutely able to be painted.  Stucco is made to let moisture penetrate to a certain level and then evaporate away, so it’s important that you use a breathable exterior paint.  A good example of this is Sherwin Williams A100.  For those of you who think you can’t or shouldn’t paint stucco, here is the exact application method for painting A100 to stucco surfaces per the Sherwin Williams Product Data Sheet: Stucco: Remove any loose stucco, efflorescence, or laitance. Allow new stucco to cure at least 30 days before painting. If painting cannot wait 30 days, allow the surface to dry 7 days and prime with Loxon Concrete & Masonry Primer. Repair cracks, voids, and other holes with an elastomeric patch or sealant.  Apply 2 Coats A100 Exterior Latex.

An internet search of local painting contractors is the quickest way to get a bid for painting your house.  Once you find the ones in your area, do your research and pick the one that best fits your needs.  Are you looking for full service, fully insured professional painters to handle your project from start to finish or do you just need a smaller company to take care of some touch ups for you.  Like anything else, check out their website to see how long they have been in business, read reviews or generally get a feel for the type of company they are.  You can also check with your local paint store and they can refer you to companies they work with.

If you are painting all the surfaces of the interior, walls, ceilings, doors, frames, trim, etc. and all the surfaces of the exterior, walls, soffits, fascia, doors, trim, garage doors, etc., the interior is typically more expensive to paint.  The reason being is that there is more square footage of interior surfaces than exterior surfaces.  For exterior surfaces, there’s usually just the walls of the house and the trim.  But for the interior, there are a lot more interior walls, plus the ceilings and then more doors and trim for each of the rooms or areas.  For this reason, the interior is typically more expensive to paint.

The “brand” of paint, like Sherwin Williams or Benjamin Moore, isn’t as important as the quality level of the paint inside that brand.  All companies that make paint (the brand) make high quality paint, medium quality paint and low quality paint.  So the question is really, are higher quality paints worth it.  The answer is, sometimes yes, and sometimes, no.  It depends on where you are using it and how well you want it to perform based on why you are painting something.  For example, if you are painting exterior surfaces and you want them to look nicer and last longer, then yes, a more expensive paint is worth it.  The more expensive the paint, the higher quality the ingredients are and the better it will perform as it’s designed.  However, if you are just painting interior walls and you are going to have normal use, then you don’t need to spend the money on the top of the line paint.  You could get by with a middle of the road quality paint.  If you are painting in a high use area, like a corridor in a hospital that gets a lot of wear and tear and needs to stand up to a lot of cleaning, then it would be worth it to spend more on a higher quality paint that is designed to handle those types of environments.

For summertime painting, just about any paint sold by paint stores in Idaho will perform well in the hotter months.  Every can of paint will have a label on it that shows  the temperature range in which that paint can be applied.  Most of the time, it’s up to 90 or 95 degrees.  If it gets hotter than that, you may have to get creative and time your painting to work on the shady side of the building to stay within the recommended temperatures.  For the colder weather, you need to make sure that you are painting when it is 35 degrees or higher and that it is going to STAY 35 degrees or higher until that paint fully dries or cures.  Sherwin Williams Resilience would be a good paint to choose when painting in lower temperatures.  It has good flow and leveling properties even in colder temperatures.

Paint cost is directly related to the quality of the ingredients that go into the paint.  The higher quality the ingredients, the higher quality the paint.  High quality ingredients cost more than low quality ingredients, and that is reflected in the end cost to the consumer.  Sherwin Williams happens to make a lot of high quality paints.  They also make medium quality paints and lower quality paints for production use.  But, all the other paint companies make their versions of the low, medium and high quality paints and it’s reflected in their pricing accordingly.  So, it’s not so much the brand or one paint company that is expensive, it’s the quality level of the paint inside that brand that makes a paint expensive.  Home Depot, which is known for having inexpensive paint, sells a very high quality paint called Dynasty by Behr Paint.  It sells for about $60 a gallon.  It compares to Sherwin Williams Emerald, which is also right around $60 a gallon.

Most painters measure the height and length of the walls to come up with the total square footage of the surface.  Once you know the square footage, you can apply production rates to estimate how much time it will take to paint and material spread rates to estimate how many gallons of paint you will need.

Labor cost is the amount of the project that is being charged for the labor to produce the painting.  It’s what is being paid to the workers and is typically the total number of estimated hours times the hourly rate that is being charged. It usually includes a markup for taxes, overhead and the desired profit.  Paint cost, or material cost, is the fixed amount that is charged for the number of estimated gallons needed to complete the project times the price per gallon for any given paint.  Material cost may also include the cost of tape, plastic, caulking, patching material, etc.  Some painters markup the material cost and some don’t.