Exterior House Painting Cost Factors

Have you looked at the quotes of two painting contractors and wondered why the numbers vary so much? This is something many homeowners wonder about, and why is there not a flat rate? The answer is that painting a house is much more complicated than just rolling on a different color.

Each house is different, and a quote that is not generic or flat-rate needs to reflect the particulars and challenges of every home. The price to paint the exterior of a house must be based on a thorough assessment, not a standardized price.

The side of your house and the pitch of your gables are just two of the many things that affect the price. This guide will help you understand what to consider and why painting the exterior of your house costs. You will thus know why estimates are what they are for your home.

When questioning how much exterior house painting costs, people tend to think of the house’s total square footage. In the case of professional house painters, however, we care more about the paintable square footage. For example, a two-story, colonial house that has about 2,500 square feet and simple siding has a vastly different paintable area than a spreading, 2,500 square feet ranch that has a complex trim, shutters, and dormers, as in, a hundred times more complex.

Professionals spend more time measuring:

• All walls
• Eaves
• Soffits
• Fascia
• Window frames
• Doors

There are a number of factors that will help you assess the price of your drywall repair project.

• Extent of damaged area: Minor holes are much cheaper to repair than large walls or several panels. The more area coverage needed, the more costly it will be.
• Damage complexity: Simple repairs such as cracks or small holes take up less time and materials than repairs dealing with water or mold as those require special training and preparation.
• Labor and materials: $40 – $100 is the general rate for contracting labor depending on the experience and geographical location of the contractor. Standard drywall is inexpensive on the market, however, specialty items such as moisture or fire resistant panels will increase the overall cost of the project.

A professional secret is that for an exterior paint job, 80% is prep work and 20% is painting. A painter does across-the-board evaluations and those evaluations determine a major exterior house painting cost. Is your current paint peeling, bubbling, or chalking? This all needs to be fixed before a new paint is used.

Adequate prep work involves scraping loose paint, sanding some areas to give it a rough texture and painting a rough area to give it a more smooth, rough, and paintable surface and using a power washer to remove dirt, mildew, and grime that is stuck to paint. Wood that is rotting in the siding or trim needs to be fixed or replaced.

Gaps in the seams and around the windows and the doors need to be caulked to make it a weatherproof seal. If some of the steps are skipped, it is a 100% guarantee that paint will fail, and often it will fail within a year or two. A low bid often looks appealing, but it almost always means the builder is skipping steps in this important part of the job.

Different variations of paint, and more specifically, paint for exteriors of houses, comes with different costs. A more expensive acrylic latex paint in the long run is more cost effective and more durable as opposed to cheaper options where more coats would be needed, and the paint would only last a few years lines of fading and build-up of mildew.

When it comes to the paint itself, the other costs include all other house exterior painting accessories which includes primers which are necessary for bare wooden or stained surfaces as well as caulking, masking tape, plastics sheeting, and sandpaper. A professional is more knowledgeable and will be able to choose the preferable paint and primers for the siding of the house and for wood, vinyl, stucco, or fiber cement for the home.

The height and accessibility of the home are significant factors in determining the scope and resultant costs of the project. The difference between painting a three-story Victorian home on a steep slope, and a single-story ranch on a flat lot, are significant. For these homes, employees need ladders, and in some cases, more extensive equipment, such as scaffolding or even aerial lifts to safely and effectively complete the job.

Employing these materials, expensive and time-consuming, requires training, and a professional at the wheel. Landscaping, pitched roofs, and other tight spaces add more to the challenge. Safety has to come first, and so the more difficult or time-consuming a job is, the more it is going to cost to have it painted.

Labor is the single largest expense on all these types of projects, and especially on residential exterior house painting jobs. This is more time, skill, and experience with a job. At least a good, experienced craftsman can work at a proper pace, and it doesn’t take forever to prep and apply a finish that is both esthetically pleasing and long-lasting. Economic factors, as well, largely affect the painting of a house.

An example of a well-structured market would be exterior house painters in Lincolnwood, a suburb of a major city, compared to exterior painters in a more rural location. In addition, business expenses and local rate and labor cost will affect exterior house painting 07843 in a New Jersey location in Morris County.

During metro areas, cost will vary, more certainly, and in exterior house painters kildeer and neighbors, more town painting house, differing overhead town. Competent contractors hire quality employees and pay fair wages, insure properly, and will spend training, and this is shown in their price.

Paint contractors book the majority of their projects during the dry and warm late spring, summer and early fall, dry months. If you are trying to book a project during this peak season, be prepared to wait. Painting contractors usually have more availability in the shoulder seasons, early spring or late fall, but weather might affect the work.

For paint to cure correctly, certain temperature and humidity ranges must be maintained. A cold snap, or even just a week of rain, can delay the project. A professional crew won’t paint in bad weather. Unfortunately, you can’t control the weather, so just being flexible with the project timeline may work to your advantage.

If you ask contractors how to estimate exterior house painting, they won’t just throw out a number. A detailed estimate must be built from data collected on a thorough on-site inspection. The contractor must walk the property, measure every surface, examine the siding and trim to check for rot, and look for challenging access points.

Then they work out how much labor is required for every step of the process: prep, prime, and paint. They add the cost for every material and equipment required, and don’t forget the suggested profit margin. This is why it takes time to create a proper exterior house painting estimate – it isn’t just an educated guess. There is so much detail in the estimate that you understand why it takes so long.

One option homeowners have is to DIY to save costs to have their apartment exterior painted. Even if you DIY and save money on labor, you will still have to purchase or rent all the exterior house DIY painting tools. Tools like pressure washers, painting brushes, paint rollers, ladders or scaffolding, and other house painting tools. Not to mention the expensive exterior house painting supplies too.

However, you must consider the time, and the skill involved in such tasks. Usually much faster than the average joe, professional crews can complete the job in a fraction of the time. They can do the prep work correctly and have the skill to do a flawless finish.

Too many times, exterior house paintings done as DIY projects will fail in the long run due to the unprofessional prep work done, or because of the bad paint application it leaves. Not only to DIY the work just cost you time and money, but all on something that needed to be done professionally in the first place.

Refusing to pay for a professional job goes along with the saying, “you get what you pay for.” It also, just for the sake of it, damages your house more.

It is common to look at estimates and consider the total bid amount first, but instead of concentrating on the exterior house painting cost, what are other factors to consider in evaluating the bid? What is the work scope? Does the bid include prep work, and if so, what kind? What quality of paint is going to be used, and are the contractors licensed and insured?

The lower the price, the less work that will be completed. Posing the question of what is the average cost of exterior house painting fails to consider what is included in a paint job that is going to last. Paying hard-earned money will save headaches in the long run and provide long-term curb appeal.

Visit ACON Engineering to get an accurate cost estimate about painting the exterior of your house.

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