Quote for stripping off wallpaper and painting over

powertome

I recently got a quote for stripping wallpaper off walls and ceiling, preparing the walls and ceilings and painting over for our 5 bed house (kitchen, lounge, dining room and 5 beds) at 10,000 pounds!
It is an old house (100 years) and the ceilings are high, but this figure seems excessive to me. Or is this the kind of quote I should expect and forget about the whole project? Any comments from the forum members is much appreciated.

I quote is for work near Coventry by the way.

elsien

How much???
How many days work, and any other quotes for comparison?
Have you considered hiring a steamer and taking the wallpaper off yourself?
Of course it does depend on the state of your ceilings as well as what he's planning to do to them. My house is a similar age to yours with the original plaster and lath ceilings and I'm pretty sure that when the ceiling paper comes down, half the ceiling is going to come down with it. Does his quote cover that at all?

Procrastinator333

First thing. You must get at least 3 quotes. That is the best way to know.

We had a similar sized house (in terms of room numbers). Excluding kitchen and bathroom, quotes were around the £5-£6k mark for the rest of the house. This included materials. We are in Surrey, so it is a more expensive area.

Bur, the problem is, we might not be comparing like for like. E.g. If you have Georgian windows thorughout the house, they will take a significant amount of time compared to me where the windows don't need decorating.

I guess I would say the quote sounds on the high side for your location. But doing decorating properly does take a lot of time and a lot of skill. If the house has features tat will make it more complex and add to the time, maybe the quote is ok. But the only way you will find out is by getting more quotes.

powertome

elsien wrote: »

How much???
How many days work, and any other quotes for comparison?
Have you considered hiring a steamer and taking the wallpaper off yourself?
Of course it does depend on the state of your ceilings as well as what he's planning to do to them. My house is a similar age to yours with the original plaster and lath ceilings and I'm pretty sure that when the ceiling paper comes down, half the ceiling is going to come down with it. Does his quote cover that at all?

DIY is unfortunately not an option with a small kid and full time job. The quote is for stripping, prepping and applying 2 coats of emulsion on walls and ceilings. There is no breakdown of the quote (perhaps I should ask for that). I understand that the ceiling might reveal nasty surprises, but I am just not sure if the quote is still justified. I am having a couple more decorators come around to take a look and that should hopefully give a better picture.

powertome

Procrastinator333 wrote: »

Bur, the problem is, we might not be comparing like for like. E.g. If you have Georgian windows thorughout the house, they will take a significant amount of time compared to me where the windows don't need decorating.

The windows are just ordinary ones and there are no especially difficult bits to be painted. That's what worried me. Guess another few quotes should help.

comeandgo

That price is outrageous, materials are not expensive and if ceiling has problems you would probably be charged extra for it if it does not say in the contract that contractor holds the costs for extras. £30 an hour would be a high rate for someone to do decorating but if it was £30, materials about £500 gives work for 316 hours so you would have six people there for a week.

cattie

Definitely an outrageous price, though some tradespeople who don't want the work will give an absurdly high estimate just to put you off of wanting to use them.

You need to get more estimates & get a proper breakdown of the work needed & costs. I'm not sure about Coventry prices, but I wouldn't expect to be paying any more than £175 per day for a decorator in a London suburb.

Many tradespeople will mark up the cost of materials so check this & see if you can try to source as many of the materials as possible yourself to save a bit of money too.

stebiz

Ridiculous price. If you can't do it yourself I'd certainly consider stage managing in case nasty surprises come along. Do a room first. Get electrics checked. Check state of ceiling etc after paper is removed. Get it all finished and then move to the next.

powertome

Thanks everyone. While I try to get a couple more quotes, I am also planning to do a small room myself to see how much of an effort it is.

powertome

Just an update in case anyone finds this information useful. Finally got a quote for 5000 pounds for the whole lot, which was the cheapest. The job so far has been quite good.