Paint house - 3 bedroom semi

oslamp

A builder has given me a quote of £2600 to paint the entire house. Is this quote fair?

Regards

jarrod1

this is a money saving site, i wouldnt pay £600 when i could do it myself

Poppycat

We did ours about £80 for paint, £30 extras inc large roller telescopic pole, pva glue, £100 for ladders (professional got cheap from B&Q, three parts to it) and about a week painting and patching up before hand.

We hate heights but it was well worth doing. Our house is 3 bedroom semi two, one side was only painted half way up because of a garage built on the side. Also didnt paint bottom half of the front as its a large bay and porch. We also didnt paint the drain pipes

debbie42

What exactly is the quote for, though? Inside/outside/how many rooms/size, etc. You can't expect a reasonable reply otherwise.

As for why not do it yourself? Well, there are plenty of reasons why someone might not want to, or indeed, be able to do a job. For example, I'm happy painting inside rooms myself but have no desire whatsoever to do the outside and would willingly pay someone the going rate to do it, if I felt it was a fair quote and I was getting a decent job done.

oslamp

Thanks for all your replies.

Doing it myself.
Yes it is an option. I am physically capable of doing it but have considered getting somebody else to do it. It is a moneysavingsite but there are some intangible benefits money cannot buy. Time - time to do what I want to do and time with the family. That is why I am getting in somebody to do this.

More detail.
There are 3 sides to paint. Front, Back one side. As debbie42 says i have not provided an accurate size. Maybe you have an idea of how much I should be paying per sq metre / sq ft?

Thanks

debbie42

So it's outside?

Are you talking woodwork (windows/doors/fascia etc.), or rendering too?

Last quote I had to just do rendering on my house (3 sides), a few years back now, it was estimated to need around 10 gallons of paint alone. The killer in the quotation was the cost of the scaffolding, which ISTR was around £1000, without the actual decorating costs.

oslamp

That is interesting debbie42 . Maybe it is the scaffolding costs that is making the price seem a bit more than I expected

The builder has not mentioned this. It is just the brickwork that needs painting. I do not think I will end up paying £2600 for this job alone. I will wait until I get the other quotes and make a decision from there.
thanks

misgrace

Even with a tower, or scaffolding, its much too high.

A tower you can hire for approx 7 days, can cost between £100-£250, then you would need approx 10-15 lts paint, if its going on bare brick, then it would need more, as you need a very thinnish coat to seal the brickwork, or even a stabliser, then your proper coats, if its going on existing paintwork, and roughly the same colour, you could get away with 10-15.

You havent mentioned, woodwork, downpipes, guttering etc, so on just the 3 walls, I would tell him a big no.

Are they supplying the materials?, even so, its still far too much.

ormus

assuming no color change and its not bare rendering, then its far too high.
id have thought a 1000 was about right. even 1500 is a bit rich.
and any decorator worth his salt should possess a scaffold tower. they are only about 100/200 quid on ebay.

debbie42

Unfortunately a tower scaffold can't be used on my house. The side-entry is too narrow, then there's the half height bay window, and the one storey extension, next to the two store extension that also has a too narrow path etc. I gave up and left it to concentrate on the inside...

oslamp

I have concluded that 2600 is far too much to paint my house. I will wait for estimates to come back from other people and at least I will have a gage of what is reasonable