Painting the exterior.... Am I being ripped off...

theatretony

We live on an estate that is primarily Housing Association property. We bought a house in this area recently.

The Trust that owns the properties are painting the top half of the houses (upstairs only, exterior) to all the HA tenants abd because we own our house they have asked the contractors to see if we want ours doing as well to make it look nice...

We do want it doing but the contractors are saying it will cost us £700 to get this done....

Personally, to paint the front and back of a house should not cost £700 - am I being ripped off here, because they think that I have bought the house I have more money to burn...

scottishlizzie

We are just about to have the back wall of our house painted. It is partially rendered and partial brick but we are having the whole lot painted, including doors and windows. We have one man doing it, approximately 10 days work and the estimate is £960 excluding materials.

Our house is a (smallish) 4 bed detached. We have used this decorator for years and the price is about what I thought it would be - there is a lot of prep in our case because the wooden fascias are in a bad way.

Does this help?

theatretony

The work that they have been doing on the other houses have taken all of about 2 hours per house.... so to me for £700 - that is really expensive.

Kitikat

We have just had a quote for the external painting of our house. We have a decent sized 4 bedroom detatched. The roof is also high, so high that the last decorator we asked to quote refused to do the work.

The quote we have is for all external paintwork including 2 sets of metal gates, facia's, doors, window shutters etc and includes materials. For that we are quoted £780.00 + VAT.

I think that this quote is OK but it sounds like I am having more work done than you, I would expect this work to take the best part of a week. I certainly wouldn't be happy paying £700 for a few hours work, I'd be looking to get quotes from elsewhere.

Hope this helps.

newfunk

Allowing for them doing 2 coats, I would say this is a ridiculous quote, by someone trying to make a fast buck! Ive just priced to paint 10 windows, 6 sashes, 1 door, and 3 lots fascia boards, 2 cotas of undercoat and 2 coats of gloss, and chaging £1250 for just labour. They wont have to buy materials because they will have them. I would price this at about £150-£200. As with the weather as it is, they would easily do it in a day.. Hope this helps

Baz-Bee

What I think people lose sight of is that someone working for a HA needs to follow all health and safety requirements and will be following a formal plan monitored by the Planning Supervisor (this is a person appointed under the CDM Regs and nothing to do with Town and Country Planning) acting on behalf of the HA. This will mean that they should scaffold the houses to work at first floor level and not work off ladders (blame the EU). They will also probably be a larger company with bigger overheads and the necessity to provide welfare facilities for their staff and be accounatble for VAT, NI, PAYE as well as Income Tax. This all cost!! Additionally the HA will also be responsible for ensure that the contractor complies witha lot of these requirements


You local builder who gives you a quote can work cash in hand or lose the money in the two sets of books he will invariably keep as well as being more “creative” on the Health and Safety side. Basically householder are not reponsible but an employer such as a HA of Local Authority are working under very stringent Regulations and Guidelines which cost everyone money.

So the bottom line is it will normally be cheaper to get it organised yourself.

kingshir

Baz-Bee wrote:

What I think people lose sight of is that someone working for a HA needs to follow all health and safety requirements and will be following a formal plan monitored by the Planning Supervisor (this is a person appointed under the CDM Regs and nothing to do with Town and Country Planning) acting on behalf of the HA. This will mean that they should scaffold the houses to work at first floor level and not work off ladders (blame the EU). They will also probably be a larger company with bigger overheads and the necessity to provide welfare facilities for their staff and be accounatble for VAT, NI, PAYE as well as Income Tax. This all cost!! Additionally the HA will also be responsible for ensure that the contractor complies witha lot of these requirements


You local builder who gives you a quote can work cash in hand or lose the money in the two sets of books he will invariably keep as well as being more “creative” on the Health and Safety side. Basically householder are not reponsible but an employer such as a HA of Local Authority are working under very stringent Regulations and Guidelines which cost everyone money.

So the bottom line is it will normally be cheaper to get it organised yourself.

It's the summer too and the painters are probably stacked out with work and can afford to put their prices up (which compensates for the winter when there is little or no work). Perhaps they don't want the job, I've put ridiculous prices in rather than say no, in the past!!

kroome

just had total exterior 80% rendered painted (3 sides) and all woodwork (soffits etc) garage doors (front and rear) painted, quoted and paid £500 which I thought very reasonable

pedro3gb

paint the lower bits yourself and just get them to quote for high stuff - that way my quote was £450

BWZN93

I agree with newunk - and did anyone see 'streets ahead' tonight on channel 4?? It didnt take them more than a weekend to paint a STREET!! Id do it myself personally!

Jo xx

kingshir

jw1096 wrote:

I agree with newunk - and did anyone see 'streets ahead' tonight on channel 4?? It didnt take them more than a weekend to paint a STREET!! Id do it myself personally!

Jo xx

Painters & Decorators, just like everyone else, need to make a decent living wage. If you can do it yourself then do it - but don't crib about them making a profit. Just because they are not white collar workers doesn't mean they should earn a pittance for their labour & skills!