Guys Question About Square Footage?

mact60

In looking at several of the posts on the board I see guys referring to painting jobs of 3300 Sq FT or whatever the size is. Do most of you guys figure based on the actual square footage of the house or do you measure room dimensions and ceiling ht. to get an actual surface sq footage. Example: a room is 10' x 10' with 10 ft ceilings. Actual surface area of the walls to be painted is 400 sq. ft. but the square footage as a portion of the house square footage is 100 Sq ft. I don't paint much anymore but have used both methods before and was wondering what is the usual standard used. Thanks

MGSProperties

SF of the house

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kenscar

I started a big-ol' thread about this very issue a few months ago. It's probably still on here somewhere and it's titled "What Does "Square Footage" Really Mean?"

kenscar

PS: And I STILL don't see how the F anyone could bid a job just looking at the footprint SF of a house.

Bill

I dont either. Vaulted ceiling, 9', 10' 12' 14' high walls who knows what else.
I want to see the inside of each room.

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Jerdog44

I measure by the total sf of drywall, then have #'s for each door, window, lin. feet of base, etc. You do all the math for a house to see your totals, then insert a value to charge for each that works for you based on difficulty, material cost, extra labor, etc. Add openings to the sq/ft due to the time it takes to work around them.

10x10x10=100sq/ft ceilings and 400 sq/ft walls

say for new construction at .20/coat at 3 coats each

ceilings=$60
walls=$240
Now add your trim,doors,etc.

These are just random prices. Then I will look at the job by how many weeks it should take then factor how much I need to make for a full week. So say I need $3000 to operate and a job will take 1.5 weeks. $4500. This is just a way to see if my sq/ft $ is in line with my needed income. Although the Floor sq/ft x 4 + 8% i saw here was ridiculously close to both of these methods. So I estimate it several ways then look for a trend in the numbers. Worth the time to try different methods. It tightens up one or another if your still learning to estimate, which after 5-6 years of doing it, I'm learning every day.

Danahy

Small note regarding SF pricing.

If I'm estimating a house, that I can't see, well it truely then become's just an estimate. Two questions I would ask if you want to figure out a rough wall footage to work with is 1. How high are the ceilings, and 2. How many rooms.

Say someone calls me, says I have a 1000 sq' bungalow, 8' ceilings, I ask how many rooms, he say's (2 bath, kitchen, living, laundry, 2 bedrooms, family room), that makes 8, and 1 to assume a hallway to connect them all at some point, making 9 rooms...

take 1000 sq' and divide by 9 rooms = 111.12 sq' per room (floor space)
this sounds tricky but u need to get the sqaure root of that number, just hit the button on ur nerdulator... you get 10.5 (ish). = length of 1 wall....

so... with that... find the wall space of that room which is 10.5 * 4 * 8 = 336 sq' of wall space.... Then times that by number of rooms which is 9 = 3024 sq' of wall space in the whole house... * ur rate.

I know someone's thinkin' the rooms are all different sizes!. If your doing the whole house, it doesn't matter... Do the same example giving each of the 9 rooms different sizes, in that 1000 sq' house, you'll get the same answer.

Once again... this is just an example of how to figure out "rough" wall space on a project "unseen". asking height, and number of rooms.

Danahy

part B of previous post, including trim, closets, ceilings...

same example of before...

ceiling would obviously be 1000 sq'

to include closets in your calculations, which would make it even more accurate, pretend they are rooms. so adding to the last example, let's say there's a coat closet, linen, and 1 in each bedroom... making 4.

4 plus the 9 you already have... repeat other calculation.

Baseboards painting (assume a standard size)... with the above calculation, let's get perimeter of entire house for baseboards.

1000' (floor space) divide by 13 rooms (or areas or enclosed spaces) = 76.9 floor space per area/room, hit the sq' root button you get = 8.8 feet per wall....

8.8 * 4 = 35.2 feet perimeter per area/room * 13 areas/rooms = 457.6 linear feet of trim on a house you have never seen...

(this does not minus out for doors / cabinets, but it's pretty darn close)

Danahy

Other useless info:

1. Ask yourself how much would labor be if you painted a 10 x 10 x 8 room, and for interest's sake, let's say $200 is your average number (walls only).
That's $200 for 40 feet of linear wall space, which is also $5 per linear foot of wall space.

Using the example from before to figure out baseboard linear footage in a house unseen, U can assume 457 linear feet * your $5 charge per linear foot. The house above (labour only, walls only), could be around $2285.

if a gallon of paint ($50) does a 10 x 10 x 8 room, then a gallon does 40 linear feet. which is also $1.25 a linear foot for paint. Take our 457 linear feet from above and * 1.25 = giving you about $571.25 plus tax for material to paint the 1000 sq' home (unseen).

Supplies? oh, let's say $25 per room in plastic / fill / sleeves. not counting the closets unless they're different colours then the original room. $25 * 9 = $175.

........ I personally prefer the "eye" method myself