Price For Sqft, And What Region You Live In

lornmastro

Do you price kitchens and baths differently due to the amount of time it takes to cut around cabinets, tiles, ect??

Workaholic

For me what i listed was all new construction. everything gets done before cabinets.
When i do a repaint i charge by the job, and yes you add all that into consideration when you give the bid.

__________________
Sean

lornmastro

trying to figure out a system to help me with my estimates, i've been doing mostly eyeball estimates..so if you don't mind... when you bid for repaints do you charge by the sq ft & linear ft or do you just eyeball it?? and if you charge by the sq ft does your wall square ft. price change for bathroom repaint and then another price per sq ft for kitchen repaints??

Workaholic

Alot of guys in here have repaints broke down to lft of trim, wall footage, and ceiling footage. When i give a bid on repaints i eyeball it by taking into acount how much trim, what shape the trim is in, and over all how much work the job intails. Every repaint is different.
read through this thread again Brush Slinger breaks his down pretty good, you can go off that.

__________________
Sean

Brushslingers

Ya I price new and repaints and commercial differently, and add dificulty... anything over 8 feet is additional, etc. It all breaks down to most peoples "per day per job" pricing cept... I know what I make to the penny every time. I was never good at the whole "will take one day" aspect. Course, I learned from blueprints.

__________________
Benn

Workaholic

Yeah i basically go the same route, except the blue print lol.. i estimate by the time, the amount of work, plus material & labor .
By the way i have not gotten to look at that pullsheet you sent me. my ms office has wigged. I will let you know when i do.

__________________
Sean

lmcgrew79

I think i left a nice breakdown in another post a few months back about charging per sq ft and the amount of rooms a home has. Your not painting only the floors or ceilings so why use the floor sq ft pricing? If you was painting the exterior of a home, would you use the floor sq ft? Of course not you would figure the surface area that you would be painting so why in the world used the floor sq ft to paint the interior of the walls?

Brushslingers

Cause some builders want it that way. I price repaints and my own jobs, etc per wall footage. Builders however, have banks breathing down thier necks and have to stay within thier own budgets, which are normally priced per square footprint.

__________________
Benn

farrellpainting

ive never worked for a builder,but i have a hard time grasping the $/sqft thing.i understand its easier for the builder, and you could make out on it on some jobs,but what if the drywall guys sucked and you have to clean up their work and other PITA stuff?do you give change orders or just eat it???

Workaholic

lol all new construction goes by the sqft, i even met a builder who subtacted the width of the brick.

__________________
Sean

boman47k

I was just rereading this post. Another consideration, of course, is how cut up the house might be when pricing by floor footage. More rooms = more walls = more footage, paint, time, etc..

Brushslingers

Exactly Boman, and is why we have a breakdown of tract homes vs high end.. the high end gets a better rate, but includes more work. Where I may do a small tract new for 1.65, I can also do a high end new for 5.25.

__________________
Benn

Workaholic

Well Boman those 1.65 houses are pretty much the same, only so many different floor plans. You get used to them, dejavu. One of our builders just told us a few weeks ago that he was going to build another 100 of these homes. The houses are a piece of cake all we have to do is put the icing on them.

__________________
Sean

boman47k

Heheh, I know you pretty well know what to expect, Sean. That statement was for the less experienced trying to get a handle on pricing. I was just kind of surprise that it was not mentioned. I'd hate for someone to price a 1600 sg house and it have 30 rooms.

Workaholic

You are right about that, a floor plan like that would be on the other end of the scale. I was'nt speaking for me, i was just saying in general after you do a few you will see similar popular floor plans. The originality factor for new construction is pretty low. If i was building houses ( which is something i think about doing) i would put some character to it. Like instead of the same old plastic fogged bathroom window i would put a some stained glass in or what ever something that people fall for.
Edit: in all reality i do not even bid a house the builder gets it ready and after we start if there is something unusual we are asked how much we are going to charge. If it is in the usual catagory we are not even asked, just turn in a bill.

__________________
Sean

boman47k

Sounds like a nice groove to be in.

premierpainter

Last year we painted 25 houses all above 5000 sq ft. One house is 18,000 sq ft. NEVER did I bid on the floor sq. ft of ANY house we did. Does the quality go up in these houses that you are painting, because I can't understand why your price scale has such a swing based on sq ft. What happens when your scale falls short by 100 ft and you can't raise your prices up to your next level because of that? I am sorry, but it makes no sense to me at all. The 18k house we did would amount to about $12 buck a sq ft in your case. I think I would have been laughed all the way back to the loony barn had I bidded it that way. Know your costs, production rates, overhead and needed profit, then compile your bid.

Workaholic

LoL why do you seem worked up over my payscale.
Of course a 18k sqft home would have to be bidded diferently.

__________________
Sean

Dorman Painting

I work in the Louisville Kentucky and Southern Indiana area. Around here I've worked anywhere from 1.20-2.25 per square foot. If I'm down around the buck twenty-twenty five range you better believe the builders buying the paint.

My best friend from high school recently built a five hundred thousand dollar home. For around here that's BIG time jack, I know down on the panhandle and out on the East Coast it's nothing. But his house is HEAVY on trim, eight foot doors, tall base, three piece crown setups, bookcases, a full custom built entertainment center, and many more extras I can't recall. His house is an upper crust/designer type home and it's 2700 square feet. His painter charged him 14,800.00 which comes out to 5.48/sq.ft. This house had 7-8 different wall colors and all the ceilings were typically painted two shades lighter than the wall color in each room. I was going to paint this house but my friend said his builder had his own painter. The house looks fantastic with the high gloss trim and eggshell walls. But with three-four guys working three to four full weeks and the material costs, I'm not sure the money is there in the end. To me, painting a new house like that would definitely make me proud of my work but having pride doesn't pay the bills.

I try and stick with repaints where I get done sooner and get my money much quicker. With repaints there's usually no going back and touching up handprints from the plumber or electrician. That means alot when you're under a tight time frame too. I've got two new houses coming up in May and the builder wants high gloss on trim and eggshell on walls. The houses will be around 2600 square foot with lots of bells and whistles, I'm thinking of being around 2.75-3.00 per foot. Even at that price I really don't know if I'll come out where I need to be though.

Workaholic

For the high gloss are you going to be using oil?
Me and my partner for that size of sqft and extensive trim we should of been out that house in 8-9 days,
We also would of charged a 150 dollars a color change after 3.
With extensive trim in a 2700 sqft would of been at 3.00- 3.25 a ft
The trick with new construction is production, you have to be able to blend production with quality. And yes touch ups can be a pain, if people like flooring guys are doing you wrong you must back charge them a time or two and they will start to be more careful.

__________________
Sean