Paint contractors often make two important errors in relation to how to estimate painting jobs. Both of these are efforts at a short-cut, and neither will be profitable over the long term.

One mistake is to fret about the “going rate”-what others charge. To get directly to the point: Your bidding should the pricing of other contractors. Their pricing has no impact on what your price ought to be-your production rates, your expenses, and your monetary objectives are all that matter.

If other painting companies are willing to labor for less than you want to make, will that mean that you should? If your competition is clueless in regard to estimating and the price they should charge, does that mean that you ought to go along with their lead? If other painting companies are gradually going bankrupt, do you truly want to emulate them? If your reply is no, then what difference does it make what they charge?

Undoubtedly your competition has an influence on your business. If another company offers comparable service and value for half the price, the customer will probably go with the lesser price. But it is very doubtful-if not unfeasible-for a business to provide superior value at cut-rate prices.

The price you must charge for a particular project should include the following: labor costs, paint and sundry expenses, indirect costs (overhead), and profit. Every one of these can vary widely from business to business. To be anxious regarding what others are charging is to overlook these facts.

A second mistake, which is very similar to the first, is to estimate by the square foot. On the surface, this may seem plausible. Nevertheless, the square foot concerned is on the floor, rather than a paintable surface.

This form of bidding is common in new construction. It provides an easy (and I might add, lazy) approach to bid. I say this since the size of the floor has zero to do with what is being painted.

Think about the following illustration: A room that is 20’ x 20’ with an 8’ ceiling has 400 square feet of floor space. The wall area is 640 square feet. There could be 80 linear feet of baseboards and 80 feet of crown moulding. If that room were divided into 4 equal size rooms of 10’ x 10’, the wall area would double to 1,280 square feet. Similarly, baseboards and crown moulding could also double.

Regardless what you charge per square foot, the previous illustration demonstrates that the floor has hardly influence on the real work. But if you estimate according to the floor area, your price will not precisely reflect the real work to be performed.

Pricing paint projects isn’t heart surgery. But it shouldn’t be done with blind guesses, tarot cards, or Dart boards either. Numerous aspects must to be considered when pricing a job. But the size of the floor isn’t one of them.

You might think, “But everybody does it this way. Surely it isn’t that awful.” First, everyone doesn’t do it this way. Second, 90% of the painting contractors beginning business this year won’t be around in 5 years. So if you want to do it similar to everyone else, you are probably going to end up like everybody else-burned out, disillusioned, and bankrupt.

It is never too belated to learn proper estimating practices. And if you are just starting a painting business, now is the moment to study how to estimate paint jobs.

Painting contractors know that they have to use the right tools for the job. A 2″ sash brush is not an effective tool for painting a cathedral ceiling. The same applies to estimating. Using the right tools can make the job much easier and effective.

One of the best tools that I regularly use is a measuring wheel. This device allows me to quickly and accurately measure both interior and exterior surfaces. I have recently begun using an ultrasonic device for interior estimates. I have found the ultrasonic device a little difficult to use for exteriors, as the device needs a solid surface for the ultrasonic wave to reflect from, and these are not always conveniently located on the outside of a house.

A third device that I use regularly is a moisture meter. This is an invaluable tool when moisture problems are suspected, as well as for testing substrates during the job. Images of these devices can be found below, along with links to the products on Amazon.com.

A widespread error by painting contractors when estimating paint jobs is to use the wrong production rates. Given that many contractors have extensive experience painting, they incorrectly assume that the craftsmen they employ must produce at the similar rate. But this is seldom, if ever, the situation.

Although you certainly do not desire craftsmen who take far too long to prepare and paint a surface, you should also supply them with a realistic amount of time to carry out their work. This may be figured by talking to your painters, timing them, and utilizing bidding manuals.

Production “shrinkage” is a second cause of erroneous production rates. Many things take place throughout the course of the day that do not directly play a part in preparing and painting a substrate. Activities like getting a drink, going to the bathroom, walking to the van to get supplies, etc. All of these activities take time, and during a typical day the time can be significant. It is usually accepted that a painter will just have 6.5 productive hours in an 8-hour day (or 18.75% of the day).

If such actions are not correctly calculated into the production rates they usually negatively impact your profitability. After all, the painter has to still be paid for the full day.

The easiest way to account for shrinkage is to modify production rates. Assume that it takes 30 minutes to prepare and paint a window. But you understand that 18.75% of the painter’s time on the job site is not used in actual production. If you boost your time for preparing and painting that surface by 18.75%, or 5.6 minutes, you have adjusted for the shrinkage.

If you utilized your “standard” rate of 30 minutes, you could expect the painter to paint 16 items of the surface per day. With the modified time of 35.6 minutes, you now require him to prep and paint 13.5 items per day.

To look at this another way, if your hourly rate is $40, you would be charging $20 per door at your “typical” production rate of 30 minutes per piece. You would count on income of $320 per day. However, the painter would actually just paint 13.5 items per day and produce $270 in income, or $50 less than anticipated. This can grow to be a significant sum of money over the course of year when numerous painters are involved.

These principles are equally accurate whether you utilize subcontractors or have employees. How you pay your production people is unrelated to this concern. In other words, a painter will have about 6.5 productive hours a day regardless of whether he is a sub or an employee. Accounting for this in your production rates is an important component of setting up accurate rates.

Absent correct production rates, accurate and profitable bidding is virtually hopeless. And to get accurate production rates, you must have realistic expectations of your employees, as well as consider all of the factors that influence those rates.