Exterior painting cost dataset

The substrate, which decides both halves

⚠️ Both columns are declared estimates, and they pull the same way, which is why the same house ranges from $5,210 to $7,380 — 42% — on nothing but what the walls are made of. Texture is not a finish, it is real surface: a rough wall has more area than its measured area. Preparation is not one job either: washing vinyl and scraping failing paint off old timber differ by a factor of three in hours per square foot. A price per square foot that does not name the substrate is not a price.

Footprint, storeys and wall area

The footprint is the floor area divided by the storeys. Its perimeter is taken as four times the square root of the footprint plus a declared 8% for the fact that houses are not squares, and the wall height is 9.5 feet per storey plus a further 8% for gables. Openings for windows and two exterior doors are then subtracted. A 1,000 square foot footprint gives 137 feet around the house.

The third row and the second are the same house stacked differently, and the difference is not the equipment alone: a taller box has more envelope around the same volume, so there is genuinely more wall. Across one, two and three storeys at the reference size this dataset gives $4,431, $6,663 and $9,372 — 50% and 112% above a single storey.

Six feet, and the access line

29 CFR 1926.501(b)(13): Each employee engaged in residential construction activities 6 feet (1.8 m) or more above lower levels shall be protected by guardrail systems, safety net system, or personal fall arrest system. The threshold is 6 feet, which a single-storey house already reaches at the eaves, so access equipment and fall protection are a line on every job in this dataset rather than an extra for tall houses. It is priced in three bands by number of storeys — ladders and planks, then jacks and staged scaffold, then erected scaffold — plus a separate labour line of four, ten or eighteen hours for putting it up, moving it elevation by elevation and taking it down. ⚠️ That labour is the part people do not picture: scaffolding does not go up once, and every move is time nobody is painting.

Condition, grade and the pre-1978 case

Outside, the federal lead threshold is twenty square feet of disturbed paint rather than six, and a repaint passes it on the first elevation — Minor repair and maintenance activities are activities … that disrupt 6 square feet or less of painted surface per room for interior activities or 20 square feet or less of painted surface for exterior activities. Scraping a pre-1978 exterior is the highest-exposure work in domestic painting, which is why this dataset carries a declared 35% uplift on hours plus a containment line: ⚠️ that percentage is our estimate, because no official source states what certification and containment add. What is not estimated is that the work falls inside the programme.

Line items

41% of the reference total comes from estimated rather than official figures. The reference house is 2,000 square feet over 2 storeys with wood siding: 2,559 square feet of wall, 3,199 of effective surface once texture is counted, 17.1 gallons at 350–400 square feet per gallon per coat worked at 375, and 83.5 trade hours.

The reasoning behind each figure

Exterior paint — mid range exterior acrylicestimated, ±24%

• Ordinary exterior acrylic, which is what most houses get.
• Two coats over the effective surface — the measured wall area multiplied by the texture factor of its substrate.
• ⚠️ That factor is the point of this page. A gallon covers 350 to 400 square feet of smooth sealed surface, which is printed on the tin; over rough stucco the real surface is far larger than the measured one, and the same wall takes around three quarters more paint.
• Gallons are the one quantity here you can verify after the fact. Count the empty tins.

Exterior paint — premium exterior acrylicestimated, ±23%

• Premium exterior acrylic: more pigment and a better resin, which outdoors buys years rather than looks.
• The strongest case for premium paint anywhere on this site, because the cost of the next repaint is mostly labour and postponing it is worth more than the tin.
• Two coats over the effective surface — the measured wall area multiplied by the texture factor of its substrate.
• ⚠️ That factor is the point of this page. A gallon covers 350 to 400 square feet of smooth sealed surface, which is printed on the tin; over rough stucco the real surface is far larger than the measured one, and the same wall takes around three quarters more paint.
• Gallons are the one quantity here you can verify after the fact. Count the empty tins.

Primer and knot sealerestimated, ±37%

• Spot priming on a sound wall, a full coat where the paint has failed or the substrate is bare. Masonry primer on brick, which is a different and dearer product.
• Scaled by the condition of the walls: about a quarter of the surface on a sound house and most of it on a poor one.

Caulk, filler, masking and abrasivesestimated, ±56%

• Exterior-grade caulk for every joint, filler, sheeting to protect planting and paths, tape and abrasives.
• More of it than an interior job uses, because everything outdoors has a joint that moves and a neighbouring surface that must not be painted.

Washing down the exterior

• About 0.0016 hours per square foot of wall: chalked paint, dirt, pollen and any mildew washed off, then left to dry.
• Not optional and not a nicety. Paint does not bond to chalk, and a job that skips this looks fine for a year and then peels in sheets.

Scraping, sanding, caulking and priming

• Hours per square foot come from the substrate — from 0.0035 on vinyl to 0.011 on wood siding, a three-fold spread — and are then scaled by the condition of the paint.
• ⚠️ On wood in poor condition this single line is the largest item on the whole page, larger than the paint and nearly twice the hours of applying it. It is also the first thing a cheap quote removes.
• Increased by 35% in a pre-1978 house: the federal lead programme means containment sheeting, no open-flame or high-heat stripping, tools with dust extraction and cleaning verification at the end.

Applying two coats

• About 0.0045 hours per square foot of effective surface per coat, two coats. Textured substrates take longer as well as taking more paint, which is why the texture factor is applied here too.
• Assumes spraying with back-rolling where the substrate allows it and brush and roller where it does not.

Trim, fascia, soffits and window casings

• About 0.03 hours per linear foot of eaves plus 0.6 hours per window, brushed, two coats. Trim paint itself is included in the paint line.
• Fascia and soffits are worked entirely overhead and at height, so they are slower per foot than any wall on the house.

Access equipment and fall protection — 1 storeyestimated, ±59%

• Ladders, stand-offs and planks, plus the fall arrest kit the eaves already require.
• ⚠️ 29 CFR 1926.501(b)(13) requires fall protection in residential construction at 6 feet or more above lower levels. Six feet — a single-storey house already reaches it at the eaves, so there is no version of this job that has no equipment in it.
• This is the honest answer to why two storeys does not cost twice one storey. It costs more per square foot: the equipment changes, it has to be erected and moved elevation by elevation, and the whole job runs slower once it is up.

Access equipment and fall protection — 2 storeysestimated, ±52%

• Ladder jacks or pump jacks on the long elevations, staged scaffold where the ground allows it, and fall arrest throughout.
• ⚠️ 29 CFR 1926.501(b)(13) requires fall protection in residential construction at 6 feet or more above lower levels. Six feet — a single-storey house already reaches it at the eaves, so there is no version of this job that has no equipment in it.
• This is the honest answer to why two storeys does not cost twice one storey. It costs more per square foot: the equipment changes, it has to be erected and moved elevation by elevation, and the whole job runs slower once it is up.

Access equipment and fall protection — 3 storeysestimated, ±45%

• Erected scaffold on most elevations, because three storeys is past what jacks and ladders do safely.
• The top of this band is a house on a slope, where nothing stands level and every elevation is a different problem.
• ⚠️ 29 CFR 1926.501(b)(13) requires fall protection in residential construction at 6 feet or more above lower levels. Six feet — a single-storey house already reaches it at the eaves, so there is no version of this job that has no equipment in it.
• This is the honest answer to why two storeys does not cost twice one storey. It costs more per square foot: the equipment changes, it has to be erected and moved elevation by elevation, and the whole job runs slower once it is up.

Erecting, moving and striking access equipment

• Four hours on a single storey, ten on two, eighteen on three. Scaffolding does not go up once: it is moved elevation by elevation, and each move is time nobody is painting.

Lead-safe containment and cleaning verificationestimated, ±55%

• Ground sheeting held down around the whole perimeter, HEPA vacuum consumables, and verification wipes at the end.
• ⚠️ Outdoors the federal threshold is twenty square feet of disturbed paint rather than six, and a repaint passes it on the first elevation. Scraping a pre-1978 exterior is the single highest-exposure job in domestic painting, which is why it has to be done by a certified firm.
• Dearer outside than inside because the containment area is the whole footprint of the house plus a margin, and it has to survive weather.

Not included in this dataset

Replacing rotten timber

Scraping a wall reveals rot that nobody could see while quoting. It is a carpentry repair with its own price, and any quote that does not name what happens when rot turns up is not finished.

Roofs, gutters and downpipes

Painted or not, they are a separate trade and a separate decision. Gutter replacement has its own page here.

Decks and fences

Horizontal surfaces walked on and weathered from above wear differently and take a different product. Priced on the deck page rather than as part of the walls.

Removing paint from brick

The reason the brick warning on this page exists. Blasting or chemically stripping a masonry elevation is a specialist restoration job and it is far dearer than the painting that made it necessary.

Lead testing or abatement

The containment priced here is what a certified firm does while renovating. Testing for lead, and abatement — permanently removing it — are separate services.

Stucco or masonry repair

Filling hairline cracks before painting is preparation and is priced. Failed stucco, spalling brick or repointing are structural repairs that come first.