# Figureing how long it takes to paint a square foot



## nwpaintingmn

I'm doing my first bid on a federally funded project, a big step in my 1.5 year old painting business..
Anyhow im trying to get an average time it takes to paint a square foot with 1 coat of primer or paint, so that i can figure in the total hours needed just for the wall work which is 9,200 square foot of wall space...
I am bidding off of plans making it a little hard because i dont want to under guestimate and put myself in the hole, or over estimate and not get the job

and this is cut and roll.... ceilings are tiled and i do not want to spend the extra time prepping all the unpainted surfaces for spraying 1 coat of primer, 2 coats of finnish


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## TJ Paint

*http://www.painttalk.com/f4/pricing-estimating-success-2779/*


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## nwpaintingmn

*...*

i know, what i want my profit to be, i know the cost of my materials, i know how much materials i will need, i know the prevailing wages needed to pay the help. they are fast and efficient workers,, im just trying to figure a formula for the average time it takes joe painter to paint 1 square foot of wall space with 1 coat of paint or primer, that post was pretty informative, though not what i particulally needed


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## TJ Paint

youre the only one that is gonna know your production rate. How would I know how fast your help is? How would I know what things are going to slow you down, hold you up, etc? Lol every job is different, every crew is different. I don't see how you expect someone besides you to answer this question.


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## nEighter

that and a foot painted on the ground is different from one painted 2 stories up on a ledge... :no:


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## TJ Paint

ok, you want an answer to plug in to your formula? Ok, it takes me about 5 seconds to roll a sq ft, but then sometimes longer on different surfaces. Other factors include (but are not limited to): relative humidity, whether or not we had enough coffee, what the ambient temp is, how high walls are (higher than 20ft my rate actually gets faster cuz that means I'm on a scissor lift and I just hold my roller on the wall and have a guy bring the lift down) , what type of product ( epoxy is icky to roll), if I ate my wheaties, if its monday, tues, friday. Wedsdays and thurs I always paint at 5 secs/sq ft.


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## nEighter

TJ Paint said:


> ok, you want an answer to plug in to your formula? Ok, it takes me about 5 seconds to roll a sq ft, but then sometimes longer on different surfaces. Other factors include (but are not limited to): relative humidity, *whether or not we had enough coffee*, what the ambient temp is, how high walls are (higher than 20ft my rate actually gets faster cuz that means I'm on a scissor lift and I just hold my roller on the wall and have a guy bring the lift down) , what type of product ( epoxy is icky to roll), if I ate my wheaties, if its monday, tues, friday. Wedsdays and thurs I always paint at 5 secs/sq ft.



OH OH!! THAT is a big one!


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## nwpaintingmn

*...*

thx for the input, im going to figure that it takes an average person 3 hours to paint a 10 x 10 room 8 ft ceiling cut and roll , though if it took me that long i'd find another profession lol, so ill calculate the square footage of that room and divide it by the 3 hours giving me 1.7 minutes per square foot for a cut and roll... its an average of course
so 9200 square feet would give me 260 hours per coat average of course, 3 coats at 782 hours?? is that pretty flawed or not?

eh it may be pretty flawed, because i come up with over 4months for 1 person to paint that amount of square footage, though that could be pretty accurate considering it looks like a full time winter gig for 3 people staining about 30 interior doors, window trim, and door frames as wellas all the interior walls and a few ceilings

at a rough first look it looks to be somewhere in the neighborhood of over 40k just in labor


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## daArch

nwpaintingmn,

My estimates are "based" on times per square foot for most tasks. But these time/sf figures are only guidelines which are then adjusted for the variables of the room. A small powder room which has proportionally more trim to cut in than a long unobstructed hallway, is going to have a slower production rate than that long hallway.

And then you have set up time, clean up time, and many other factors that affect the production time. Primer is going to take longer than the second finish coat. 

Now all that said, one of my BENCHMARKS of the past was 5 sq ft per minute which equates to .2 min per square foot. 

Again, this was just a point of reference which would be adjusted dependent on many variables.

The other day, I applied wallpaper prep on the walls of a 10.6 x 15 x 7.5 room. Wallprep takes quicker than paint. Cut in was around two windows, two doors, stained base board, and pop corn ceiling. One coat took a total time of 60 minutes. That included quickly blading the walls, stirring the material, and cleaning tools and tray. That works out to 6.25 sq ft per minute, which falls within reason on my decades old formula. A 6 x 6 powder room often takes 45 minutes because of the higher percent of trim and obstructions and the inability to move easily. 

Start keeping track of the time it takes you to complete tasks. Do it on every job for every task and pretty soon you will have enough figures to base estimates on.


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## daArch

nwpaintingmn said:


> it takes an average person 3 hours to paint a 10 x 10 room 8 ft ceiling cut and roll ,


Is that with lunch and a siesta included? :whistling2:

Yah, either you had better find another profession, or I had better get back into painting.


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## nwpaintingmn

*re*

Yes, that is what i was getting at, i know my times may be more or less than what i figured, because of how much trim or any trim to mask etc.
i know that each office will have 1 door, 1 window some of them will have bifold closet doors, all of wich need to be stained and clear-coated, the baseboard may or may not be on yet when walls are to be painted, more than likely they will be of the rubber variety seen in most office areas.. a few ceilings will get painting , like stairway to lower level etc. this is a huge job compared to any other that ive come across, so was kind of daunted by the amount of square wall footage was in the building.. i like to specialize in residential painting, but in this economy you have to take what you can get to get by on these days..so Large commercial, here i come.. it may be what i need to really have the business take off, or it could put me under.. hopefully the former


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## nwpaintingmn

*..*



daArch said:


> Is that with lunch and a siesta included? :whistling2:
> 
> Yah, either you had better find another profession, or I had better get back into painting.




lol like i said, if it took me that long i would find another line of work where i get paid by the hour


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## daArch

> of how much trim or any trim to mask


Mask? I thought you said brush and roll. Not blow and go.

(yah, age old discussion here on PT. Masking vs brush control)


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## nEighter

how is it you don't know?


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## WisePainter

nwpaintingmn said:


> I'm doing my first bid on a federally funded project, a big step in my 1.5 year old painting business..



Tell you what, give me the phone # and address to the site and I will take a peek at it and get back to you with some #'s.

or not.

*Love* the title to yer thread there bub.


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## Dave Mac

125 sq per ft hour roll and brush one coat, less if its new sheetrock, faster if its the second coat, I expect any professionl painter in the country to handle that production rate, my production rate should be very similar to anyone who is a professional, and using the same technique, funny how people act about this stuff. A year in half in the buisness you should have these rates figures out already imo


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## jack pauhl

A fast time is 1.5 hours for 9200 sq ft of wall space rolling only. Thats about 100 sq per minute.


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## PressurePros

Be careful to not cut your margins to the bone to land a contract. There has to be some margin of error. We have all shown up at a project, coffee in hand, workers bright eyed and enthusiastic and a simple unforeseen circumstance changes the entire day. Given the choice of losing a contract or dropping my pants with over confident production rates, i choose the former. Good luck on this bid, hope you land it.


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## nEighter

jack pauhl said:


> A fast time is 1.5 hours for 9200 sq ft of wall space rolling only. Thats about 100 sq per minute.


okay I have done the math. That is an 8' tall wall 1150' long. that is .217 miles long or almost a quarter mile long in 1.5 hour. I think your number is off there Jack.


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## RCP

nEighter said:


> okay I have done the math. That is an 8' tall wall 1150' long. that is .217 miles long or almost a quarter mile long in 1.5 hour. I think your number is off there Jack.


You have not seen the video?


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## nEighter

LOL I have heard of the legend.. but not seen it yet! Okay if an extra zero was added in there that is still and 8' tall wall 115' long... that MAAAAy be doable.... I think.. I am a bit tired.


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## plainpainter

PressurePros said:


> Be careful to not cut your margins to the bone to land a contract. There has to be some margin of error. We have all shown up at a project, coffee in hand, workers bright eyed and enthusiastic and a simple unforeseen circumstance changes the entire day. Given the choice of losing a contract or dropping my pants with over confident production rates, i choose the former. Good luck on this bid, hope you land it.


You are speaking to a *****'s world, Ken, dropping their shorts is just routine. Only a recovery in jobs is going to sequester enough guys out of the trades in order to make painting profitable again.


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## StefanC

nwpaintingmn said:


> thx for the input, im going to figure that it takes an average person 3 hours to paint a 10 x 10 room 8 ft ceiling cut and roll , though if it took me that long i'd find another profession lol, so ill calculate the square footage of that room and divide it by the 3 hours giving me 1.7 minutes per square foot for a cut and roll... its an average of course
> so 9200 square feet would give me 260 hours per coat average of course, 3 coats at 782 hours?? is that pretty flawed or not?
> 
> eh it may be pretty flawed, because i come up with over 4months for 1 person to paint that amount of square footage, though that could be pretty accurate considering it looks like a full time winter gig for 3 people staining about 30 interior doors, window trim, and door frames as wellas all the interior walls and a few ceilings
> 
> at a rough first look it looks to be somewhere in the neighborhood of over 40k just in labor


That sounds like your price is off by a huge margin.

Staining and sealing trim and doors goes very quickly. And cutting and rolling commercial walls prior to trim (and drop ceiling until the last coat of finish) being installed should go fast also. 

Don't go lower if you don't think you can do it faster though, the last thing you want is to get put out of business because of one job .


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## TJ Paint

losing money on a job... don't sound too cool..

Might as well work at Taco Bell, at least you come out ahead...


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## painterdude

back when I was doing some work at the local college there was a book rate that they had to pay per sq. foot at different heights. It was back over 20 years ago and it paid well even if you were slow. I made way more than their figures, perhaps someone can put you in contact with one of those bidding books. All of us old timers have our own methods of bidding. I've always just looked, counted time, materials, obsticals etc....how much each day or week profit. I've seen bidders come out after my bid on a house with a tape measure bidding sq. feet on a 2 or 3 story house. Maybe that works, I don't know. Be carefull after a year and a half and watch out for the retainage, do they allow backcharges for other trades messing up your stuff......commercial stuff is another animal on a large scale. gl, pd


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## playedout6

Myself and 2 other guys once rolled and cut a huge high school gym block/brick wall in 6 hours using 19 gallons of oil . We told the property manager at the time we could do it in a day and he told us he would eat his hat if we did . Well we did it but he did not eat his hat . 

The moral of this story is...we were not worth Sh*t the next day because we were wore out . Keep in mind that when pricing you should try to use an average of some of your jobs so that you know what your crew is capable of . Also you must remember that some General Contractors that you are coming behind...can make or break you if you are priced too low because they will not give a crap about your schedule but rather only theirs . I have been on both sides of that situation and now I only do it at an hourly rate for certain contractors . 

If you do a good job...do not be scared to charge accordingly for your services .


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## Metro M & L

Measuring square footage and production rates is all fine and good. The one thing that comes to my mind is how many actual rooms are you painting? 

is it one gigantic room or thirty rooms of similar size (30 doors?).

I would approach this on a room by room basis. If one room is 200 extra feet of wall it's not going to vary much from one a little smaller. Setting up in the work space is what takes the time. Once you nail that down (assuming the other trades got their ducks in a row, which they probaly won't) and the process and order of the work you can do the same job thirty times instead of figuring out how to do one gigantic job in a haphazard here and there manner. After one or two runs through the cycle your crew will have it down and knock it out. 

It does not sound near four months of labor to me. I think I could do it myself in a month. Week for doors and trim. Week per coat on walls. But then this is government work and there will be delays, safety meetings, required breaks, etc.


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## SterlingPainting

Meh, I don't know if people will like this, but I have no problem posting my prices for all to see, because it helps establish an industry standard, and that benefits us all. I find square footage is the most efficient way to bid jobs. that and its usually what builders want, so that there is no guesswork. plus if you establish a squarefootage price with a client, theres no squirming room on the price for the next job. it just is what it is, period.

(walls only @ 8/9 ft cielings)
New Construction $2/sqft
Repaint (with zero furniture to move, patching, etc.) $1.50/sqft

Baseboards $1/linear ft
Door/window trims $1.50 linear ft
Crowns $2/linear ft
Interior standard doors $50 each
ceilings smooth 50cents/sqft
ceilings textured 80cents/sqft

I having been using these prices and never once didn't do ok on a job.
An average new construction 1200 sqft duplex with doors and trim comes
out to around $3200 and with materials averaging about $400 I make 2800
profit in about 4 days with 2 guys.:yes:


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## NEPS.US

-Measure out a square foot (tape a box if you like)
-Get a stop watch
-Hit start button
-Paint the box
-Hit stop button
-Get a dictionary and learn how to spelz a thread title


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## vermontpainter

Most important part of sf painting is to remember that not all sf are created equal.


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## NEPS.US

And sq ft's on the floor are only good for flooring contractors


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## vermontpainter

NEPS.US said:


> And sq ft's on the floor are only good for flooring contractors


Yah thanks. Tomorrow mornings headline on the forum, post #1 will be:

Is Ceiling Sqware Footige the same as floor?


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## ewingpainting.net

NEPS.US said:


> And sq ft's on the floor are only good for flooring contractors


But the walls stand on the floor


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## vermontpainter

ewingpainting.net said:


> But the walls stand on the floor


What about those walls that arent verticle, those ****** ones that go up into the ceiling? Would those be walls or ceiling? :blink:


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## NEPS.US

waeiling sq/ft


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## vermontpainter

NEPS.US said:


> waeiling sq/ft


Please, someone might believe you. :no:


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## nEighter

ewingpainting.net said:


> But the walls stand on the floor


X2!!!!



vermontpainter said:


> What about those walls that arent verticle, those ****** ones that go up into the ceiling? Would those be walls or ceiling? :blink:


Xeleventeen bazillion!!!! :laughing:


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## SterlingPainting

NEPS.US said:


> waeiling sq/ft


yep and bulkheads above walls are called balls.


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## DPaint

I can tell you that the recent competitive bids I have seen for commercial work are between $0.50-0.60 a foot, excluding doors and frames. Oh, and those are prevailing wage jobs. Pretty tough to make money at those prices...


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## aaron61

SterlingPainting said:


> Meh, I don't know if people will like this, but I have no problem posting my prices for all to see, because it helps establish an industry standard, and that benefits us all. I find square footage is the most efficient way to bid jobs. that and its usually what builders want, so that there is no guesswork. plus if you establish a squarefootage price with a client, theres no squirming room on the price for the next job. it just is what it is, period.
> 
> (walls only @ 8/9 ft cielings)
> New Construction $2/sqft
> Repaint (with zero furniture to move, patching, etc.) $1.50/sqft
> 
> Baseboards $1/linear ft
> Door/window trims $1.50 linear ft
> Crowns $2/linear ft
> Interior standard doors $50 each
> ceilings smooth 50cents/sqft
> ceilings textured 80cents/sqft
> 
> I having been using these prices and never once didn't do ok on a job.
> An average new construction 1200 sqft duplex with doors and trim comes
> out to around $3200 and with materials averaging about $400 I make 2800
> profit in about 4 days with 2 guys.:yes:


Dude,that's not profit?????????????????


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## aaron61

according to PDCA Cost & Estimating guide: "Average" for smooth drywall roll 350sqft. of painted surface per hour.Not to be confused with floor space. "god I hate those floor space guys"


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## vermontpainter

Aaron

Why wouldnt his $2800 be profit? Its money that came in? :blink:


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## NEPS.US

aaron61 said:


> Dude,that's not profit?????????????????


And JNLP thanked him for that useful post. :thumbup:


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## aaron61

vermontpainter said:


> Aaron
> 
> Why wouldnt his $2800 be profit? Its money that came in? :blink:


Are you being sarcastic??


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## patti

*One man's profit is another man's cost*



vermontpainter said:


> Aaron
> 
> Why wouldnt his $2800 be profit? Its money that came in? :blink:


Profit is what's left after all expenditure has been deducted, including all overhead like rent and vehicle costs that get spread over the year. 

It would be interesting to carry out a survey of what people take into account when calculating how much money they make on a job.

No wonder there's so much underpricing going on in this sector.


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## NEPS.US

patti said:


> Profit is what's left after all expenditure has been deducted, including all overhead like rent and vehicle costs that get spread over the year.
> 
> It would be interesting to carry out a survey of what people take into account when calculating how much money they make on a job.
> 
> No wonder there's so much underpricing going on in this sector.


Patti,
VP could seriously use some help in this area. Just last month he told me he won the bid for a new Foot Locker and never even looked at the prints. He gave them to his foreman to price and he spilt spagetti sauce and beer all over them. He said he took the floor sq/ftage and multiplied it by how many meatballs fell on the door schedule. I asked "what about your over head" and he said " A drop ceiling ". Poor kid needs help.


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## aaron61

NEPS.US said:


> Patti,
> VP could seriously use some help in this area. Just last month he told me he won the bid for a new Foot Locker and never even looked at the prints. He gave them to his foreman to price and he spilt spagetti sauce and beer all over them. He said he took the floor sq/ftage and multiplied it by how many meatballs fell on the door schedule. I asked "what about your over head" and he said " A drop ceiling ". Poor kid needs help.


SWEET!!!!!:notworthy:


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## Workaholic

NEPS.US said:


> And JNLP thanked him for that useful post. :thumbup:


Damn you for making me find the post in question.


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## vermontpainter

NEPS.US said:


> Patti,
> I asked "what about your over head" and he said " A drop ceiling ". Poor kid needs help.


I had scope of work on my mind. I wasnt counting beans like you always are.


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## daArch

I don't get it, if the ceiling dropped, how can it be called overhead?


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## aaron61

vermontpainter said:


> I had scope of work on my mind. I wasnt counting beans like you always are.


It's not beans my good man, it's meat balls:thumbsup:


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## br1dge

daArch said:


> nwpaintingmn,
> 
> My estimates are "based" on times per square foot for most tasks. But these time/sf figures are only guidelines which are then adjusted for the variables of the room. A small powder room which has proportionally more trim to cut in than a long unobstructed hallway, is going to have a slower production rate than that long hallway.
> 
> And then you have set up time, clean up time, and many other factors that affect the production time. Primer is going to take longer than the second finish coat.
> 
> Now all that said, one of my BENCHMARKS of the past was 5 sq ft per minute which equates to .2 min per square foot.
> 
> Again, this was just a point of reference which would be adjusted dependent on many variables.
> 
> The other day, I applied wallpaper prep on the walls of a 10.6 x 15 x 7.5 room. Wallprep takes quicker than paint. Cut in was around two windows, two doors, stained base board, and pop corn ceiling. One coat took a total time of 60 minutes. That included quickly blading the walls, stirring the material, and cleaning tools and tray. That works out to 6.25 sq ft per minute, which falls within reason on my decades old formula. A 6 x 6 powder room often takes 45 minutes because of the higher percent of trim and obstructions and the inability to move easily.
> 
> Start keeping track of the time it takes you to complete tasks. Do it on every job for every task and pretty soon you will have enough figures to base estimates on.


375 sq ft per hour?


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## SterlingPainting

patti said:


> Profit is what's left after all expenditure has been deducted, including all overhead like rent and vehicle costs that get spread over the year.
> 
> It would be interesting to carry out a survey of what people take into account when calculating how much money they make on a job.
> 
> No wonder there's so much underpricing going on in this sector.



Aha, but if I remember from accounting in college there's Net Profit and "gross" profit. $2800 is "gross" profit. And if I can't make money at those numbers I may as well close my doors, cuz I never will.


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