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Originally Posted On: https://5estimates.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-hire-a-painting-contractor/
Did you know that house paint lasts about 10 years before you’ll need to apply another coat of paint? However, you might need to repaint your home even sooner if the paint starts to show signs of wear. While you can technically paint your home by yourself, it can take a lot of time and effort that you might not want to bother with.
That’s why hiring a professional painting contractor is such a good idea. You won’t have to stress yourself out by setting aside enough time to paint your home. However, how much does it cost to hire a painter in the first place?
The answer depends on a variety of factors such as your location, the type of professional painter that you hire, and other aspects. Keep reading to learn more about the painting labor cost and what factors can influence it.
Choosing the Right Professional Painter
The painting contractor’s hourly rate, on average, tends to range between $20 and $70 per hour. This might seem like a large range to consider. What would make one contractor’s services so much cheaper than another’s?
The price usually has to do with how professional the painter is. Many people make the mistake of choosing the cheapest painter they can find on the internet. This is almost always a bad idea for a variety of reasons.
While a given paint contractor might be affordable, the services that he offers may not be very professional or high-quality. For example, you might think that you’re saving a lot of money by hiring a house painter who only charges $20 per hour. However, by the time the job is done, you’ll find that the paint job has a variety of defects.
The paint might be lumpy, the paint job might be uneven, there might be paint drips on the floor or on the trim, and so on. If this is the case, you’ll likely have to get the job redone anyway which will cost you even more money.
Bad Painting Contractors
At the end of the day, you wouldn’t really be saving any money at all by hiring a more affordable paint contractor.
Of course, this isn’t always the case. There are some affordable contractors that do provide high-quality services, but this is not a certainty. If the price of a contractor’s services seems too good to be true, they probably are.
Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you should opt for the services of the most expensive painter in your area either. Instead, you should opt for a painter who has relatively average pricing per hour or per day. Of course, checking reviews online will also help you find a reliable painter.
Whatever the case, the cheapest painter is usually not the best one, especially if you want a perfect paint job.
The Size of Your House
The size of your house has a lot to do with how much you’re going to end up spending when hiring a professional painting contractor. The larger your house is, the more you’re going to need to spend. For that reason, if your house is quite large and has a lot of rooms, you will want to make sure that you have saved up and have a large enough budget for the job.
Certain rooms may also be more expensive to paint than others. That’s because certain rooms tend to be larger than others. For example, most painters charge between $300 and $500 to paint a bathroom.
This is quite an affordable price and it is on the lower side because most bathrooms are relatively small and easy to paint. On the other hand, a bedroom will cost between $800 and $1,200. This is because bedrooms are quite a lot larger than bathrooms.
They also may be more complicated to paint depending on what kind of decor and structure they have.
Paint Job Pricing Details
Very large rooms such as living rooms can cost up to $3,000 to paint. Keep in mind that the price of hiring a professional painter does not only include the price of labor but the price of the paint itself as well.
A large room like the living room will take a lot of paint to cover. It will also take a lot of time and effort to paint. This is especially true if the ceilings are higher than average since it will take even more time to finish the job.
If you are hiring painters to paint the exterior of your house, the size is still important. If your house has two stories, the price of hiring painters will likely be double. This is because it will take twice as long to paint your house and the painters will need ladders and other equipment to reach the higher locations.
The Type of Paint You Choose
As mentioned before, the price you pay for hiring professionals not only covers the cost of labor but the cost of the paint as well. Many people think that they can save plenty of money by opting for the cheapest paint available, but this is often not true. Instead, you might actually end up spending more than you wanted to by buying cheap paint.
How might that be, you ask? Cheap paint, in general, tends to not be of very good quality. Cheap paint tends to be thinner than more expensive paint. More than that, it might not dry well and the result may be a lumpy or uneven paint job.
The Details
With cheap paint, more often than not, you will have the problem of the paint not being able to cover the paint that is already on your walls. This is especially true if the paint already on your walls is bold in color such as red, green, or blue. If this is the case, you will find that once your hired painters use one coat of this paint, the original paint will show right through.
This means that your painters will need to put two coats of paint or even more on your walls to make sure that the original paint job is completely covered. If you are having several rooms or your entire house painted, you can imagine that this will take a lot of time and effort to complete.
Because repainting the walls with so many coats of cheap paint will take so much time, the painters will need to work more hours and, as a result, you will need to pay more money. While you thought you were saving money by buying cheap paint, you were actually setting yourself up to spend more money than you were bargaining for.
Don’t Forget the Prep Work
More often than not, your painters won’t be able to immediately start painting your house. Instead, they will need to do some prep work first to make sure that there is a good foundation to put down the paint. For example, if there are holes or cracks in your walls, these problems will need to be dealt with before the painters start painting.
Prep work will cost you a bit extra in addition to what you’re paying the painters. Patching holes will usually cost you around $3 or so per square foot. Repairing drywall and removing old wallpaper are both about $1 per square foot.
While that may not sound like a lot, the price can add up depending on how much prep work you need to have done on your house. For example, if you have a large room full of old wallpaper that you want to get rid of before you add a new layer of paint, you will need to factor that into your budget.
Otherwise, you might end up unsatisfied with the amount of money you spent and didn’t plan for. Fortunately, prep work doesn’t take very long, especially if there are only a few cracks or small holes to deal with. As soon as it is finished, the painters you hired can get to work and your house should have a fresh coat of paint in no time.
The Cost of Hiring a Painting Contractor
The cost of hiring a painting contractor doesn’t have to be outrageous as long as you plan your budget. The cost of hiring a contractor will depend on a variety of things such as what kind of contractor you hire, the size of your house, prep work, and what kind of paint you buy. By factoring all of these things into your budget, you won’t have any trouble finding the right painting contractor for you.
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