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How much is it going to cost to paint your homes exterior? Today, we’re going to tackle that question as best we can. In this article we are going to focus on how much it costs to paint the exterior of your home. Please keep in mind, we’re a Denver painter and prices will vary from state to state depending on your labor and material costs.
Let’s dive right in! Most standard, residential exterior repaints will fall somewhere between $3,000 and $5,000. That being said, depending on the size of your home, paint-able surface area, any add-on’s, or additional prep needed you may be below or above that price range.
Want even more of an idea on cost? Looking at our data, in 2019, we painted the exterior of 600 homes with an average job size of $4,500. With an average based off of 600 homes, we had 20 houses that were over $10,000 and 60 homes that were under $3,000. So, you really can see quite a large range between $3,000-$10,000 for exterior painting. Check out our video to learn more:
When calculating the cost of a project, most painters will use a formula based on the square footage of the body of the home and the linear footage of the trim. This will give them an idea of how much paint will be needed on the home. Once your painter has this base number then they will start to look at things that will add materials, labor, or time to the job and adjust pricing from there.
The largest factor that goes into determining the cost of the project is the amount of material that is going to be used on the home. This means the larger the home, the more it will cost. Naturally, when there is more product being used on a home there is also an increase in the labor and time it takes to apply those materials to the home. As mentioned above, most painters have a standardized method to calculate the size of the home on every estimate as the foundation to their cost.
The next most critical factor when determining the cost of an exterior paint job, is the amount of prep work that’s needed on the home. When looking at prep, there are three items that painters tend to look at the most. How much scraping, how much priming, and how much caulking will be needed to get the home ready to be painted? This is a challenging item to estimate for many painters because of the unknowns that can happen when scraping a house. How much paint is going to scrape off? How long will this take us? How much caulking will we ultimately use?
This is important because primer and caulk are both major expenses when painting a home and the quality of prep materials that are used will ultimately affect the cost as well. There are many grades of materials available and using higher grade materials adds both cost and value to the project. What type of paint, caulk, and primer is used and how it’s being used drastically changes the cost of a painting project and how long the paint job will last. If you’d like to learn more about prep materials check out our articles on prep materials.
When a painter says they will scrape any failing paint they are talking about physically going in with a metal scraper to remove paint from the surface area that is showing significant signs of wear. Typically, painters are looking to remove any paint where the seal has been visibly broken and the edges of the paint are lifting away from the substrate. Once paint has been scraped, you’re left with raw edges and bare wood. It’s very important that these areas are primed before being painted, otherwise the paint will not adhere to the substrate. With that in mind; the more scraping required on your home will require more primer to be used, adding to the overall cost.
Depending on how frequently you’ve painted your home and what state it’s in there can be an additional charge for prep. If your home requires additional or significant prep you can typically expect to see anywhere from $500.00-$2,000.00 added on to your project. This will account for the additional time, labor, and materials that go into the prep prior to painting. Keep in mind, great prep leads to a longer lasting paint job so this may not be the place to save money on your project.
Another major factor in how much it costs to paint a house exterior is the amount of trim on the house and how the trim is painted. Painting the trim tends to be a very time consuming portion of most projects. This is because most painters will paint the trim by hand rather than spraying it out. This means, the more trim that is present on your home, the more your paint project will cost.
Wrapped trim is also something painters will keep an eye out for. If the sides of your trim boards are trim color rather than body color, this is what painters call wrapped trim. Wrapped trim does elevate the look of your home however, maintaining wrapped trim will add an additional cost to your paint project. This is because most painters will hand paint trim and wrapping that trim, rather than the sides of the boards being body color will increase the labor and man hours needed to do so.
It’s a common misconception within the painting industry that all paints are created equal. This however, couldn’t be further from the truth. There is a massive range in the quality and cost of paint products available on the market and the product you use can heavily impact the cost of your project. This is a major factor when determining how much it will cost to paint your house’s exterior. For example; economy paints will cost less per gallon however, you typically end up requiring more to get the correct coverage and thickness. A top of the line paint like Sherwin Williams Emerald or Benjamin Moore Aura will have a higher price per gallon but they’ll provide far superior coverage and longevity. So, an economy paint will save you money now but you’ll be repainting sooner while a top of the line paint will cost more upfront but will last significantly longer.
*As we all know, there are many factors that can impact pricing overtime. When we originally created this article in 2020, the world was much different and since then pricing has changed a bit. Check out this updated (2022) pricing video to get a more up-to-date idea of what it may cost to paint your exterior…
As you can see, there are a lot of items that need to be looked at when coming up with how much it costs to paint a house exterior. Ultimately, every house is unique and different elements will need to be addressed. Again, for most projects you should expect to spend between $3,000 and $5,000. That being said, we recommend taking a walk around your home to get a good idea of what condition your home is currently in and set expectations from there.
If you have questions about how much it would cost to paint your house exterior we urge you to get an accurate estimate and go from there.
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