How to Estimate the Gallons of Paint Needed For the Exterior of a House

In this article, I'll show you a shortcut on estimating the amount needed to paint the exterior of your house--this is a rough estimate that will help you with comparing costs of different paints. Later, it will hopefully help you avoid making a 2nd trip for more paint.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• The desire to get a rough estimate on exterior paint you will need to paint your house
• tape measure
• calculator (or pencil and paper)

1. First, measure the perimeter of your house--this is the lengths of all the sides added together. Most houses are not going to be perfect rectangles, but for example a house that has 4 sides (two at 80 feet and two at 50 ft) would have a perimeter of 260 feet (80+80+50+50).

2. Multiply your perimeter by the height of the house. If the house is 14 feet high in our example, it would be 260 x 14= 3,640. This number is now in square feet.

3. Take this number and divide it by 400, since a gallon of exterior paint covers about 400 square feet. So continuing with the example, 3,640 divided by 400 would be 9.1, meaning I'll need about 10 gallons of paint (always round up if you have a decimal). Also keep in mind any extra paint you'll need beyond this base amount, such as for soffits and gables. This will at least help you narrow it down to within a gallon or two in most cases.

Resources

• More How-to Articles by Cougar1002
• How to Prevent Paint from Drying Out by eHow Member AlishaV
• How to Recycle Your Old Paint by eHow Member AlishaV

[AlishaV]

on 12/29/2008 It's always hard to figure out how much paint you'll need to finish a house, thanks for the ratios!