How to Price a Drywall Job
Drywall can be a difficult thing to calculate when it comes to estimating the cost of a job. There are several factors to consider when pricing drywall material and labor. Labor and material costs can be calculated into one set price or you may separate the material and labor if you intend to do the job yourself. It's not possible to estimate a job and hit that number exactly, but you can come close if you do some basic math. Does this Spark an idea?
Other People Are Reading
Instructions
-
-
1
Determine the wall surface to be drywalled. Multiply the length by the height. For example, if a wall is 10 feet long by 8 feet tall, the surface is 80 square feet. Repeat on all walls to be covered.
-
2
Measure the surface area of the ceilings by doing the same multiplication. A ceiling that is 12 feet long and 10 feet wide calls for 120 square feet of drywall.
-
-
3
Combine the surface areas of both the walls and the ceilings. This will be the entire area within the project to be drywalled.
-
4
Estimate the number of boards of drywall that will be needed. For 4-by-8-feet sheets of drywall, multiply 4 by 8 (32 square feet). For 4-by-12 sheets, the square footage is 48. For a surface area of 120 square feet, divide 120 by either 32 or 48 (square feet for one board). For 4-by-8 sheets, the drywall needed would be 3.75 sheets, rounded off to four. If the dimensions lend themselves better to 4-by-12 sheets, use three sheets (rounded up from 2.5, or 120 divided by 48).
-
5
Total the cost. As a rule of thumb, if you are having someone install the drywall, allow $40 per board for an average-size job of two or more rooms, but for smaller jobs, one room or smaller, you might pay upward of $65 per board for material and labor (hanging and finishing; larger jobs tend to get volume discounts). If you do the job yourself, figure 40 to 45 cents per square foot of surface area. This will give you the total cost of material for the drywall job.
-
1
Tips & Warnings
Always measure and calculate twice.
Resources
- Photo Credit Wikimedia common/Public Domain
