How to Bid on House Painting
Knowing how to bid a paint job can spell success for your house painting business. Whether you obtain a full or part time income from painting houses, learning how to bid a project can double your success rate. A potential customer chooses to hire you because he lacks the time to do the project himself. The quicker you deliver a bid, the more successful and professional you seem, increasing your chances of taking the bid. Does this Spark an idea?
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Instructions
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Measure the area in need of painting or repainting. For exterior paint jobs, obtain the width or length of each side of the home, in addition to the height of the exterior walls and multiply the combined side lengths by the house height to determine an approximate square footage. For interior paint jobs, measure the height and width of each interior wall requiring painting. Multiply those figures and add the square footage of each wall to determine the approximate total area. Do not subtract for the number of doors and windows, as extra paint does not cause as much trouble as too little paint.
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Determine how many gallons of primer and paint you require for the project. According to Dummies.com, one gallon of paint covers approximately 350 square feet. Assuming two coats of paint are necessary and each gallon of paint costs $20.00, you can easily assume the paint for a room with 500 square feet of wall space costs $60.00. Calculate your expenses for purchasing paint and any necessary painting supplies.
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Figure in the cost of overhead. To make a profit, you must make up for all your expenses by covering your overhead. Consider the cost of supplies, fuel to travel to the work site, money paid to employees, money paid to taxes and cost to maintain your business. The cost to maintain your business often includes the insurance paid on work vehicles, income paid to accountants and electric and phone bills accumulated by your office.
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Calculate the time necessary to complete the paint job. As you gain more experience in this field, the square footage you paint per hour increases. Determine approximately how long the project should take you and multiply this time estimate by the amount per hour you wish to make on the job.
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Submit the estimate for the job in terms of an exact number. If the job should take you 30 hours to complete and you want to make $30.00 per hour after the cost of paint and overhead, do not tell the homeowner that you charge $30.00 per hour. Instead, calculate the cost of supplies and overhead and combine your $30.00 per hour for 30 hours to arrive with $900 plus the cost of supplies and overhead. This ensures you still get the money you estimated for even if it takes you less than your estimated time. Additionally this prevents you or the homeowner from having to keep track of your hours or becoming upset if you go over your estimated time.
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References
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- Photo Credit paint brush image by Vladislav Gajic from Fotolia.com
