Wanted the outside of the house painting, doors, Windows and Bargeboards, guy came and gave us a quote of TWO GRAND !!!!

Its a 4 bed detached and I reckoned it would take me two weeks to do, just done the kitchen and used up a weeks leave in the process so cant afford the time to do it myself.

Cant understand where the price came from, it includes materials but other that a couple of cans of gloss, some turps and sandpaper what other materials are required ?

I can sort of respect a proper tradesman charging over the odds for a skill I havent got but painting is p1ss easy, rub it down and then paint it, its just a bit boring and time consuming. I have done all the interior decor apart from when we moved in and made a better job of it than the so called pro's.

I dont begrudge people making a living wage, after all it is proper work but a thousand pounds a week for a fairly low skilled job ?

In fact, I am thinking of chucking in the Oracle DBA lark as I could earn more money decorating and as far as I know Decorators dont have to do the equivalent of Oracle exams to stay current, paint doesnt really change that much and doesnt require 500 parameters before it works !

cousin works as a painter, doesn't do wallpaper. he charges 120 a day and has been self employed for nearly 12 months. in all that time he has had ony 1 week without work :o

J4cko - where abouts are you? I know of one painter who could probably do it for a good deal less, but it all depends upon where you are.#

Chris

the last chap that painted my place charged £90 a day cash in hand, plus materials on top. he was very reliable and worked to a good standard, but it's not bad going, is it?

'doesn't do wallpaper'

Coward !

Seriously considering it as there is so much money around south Manchester (specifically) Wilmslow, the guy who quoted us must get work at those prices from people who are worth millions and just want the job done regardless.

I get about 103 quid a day plus holidays, pension and flexitime (37 1/4 hour week) and a few grand for call out duties. so I could well end up earning more money, especially with the obvious lack of competition round here.

I suppose I would have to cope with the smell of Gloss paint, perhaps thats why they get paid well, it f*ckin stinks. I dont know it I could deal with driving a D reg Sierra 1.6 estate in red, covered in paint splats and smoking roll ups though.

Chris, Wilmslow, South Manchester, probably the most pretentious place on gods earth, land of the Orange Tan, Merc SL55, Footballers and Soap 'Stars'.

My mate Derek lives a few miles away, Peel Hall and round there they all help each other out, somebody does a bit of work and gets paid a reasonable ammount of cash or exchanges another service for the work, round here we seem to end up paying a suplement as people labour under the missaprehension that everybody is minted around here, maybe they are but not me !

Isn't Wilmslow in Cheshire?

Or do they just say that to be posh?

Yes it is in Cheshire, I prefer South Manchester though.

An interesting fact is that wherever you are in Wilmslow, you are never more than six feet away from an Audi TT.

lol :D

Wanted the outside of the house painting, doors, Windows and Bargeboards, guy came and gave us a quote of TWO GRAND !!!!

Its a 4 bed detached and I reckoned it would take me two weeks to do, just done the kitchen and used up a weeks leave in the process so cant afford the time to do it myself.

Cant understand where the price came from, it includes materials but other that a couple of cans of gloss, some turps and sandpaper what other materials are required ?

I can sort of respect a proper tradesman charging over the odds for a skill I havent got but painting is p1ss easy, rub it down and then paint it, its just a bit boring and time consuming. I have done all the interior decor apart from when we moved in and made a better job of it than the so called pro's.

I dont begrudge people making a living wage, after all it is proper work but a thousand pounds a week for a fairly low skilled job ?

In fact, I am thinking of chucking in the Oracle DBA lark as I could earn more money decorating and as far as I know Decorators dont have to do the equivalent of Oracle exams to stay current, paint doesnt really change that much and doesnt require 500 parameters before it works !

IS THE £2K inc VAT?
might be a hi high price but how big is the HOUSE.. how aquward is it to get to fasia's etc?
are the windows Georgian style?
get another quote of a proper firm.
You say you did your kitchen in a week of your 'leave'.. but don't have the time to do the outside!
think you've answered your question.. what price do you put on your time?

painting is p1ss easy, rub it down and then paint it, its just a bit boring and time consuming
yep.. if you say so.

I have done all the interior decor apart from when we moved in and made a better job of it than the so called pro's.
are you in a 'new' house.. don't tar all Decorators with the same 'wop out' brush.
new house are painted on price.. maybe your whole house was done for £800 and done in 5days!... the standard is just not there.. no rubbing down between coats, no knotting....and no doubt one coat wonder contract emulsion!

as I know Decorators dont have to do the equivalent of Oracle exams to stay current, paint doesnt really change that much and doesnt require 500 parameters before it works
no.. maybe not.. but i had 4/5year to get the Advance Craft City&Guilds qualification running along with learning Specialist Decorative Paint Finished (Marblizing and Broken colour work).. then another 18months to get my Stage 1 and 2 Teacher Training cirtificate.
I then went on to Teach P&D and ran the Decorative Paint Effects evening class at Basford Hall college in Nottm.

At the end of the day you can get ripped off. But if you get fully qualified Trades ppl in you have to pay for it.
Always remember.. there are Painters and there are Decorator.

I know which I fall into. ;)

this is my little 'spare time' project at the mo.
http://www.salsa-king.fotopic.net/c28865.html

Its taken since last June (it nearly finish this week) as I've not had the time.
But From a flat that was ALL WoodChip.... I've transformed it with 'fibre lining paper' and the useful art of Colour Washing :D.... 110% improvement.


ps.. someone said about a person they know who's set up on their own ... but doesn't do wall papering!!!!!! PMSL
deffo says it all.
what do they do when they get asked to put American 27" wide hand printed wall coverings on?... ring another person up? lol

[QUOTE=J4CKO]I can sort of respect a proper tradesman charging over the odds for a skill I havent got but painting is p1ss easy, rub it down and then paint it,[QUOTE]


I bet he`s got his papers and went through 4 years of college, including giving up an evening of his time for that time to learn his trade. Two Grand does seem a lot just for windows, doors and barge boards, without seeing exactly what is involved its a bit hard to visulize the size of your property.

Is your property in an area where your not allowed P.V.C. windows and doors, if it is not it may be worthwhile you changing them it would surely save you in the long run.

But on the other hand a good tradesman painter could bring the wooden ones up like a piece of P.V.C and believe me that aint easy.

£1k for a weeks work.

Less vat, income tax, materials, van, fuel, liability insurance, business costs (bank charges, accountants fees.....)

It's not all profit.

someone said about a person they know who's set up on their own ... but doesn't do wall papering!!!!!! PMSL
deffo says it all.

but that's the point he charges 120 an hour + materials. he doesn't/can't do wall papering! and people pay for him just to paint. he has no trouble filling his schedule even at 120 a day. £600 a week to do a job that he has had no training in. only one week without work since he started and all of his work is private jobs, i.e. not contracted on building sites. presumably as far as painting goes he does a good job but there is no way i would ever pay a monkey with a paintbrush. after all painters/decorators they are all the same :p

tradesmen vary enormously. when i first moved, i made the mistake of employing a friend of my mothers. he worked so slowly i would have been in a retirement home before he had finished. also, we didn't seem to really know what he was doing and i ended up getting most of his work re-done by someone else, as it looked so "DIY". what made it worse is i had to be polite about the whole thing due to the family connection. i don't mind paying someone £100 odd a day if they get on with the job and work to a high standrad.

Ah, Wilmslow - that explains it :) Too far for my mate.

Chris

but that's the point he charges 120 an hour + materials. he doesn't/can't do wall papering! and people pay for him just to paint. he has no trouble filling his schedule even at 120 a day. £600 a week to do a job that he has had no training in. only one week without work since he started and all of his work is private jobs, i.e. not contracted on building sites. presumably as far as painting goes he does a good job but there is no way i would ever pay a monkey with a paintbrush. after all painters/decorators they are all the same :p

more fool them that hire him... obviously not very discerning ppl ;) or more money than sence is another way to look at it

That is the going rate for an external job by a decent bloke.
Its easy to quote less,you dont need to prepare properly,just slap it all on.And anyway,if you have a lot of wooden windows a decent decorator will do these properly.

Plus you are forgetting that a good decorator in the SE at the moment will be booked for at least 6 months,and he can afford to quote high.Someone will be quoting cheap for obvious reasons,they cant get referral work or they are new and worth a punt.

a good mate of mine quoted £2200 for the outside of a terrace,he doesnt need the job so quoted full whack.They got quotes for £550 but that guy wasnt even gonna stabilise the render

you get what you pay for imo,and you might get lucky with a cheaper bloke,but the chances are you wont,they are cheap for a reason

but that's the point he charges 120 an hour + materials. he doesn't/can't do wall papering! and people pay for him just to paint. he has no trouble filling his schedule even at 120 a day. £600 a week to do a job that he has had no training in.

which is it - £120 an hour, or £120 a day? you've said both in your post.

Well as you may guess i`m a painter/decorater and i`ve just come in about half hour ago, thats a 13 hour shift and it will be the same tomorrow. Anyone who says painting/ decorating is "easy" is quite welcome to come with me for a day.

I`ve been on some jobs where the electricity is knocked off for the refubishment meaning no air con, and having to drink 4 litres of water a day to avoid dehydration, and swinging wide vynal wearing just a pair of shorts. Hotels are the worst especially with summer coming up. A floor of approx 20 rooms WILL have to be done in a week to a very high standard.

Give me the yardage and i`ll earn a decent crust but when its down to the fine intricate work it simply can not be rushed, and the proper amount of primer/undercoats must be used. And when it comes to the cutting in if your paying a tradesman you will expect your lines of adjacent colours straight and not like a mexican wave.

S - K mot sur if i like the marbling effect you have on your walls.. but each to there own...

;)


i prefer a good old wood chip pasted so the wood is in the room!!!!

keeps the kids of the walls splinters etc....

I painted and papered a neighbours house for them a few years ago... it

think they paid me £50 per day...

anyone who quoted me 2k would be shown the door.....

2 barge boards and some soffits aint woth that much!!!


lol

Mart

I appreciate its quite labour intensive and more physical than driving a desk but there isnt a black art to it, its putting paint onto wood to replace/cover old paint, you rub it down, fill it, make sure its clean and grease free and apply new paint, paper hanging and the special effects are a lot more challenging but I reckon I could give them a shot and make a reasonable job.

I have not seen any paintwork done by painters that is significantly better than what I do myself and will have to continue doing myself because its to expensive to get somebody in. Maybe I have had bad luck but I think the ones that I have had in the past have been enthusiastic amateurs rather than experts, I am not an expert, just a case of its my house so I want it to look good. The kids wreck it anyway !


Its not a massive house, 4 bed det with all wooden frames, apart from a couple of original metal frames and an aluminium patio door that doesnt need painting.

Just get a few more quotes or ask friends/neighbours if they can recomend a good one to you.
When i was self employed a few years ago all my work was word of mouth with no advertizing. The company i work for now is one of the more successfull decorating companys in South Wales, and has just a one line advert in the yellow pages and we travel all over the UK.

Yeah, I'm a decorator as well, work for a national company doing insurance work for the R.S.A. The bottom line is, it won't even occur to most people that things like proper prep, taking into account how much weather the house sees, difficulty of access and knowing what materials to use where, are things that will dictate how good the house will look, not just immediately afterwards, but in three years time. Given that these peoples standpoint seems to be based on the idea that all decorators are monkeys who aren't intelligent enough to hold on to a proper job, perhaps doing their own houses themselves, without the prior knowledge a decent decorator would be armed with, might enlighen them. I do private work at weekends ( when I want a new toy for the scoob, usually ), and if it's outside work I'll charge more, simply because every stage of outside work is generally more aggro, i.e. external timber requires more prep because it'll have seen all kinds of weather. If you don't do it properly, or don't use correct for the job materials, i.e. paints with U.V. protection in them if the house faces into hot sun regularly, it's not unlikely to look tatty again in a few months. Two grand's still a bit strong, based on what's been said, however, without having seen it, your house may be an absolute horror story of a job to do well, for reasons that haven't occurred to you. At that sort of money, the guy quoting mustn't think it's gonna be easy.

i prefer a good old wood chip pasted so the wood is in the room!!!!

keeps the kids of the walls splinters etc....

Mart

LOL

The house my Mum 'n' Dad are still in had artex on the hall, landing & stairs walls & also the bathroom, the guy they bought it of used that as a reason for it:eek: I've still got a scar on my ar5e from slipping against the wall whilst getting out of the shower 23 years ago (when I was about ten):( You should've seen it, Alfred Hitchcock would've been well impressed:), Mum wasn't;)

mart360
thats not Marbling........ its color-wash ;) lol

J4cko
i bluuby hate ppl who are good at everything they turn there hand too ;) i bet you can play a musical instrument and speak an other language too ;) lol

Blimey Jacko - that puts a quote I got into perspective.

3 bed detached house in Somerset:

Clear gutters, take down cast iron guttering, repaint, and refit.

Strip, knot, prime, undercoat, and topcoat in gloss white all soffits, fascias, and barge board.

Sand, prime, undercoat, and topcoat in gloss white 12 sash windows.

Sand and re-topcoat front door in gloss black.

At a quoted price of £750!

Had another quote to sand down, undercoat, and topcoat the windows and front door for £400.

Think I'll splash out the £750!

Mind you, not many orange tans, SL55s or TTs in a small market town in Somerset though!

Cheers,
Steve

Started painting some exterior stuff here.

Blast off the old paint with a jetwash - some comes, some doesn't. So I leave the stuff that doesn't (if it don't come off with 130 bar barely an inch away, I suppose it's fixed quite well) and paint over it all, with high quality exterior paint.

Get the jetwash near it a few days later, and the whole lot comes off. :(

Is there some principle that exposing the edges allows weakening, over a few days, of the whole patch? (3in square, not four foot square!).

and thats why a good decorator will be worth 2k ;) 2k might sound a lot,but if it lasts 10 years its a cheaper than £500 every 2 years

SK, sure can, I talk fluent Bollocks and play the Pink Oboe like a master !