Speedy Gonzalez

A lot of painters like to brag about how fast they can paint. This would be great if they were in the Painting Olympics, but operating a paint contracting company is not about speed. Or at least is shouldn't be.

Invariably such discussions focus on a small project, like a 10' x 10' room, or a single door. While it may be possible to paint a single room or a single door in an impressive time, this is irrelevant when it comes to estimating a job in the real world.

Let us say that you can paint that 10' x 10' room in 2 hours (actual paint application time) and so you use a production rate of 160 square (320 square feet/ 2) feet per hour for painting walls. If all you ever do is paint 1 10' x 10' room, this might work out. But how many of us operate a business that does nothing but single 10' x 10' rooms?

Most people I know tend to get tired as they do physical labor. Maybe not exhausted, but they do fatigue. And with fatigue our production slows. While we may be able to paint the first room of the day in 2 hours, it may take 2.5 hours to paint the third or fourth room of the day. In other words, our production rates go down.

We must also factor in set up, clean up, moving equipment, and various other tasks. Certainly we could account for all of these separately. But why? Why add 6 or 8 or 10 other line items to your estimate when these items are involved every time you paint a room?

For example, you must lay down a drop cloth, you must remove hardware/ switch plate covers, you must set up a ladder, etc. each time you paint a room. You must clean your brush and roller at the end of the day. All of these tasks are predictable--in both their occurrence and the time they take. Using these tasks as a separate line item when calculating your price is essentially a waste of time. Include them in your production rates.

When we factor in all of these variables, the time to actually paint a room increases significantly. On paper, if someone can paint that 10' x 10' room in 2 hours, he should be able to paint 4 of them in an 8-hour day. But it ain't going to happen. He will be lucky to get 3 rooms painted, which means his actual production rate is going to be 120 square feet per hour. That is a difference of 25%, which means you would be undercharging by 25%.

When calculating production rates, do not use a single, small project as your basis. You will wind up with numbers that might seem reasonable, but simply won't reflect reality. Unless of course, you truly are Speedy Gonzalez.