The Cost of a Gallon of Paint

What do you pay for a gallon of paint? Do you realize that your actual cost is likely much higher?

Let’s say that a gallon of paint costs you $20. Let’s say you pay your foreman $20 an hour. With labor burden, his actual cost to you would be over $25 an hour.

One day your crew runs a little short of paint, so the foreman hops in his truck and goes to the paint store. It takes him an hour for the entire trip. You still must pay him, so that gallon of $20 paint has now cost you $45.

Unless you have the most unusual crew in the world, they likely will not be quite as efficient and productive when the foreman is away. So during his hour-long trip, let’s say that they actually only accomplish 50 minutes of work. A 2-man crew would then lose 20 minutes of production time while the foreman is gone.

If your average wage is $13, this 20 minute loss would cost another $4.33 plus labor burden, or close to $5.50. Now that gallon of paint has cost you $50.50. But it could be worse.

Let’s say that now only did the crew lose some production time, but that some of the work they did wasn’t up to your standards. When the foreman discovers this he instructs the crew to fix their work. If this takes 10 minutes, we must add another $5.50 to the cost of that gallon, pushing the total to $56.

While all of this is hypothetical and the actual numbers can vary, it should be clear that that gallon of paint can cost a lot more than what the store charges.

© BEP Enterprises Incorporated 2008