Costs · 4 min read
There is no single price for painting a house in Newcastle, and a painter who gives you a firm figure over the phone is guessing. What a repaint costs comes down to four things: how much surface there is, what condition that surface is in, how hard it is to reach, and the paint system it needs.
Those four move the number far more than the number of bedrooms does. Below is what you are actually paying for, what makes one quote higher than another, and how to compare three quotes that look nothing alike on paper.
What you are actually paying for
On most repaints labour is the biggest line in the quote, and the majority of that labour is preparation rather than painting. Washing down, scraping back what has failed, sanding, filling, caulking gaps and masking off take longer than rolling the topcoat on, and they are the part that decides whether the finish still looks right in ten years.
Paint is a smaller share of the total than people expect, but the gap between a builder's grade product and a premium trade line shows up in coverage, washability and how long the colour holds. Access is the third lever. A single storey home you can walk around is quicker and safer to paint than a two storey on a sloping block that needs scaffold, or a terrace where the only way to the back wall is through the house.
Most of what you are paying for is preparation, not paint.
The four things that move a painting quote most
- Surface area, including ceilings, eaves, trim and the bits you forget
- Condition, which sets how much scraping, filling and priming is needed
- Access, from ladder height and scaffold through to parking and site setup
- Paint system, matched to the substrate and how exposed it is
Why interior and exterior are priced differently
Interior work is priced around rooms and detail. Ceilings, cornices, architraves, skirting and doors all take cutting in by hand, so a house with a lot of trim costs more than its floor area suggests. Most of the cost variance comes from how much patching the walls need and how much furniture has to be worked around.
Exterior work is priced around substrate, exposure and weather. Weatherboard, rendered masonry, fibro and brick each need a different preparation and a different coating, and the job has to be scheduled around rain, heavy dew and surfaces that get too hot in the afternoon.
What Newcastle and Lake Macquarie conditions add
Coastal exposure is the big one locally. Salt carried off the beaches, hard western sun and the humidity that sits over the lake all shorten the life of a coating that was not specified for it. A weatherboard cottage in Stockton, a rendered townhouse in Cooks Hill and a brick veneer in one of the newer lake suburbs are three different jobs, and quoting them the same way is how a paint job fails early.
Older housing stock adds another variable. Homes painted before the 1970s can carry lead based paint, which has to be tested for and handled properly rather than dry sanded, and that adds time to the preparation. If your place is from that era it is worth raising when you book the quote so the price accounts for it from the start.
Why we do not publish a price list
We could put a range on this page, and for most people reading it the range would be wrong. Two homes on the same street with the same footprint can differ by thousands once you account for the condition of the weatherboards, whether the eaves have been done recently, and whether anyone can get a ladder down the side.
A number you can rely on takes someone looking at the actual surfaces. That visit is free, it takes under an hour for most homes, and you get an itemised written quote out of it that lists the preparation, the products, the number of coats and the timing. Nothing about it obliges you to go ahead.
How to compare three quotes properly
Three quotes for the same house often arrive at very different totals, and the reason is almost never that one painter is greedy. It is that they are quoting different scopes. Before comparing the bottom line, make each quote answer the same questions.
Ask every quote to state, in writing
- Exactly which surfaces are included, and which are excluded
- How many coats, and whether that includes a primer or sealer
- The actual product names, not just the brand
- What preparation is covered, and what happens if more is found
- Who moves and protects furniture, and who cleans up
- Licence details and a certificate of currency for public liability
What a much cheaper quote usually leaves out
When one quote comes in well under the others, the difference is normally hiding in the parts you cannot see once the job is finished. Commonly it is one coat instead of two, no primer over bare or patched areas, a lighter wash instead of a proper clean, or a cheaper paint on an exposed wall that will chalk within a few summers.
None of that shows up on handover day. It shows up in year three, when the coating starts lifting and the next painter has to strip it back before they can start. Paying twice is the expensive way to save money on a repaint.
Getting an accurate number for your place
Have a rough idea of what you want painted, whether that is one room, the whole interior, the exterior, or the lot. Note anything you already know is a problem, such as flaking on a sunny wall, water staining on a ceiling or a deck that has gone grey. Tell us if there is difficult access or if you need the rooms usable each evening.
From there we walk the job with you, talk through colours and prep, and send an itemised written quote. If it works for you we book a start date and give you a realistic run time. If it does not, that is genuinely fine, and the quote costs you nothing either way.