Craft Quantities
Plan & Takeoffs

By trade

Painting and decorating calculators

Paint is estimated on an area that is rarely the area of the room and a spread rate that is rarely the one on the tin. Both vary with the surface: a porous new plaster, a textured block and a previously painted wall take markedly different quantities of the same product.

  • 20Calculators
  • 2Parts of the site

How painting and decorating is measured

Square metres per coat divided by a spread rate in square metres per litre — so the number of coats matters as much as the area, and a colour change usually decides how many coats there are. Woodwork and trim are then linear work priced by the metre and estimated by the tin.

What gets left off a painting and decorating order

  • The first coat on a new surface, which is a different product at a different rate and is often thinned.
  • Coverage over a strong colour: the tin's rate assumes an ordinary change, and a dark base can add a whole coat.
  • Spray transfer efficiency. What lands on the wall is a fraction of what leaves the gun, and the fraction depends on the equipment and the object.
  • Sundries — filler, caulk, abrasives, masking and dust sheets — which on a decorating job is a real proportion of the material cost.

Job takeoffs31

Where decorators meet the rest of the job: each runs one of these calculators, with every other trade in the same job beside it.

Worked examples3

A real job estimated step by step, with this trade's steps counted.

Comparisons3

Two ways of doing the same work, weighed against each other.

Planners1

Work this trade out from a space rather than from a job.