Guides
Guides
Four pieces of writing that do not fit anywhere else on this site: the judgement calls, the health risk, and the two questions that decide whether you are spending money on the right thing. Free, no email, and every factual claim carries its source.
Read
The four guides
How to read and compare three painting quotes
The seven lines that make two quotes comparable, and the one number that never should be compared alone.
What preparation actually involves — and why it is most of the price
The paint is the cheap part and the data proves it. What the expensive part consists of.
Lead paint in older Auckland homes
A real health risk, handled responsibly: what to assume, what not to do, and who to read.
Tired paint, or a weathertightness problem?
The signs that mean a repaint is the wrong job, and what the failure data says about the odds.
What is not here
Colour advice, and the rest of the site
There is no colour guide. Choosing a colour is a real problem and it is not one published data can help with — and where a Special Character Area overlay applies, the constraint on a street-facing elevation is a planning question rather than a taste one. That is here.
The rest of the site handles the things these guides deliberately leave alone: what a repaint costs and why no honest rate exists, how many usable painting days an Auckland month contains, what each cladding type needs, and calculators for quantity, surface area and landlord return.