How to read and compare three painting quotes

1. Preparation, described specifically. "Prepare surfaces" is not a scope. Washing, scraping, sanding, filling, timber repair, priming bare areas and spot-priming are separate operations with separate costs. What each one involves.
2. Number of coats, and of what. One coat over a sound existing finish is a legitimate job. It is not the same job as a primer plus two topcoats, and the two should never appear as one line called "painting".
3. The product, by name. Not "quality paint" — the manufacturer and the product line. This is also what lets you read the application limits yourself.
4. Cladding treatment. Weatherboard and monolithic need genuinely different work. A quote that prices both at one rate has not looked at your house. Why.
5. Access and scaffolding. Who pays for it, for how long, and what happens if the job runs past the hire period.
6. What is excluded. Joinery, gutters, soffits, fascia, downpipes, garage doors, fences and decks are all commonly outside an "exterior repaint" and all commonly assumed to be inside it.
7. What happens if the substrate is not sound. The single most useful question you can ask. A quote with no variation clause for rotten timber is not a fixed price, it is an optimistic one.

This is what a painter is paid, not what a job is charged at. A charge-out rate has to carry ACC, holiday pay, vehicle, scaffolding, insurance, materials, quoting time, unpaid weather days and profit on top of it. Anyone who tells you the multiplier is a specific number is guessing; what the pay band gives you is a floor, and a way to tell whether a quote implies a labour rate that no business could actually run on.

Work out roughly how many days each quote implies, and see what hourly figure the total leaves once materials and scaffolding are removed. If the answer is below the lower band above, either the days are underestimated or something in the scope is missing. The rate data in full.

Once the scopes match, four questions usually decide it, and none of them is about price.

"What will you do if you find rot?"

You want a described process and a rate, not reassurance. If the answer is "we'll sort it", the price you have been given is provisional. Where the repair turns out to be restricted building work under the Building Act 2004, it must be carried out or supervised by a Licensed Building Practitioner — that is a different trade and a different quote.

"How many usable days do you think this needs, and when?"

An exterior repaint needs a run of days, not one good one. A painter who has thought about the Auckland calendar will say so. How many usable days a month actually contains.

"What is the product, and what does its datasheet say?"

Coatings have published application limits — minimum and maximum air temperature, maximum humidity, a margin above dew point, and a rain-free window after application. A painter who works to them will tell you the numbers. One who says the weather does not matter is telling you something else.

"What is in writing?"

Scope, exclusions, product, coats, variation rate, and how payment is staged. Anything agreed verbally on a driveway is not a comparison you can hold.