What it costs · Fences and decks
What painting a fence or deck costs in Auckland
The smallest jobs on this site, and the ones where the quoted unit is most likely to be a lineal or deck metre. That unit works on sound timber and breaks completely on weathered or flaking timber — which is the thing that actually decides the price.
$477 vs $954
Modelled labour for the same 30-metre fence, coated both sides: sound timber against previously painted and flaking timber. Same fence, same metres, twice the labour. The hourly rate is published; the hours are our judgement and the working is shown below.
Paintwork Auckland labour model; hourly rates from Tertiary Education Commission — Tahatū Career Navigator · retrieved 2026-07-30
The model
Small jobs, in hours
These are one-painter jobs, so the model is unusually easy to check: hours times a published rate. The rows are grouped so you can see condition, faces and detail each moving the number on their own.
| Job | Hours (judgement) | At median $29.81/hr | Across the pay band |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fence, 30 lineal metres, one side Clean, sand the rough, two coats of stain by brush and roller. | 8 | $238 | $192 – $362 |
| Fence, 30 lineal metres, both sides The same fence. Both faces, and the palings between. | 16 | $477 | $385 – $723 |
| Fence, 30 lineal metres, previously painted and flaking Scrape or strip back to sound, spot-prime, then two coats. | 32 | $954 | $769 – $1,446 |
| Deck, 25 m², oiled timber Clean, strip old coating, sand, two coats of decking finish. | 24 | $715 | $577 – $1,085 |
| Deck, 25 m², with balustrade and stairs The boards are the fast part. Rails, balusters and stringers are all edges. | 40 | $1,192 | $962 – $1,808 |
Materials are excluded, and on small jobs they are a larger share of the total than on a house — a fence eats stain. Minimum-charge and travel effects are also real here: a half-day job carries the same set-up and clean-up as a full one, which is why very small jobs rarely price proportionally.
Paintwork Auckland labour model; hourly rates from Tertiary Education Commission — Tahatū Career Navigator · retrieved 2026-07-30
The pay you see here is your pay before tax. When an employer pays you, Inland Revenue (IR) collects a percentage of that income. Learn more about income tax on the IR website — Inland Revenue. Pay data: Tertiary Education Commission — Tahatū Career Navigator, licensed CC BY 4.0.
The arithmetic
The same fence, three conditions:
Stain or paint
Stain penetrates rather than filming. It fades instead of flaking, recoats by cleaning and reapplying, and lets the grain show. It needs doing more often and it cannot hide a patchy fence.
Paint films over the surface. Full colour range, better coverage of mismatched or repaired timber, longer between recoats — but when it fails it flakes, and the next job is scraping. Painting a fence is close to a one-way decision.
Condition beats everything
- New or sound timber. Clean, light sand, coat. The best-case row above.
- Weathered grey. The grey layer is degraded surface fibre. It has to come off, or the coating is bonding to something already letting go.
- Previously painted and flaking. Scraping or stripping. This is the row that doubles.
- Soft, spongy or split. Replace the board. Coating rot wastes the paint and the labour both.
The method behind these numbers · the house itself is priced on cladding.
Questions people actually ask
Are fences priced per metre or per hour?
Quoted per lineal metre, costed per hour. Per-metre pricing is a convenient way to express a job that is genuinely linear, and it works reasonably well on a new or sound fence. It falls apart on an old one, because a flaking previously painted fence can take four times the hours of a clean one over the same thirty metres. Make sure the per-metre rate you are quoted is attached to a stated condition and a stated number of faces.
Stain or paint on a fence?
They fail differently, and that is the real decision. Stain penetrates, so it fades and thins gradually and is recoated by cleaning and reapplying — less dramatic, more often. Paint forms a film, which gives you full colour choice and better coverage of a patchy fence, but when it fails it flakes, and getting back to a sound surface is scraping work. Also note the one-way door: once a fence is painted, going back to stain means stripping it.
Why is my deck more expensive than my fence when it is smaller?
Because of what is on it. A deck surface is fast — it is broad, flat and takes a wide applicator. The hours are in the balustrade: every rail, baluster, post and stair stringer is an edge, hand-coated, twice. A 25 m² deck with a handrail and steps can carry more brush work than the whole fence around the property.
How much difference does the timber condition make?
It is the largest factor by a distance, larger than area or product. Sound timber gets cleaned and coated. Weathered grey timber needs the degraded surface fibres taken off or the finish sits on something that is already letting go. Previously painted and flaking timber needs scraping or stripping, which is slow. And soft, spongy or split boards should be replaced, not coated — coating rot is a waste of both the paint and the labour.
Is it worth getting a painter for a fence, or should I do it myself?
Fences and decks are the most reasonable DIY on this site: they are at ground level, the consequences of an imperfect finish are low, and the preparation is straightforward if unglamorous. The honest case for paying someone is time and consistency, not capability. Where we would push back on DIY is anything at height or anything where the coating is protecting the building envelope rather than a boundary fence.
Can a deck be coated any time of year?
It has the same weather limits as any exterior coating, and a horizontal surface is worse off — it holds dew and rain rather than shedding them. Our Auckland model counts 1.9 fully usable exterior days in an average July against 17.1 in March. Decks also need the timber genuinely dry before coating, which adds days after rain. The model.
Next
Send the fence or the deck
Metres or square metres, how many faces, what is on there now, and how sound the timber is. Small jobs get the same honest read as large ones, including being told when it is not worth paying someone.