The job this guide prices
This guide is about one specific project: a wood-sided house whose paint is peeling, flaking or alligatored, and which needs real scraping before it can be repainted. It's a different job from a refresh over sound paint, and the price reflects that. Most of the hours go into getting failed paint off and making the wood sound, not into the finish coats.
No dollar figures appear here. Instead, each section names something that moves the number, so you can see why two proposals for the same house come in far apart.
How far the failure goes
The first thing a painter sizes up is how much paint is coming off. A house with peeling only under the eaves and on the south wall is a spot-prep job. A house where paint lifts in sheets on every side may need most of the old film removed.
Signs that push the price up:
- peeling down to bare wood, not just the top coat;
- cracking in a pattern of small squares, which means old layers have lost flexibility;
- many layers built up over decades, which tend to fail together;
- peeling that keeps recurring in the same spots, which points to moisture behind the siding.
The last one matters most. If water is getting in from a leaky gutter, a missing flashing or an unvented bathroom, new paint will peel again. Fixing the cause is a separate line item, and it should come first.
Weather that works on the joints
NOAA's engineering weather data for Youngstown lists about 57 freeze-thaw cycles in an average year and a 100-year rainfall rate of 2.7 inches per hour, along with a 50-year basic wind speed of 90 mph (3-second gust at 33 feet), a design value.
For this job, the freeze-thaw count is the useful figure. Each cycle gives trapped water a chance to freeze and pry at joints, so a quote that prices careful caulking at casings, corner boards and butt joints is buying real protection. Expect it to add hours.
Lead-safe setup on the outside
EPA's lead Renovation, Repair and Painting Rule covers paid work that disturbs paint in homes built before 1978. Its minor-repair exemption ends at 20 square feet of disturbed paint on a home's exterior.
On a peeling exterior, scraping will pass that line quickly. For a pre-1978 house, the price includes lead-safe setup: plastic sheeting on the ground well out from the walls, closed windows and doors near the work, wet scraping and misting where practical, daily cleanup of chips, and careful bagging of debris. That setup takes time each day and adds materials. A bid that skips it on a pre-1978 house isn't a cheaper version of the same job.
The one question worth asking on this point: does the firm hold RRP certification, and who on the crew is trained in lead-safe practices?
Method of removal
How the old paint comes off affects both time and cost:
- Hand scraping and sanding are slow but controlled.
- Power tools with dust collection speed up flat surfaces; on older paint, the shroud and vacuum are part of the lead-safe method.
- Chemical strippers suit detailed trim but add dwell time and cleanup.
- Heat guns are slow and need care near glass and dry wood; ask whether the crew plans to use one at all.
Ask which method each surface gets. Detailed trim, spindles and brackets cost more per foot than flat clapboard.
Carpentry and priming
Once the paint is off, soft or split boards show up. A good proposal states how repairs will be handled: a fixed allowance, a per-board price or a change order. Every bare spot then needs primer, and on a heavily scraped house that can mean priming most of it.
Height and access
A one-storey ranch can usually be reached from ladders. A two-storey wall, a steep lot or a deep porch roof may need staging or a lift, which adds rental and setup time.
The finish coats
Only after all that come the topcoats: usually two coats of an exterior acrylic over the primer. Product grade does change the cost, but on this job it's a smaller share than prep. See our exterior painting page for the steps, and our pricing guide for how proposals are structured.