Ken - it's not uncommon when using 'Area' to figure out how many hours it will take to do a job - we as painters assign 'difficulty' factors - so we don't have to adjust our 'hourly' rate. So it isn't really a 'square-foot' method in the end. Let me give you an example.
Say you come up with a 'production' rate to paint a flat surface such as plywood. And you can paint 150sq.ft. per hour. And now you have figured from your accountant that your company needs $44/hr to stay profitable. So you would price the painting per coat at about $0.29/sq.ft. not including materials. Now say you have a clapboard siding - and again you compute you have 150 sq.ft. of clapboard siding - what we do is assign a 'difficulty' factor, say assuming it takes you 25% longer to paint the same amount of area of clapboard than plywood - we measure the actual area then multiply by our 'difficulty' factor of 1.25 - so now we have a 'fictitious' amount of 187.5 sq.ft. - we now apply our 'company' rate that does not change of $44 - now that same job which would have cost $0.29/sq.ft now costs almost $0.37/sq.ft or $55 instead of $44.
We use area coupled with our production rates to forecast how long a job will take and then compute the hourly rate we need - And like I demonstrated - the same amount of area can contain more difficult and time consuming surfaces - the easiest being plywood, then the next hardest would be plywood - and then the most time consuming surface to apply a coating would be shakes. And 'difficulty' factors allow you to maintain the same company rate when factoring in the more difficult substrates.
Say you come up with a 'production' rate to paint a flat surface such as plywood. And you can paint 150sq.ft. per hour. And now you have figured from your accountant that your company needs $44/hr to stay profitable. So you would price the painting per coat at about $0.29/sq.ft. not including materials. Now say you have a clapboard siding - and again you compute you have 150 sq.ft. of clapboard siding - what we do is assign a 'difficulty' factor, say assuming it takes you 25% longer to paint the same amount of area of clapboard than plywood - we measure the actual area then multiply by our 'difficulty' factor of 1.25 - so now we have a 'fictitious' amount of 187.5 sq.ft. - we now apply our 'company' rate that does not change of $44 - now that same job which would have cost $0.29/sq.ft now costs almost $0.37/sq.ft or $55 instead of $44.
We use area coupled with our production rates to forecast how long a job will take and then compute the hourly rate we need - And like I demonstrated - the same amount of area can contain more difficult and time consuming surfaces - the easiest being plywood, then the next hardest would be plywood - and then the most time consuming surface to apply a coating would be shakes. And 'difficulty' factors allow you to maintain the same company rate when factoring in the more difficult substrates.
