need patching job on old dry wall,how long will it take?

Question

We have a 900 sqaure foot home.Not basement,just a slab.
Not many walls to be done, like 5 walls. And their not big holes. Nut just old paint chiped off,alot of places. And A contractpr told fience it will be $20 an hour to do. Will it be longert han a day. 5 hours??8 hours?? 4 hours and than come back next day??i know nobody knows an excat time but i need atleast and estimate on how long.just so i know its not 20 hours. thanks

Answer 1

Tell the contractor to give you a price on the job not by the hour. If it's by the hour he/she might drag their feet and make it take longer then necessary. I'd say $200 off the top of my head.

Answer 2

Any good contractor should be able to patch up to five door knob holes in one hour. The issue then becomes dry-time. Most contractors will move on to other things for a day or two and then come back to sand and texture the patches. The sanding and re-texturing should take another hour or so. Then, he or she will have to come back a third time after the texture has dried, to paint the patch.

Therefore, there are about 3 billable hours for five patches. However, it is also within reason to pay them a set up charge for having to come back three times for such a small job because they could be making money with their time on another.

So, if I were you, I would expect to be charged for 3-5 hours of total production time.

Your friendly neighborhood painter :)
http://www.coloradofauxpainting.com

Answer 3

large holes should have at least 24 hrs. drying time before painting/sanding. they also may need additional filling the next day to make even (read more drying time). smaller ones -2-4 hrs. do it right so it doesn't look like crap.
and $20 an hour is not unreasonable, depending upon your area, might even be a deal.

Answer 4

You may be better off getting a price for the job in total, instead of a per/hour price. The contractor has no incentive to get done faster, in fact, they would lose money. get a price for the completed job.

Good luck