Almost every exterior quote in Central Florida arrives the same way: someone comes to the house, walks around it for ten minutes, and either leaves a number on the spot or emails one two days later. You get one figure and no idea how it was reached, which makes comparing two of them guesswork.
We do it the other way round. Your county already publishes the heated area, storey count and wall type of your house. That is enough to calculate paintable wall surface to within a few percent, and it takes about a minute. What it can’t tell us is the condition of what’s on the walls now — so we ask you three questions, show you what each answer costs, and then confirm it on a short video walk before the number becomes firm.
What the price covers
Everything on this list is in the number. None of it appears later as an extra:
- Low-pressure wash of the whole exterior, and time to dry properly
- Scraping and sanding every lifting or peeling area
- Caulking at trim, corners and penetrations
- Patching hairline stucco cracks
- Spot-priming every bare area — bare stucco and bare wood both drink the first coat otherwise
- Two coats on the body
- Two coats on trim, fascia and eaves
- Garage door and entry doors
- Masking windows, lights, pavers and planting
- The site cleared and swept every evening, not just at the end
What it doesn’t
This is the half most quotes leave out, and it is where nearly every dispute in this trade starts. If any of it turns up mid-job we stop and quote it separately. We never add it to the invoice and tell you afterwards.
- Rotten or soft wood. Quoted per board foot before we touch it.
- Stucco cracks wider than ⅛″. These are a repair, not a paint job, and coating over them just hides them until next summer.
- Window glazing, screens and screen-enclosure frames.
- Roof, soffit vents, driveway and pool deck.
- Anything behind permanently mounted fixtures we would have to remove.
What actually moves the price
Not much of it is square footage, which surprises people. A clean single-storey house and a chalking two-storey of the same size are not the same job:
- Storeys. A second storey adds staging time before a drop of paint is opened. A third adds more.
- Condition. Chalking and hairline cracks add prep. Peeling and rot add a lot more, and are the one thing we will not price from a photo.
- Wall material. Stucco drinks roughly 15% more paint than Hardie for the same area. Brick drinks a third more.
- Colour change. Going light-over-dark is a coverage problem, and sometimes a third coat.
- Access. Tight side yards, steep grade, mature planting against the walls — all of it is time.
Your estimate lists each of these with the percentage it added, so you can see exactly why your number is what it is.
How long it takes
A typical single-storey exterior is three working days; a two-storey is four or five. Day one is wash and prep. Day two we paint a 2×2 ft sample on your own wall and text you a photo before the first full coat — colour in a shop light and colour on your house in Florida sun are not the same colour, and it costs nothing to find that out on day two instead of day four.
The warranty
Five years on workmanship: peeling, blistering or flaking on anything we prepared and coated, we come back and fix it. It transfers once if you sell the house. Your agreement is with Fast Painting, not with the crew — so if the crew moves on, the warranty doesn’t move with them.
Changing colour in an HOA community? We handle the ARC submission.