Worked case: scraping and repainting a two-story wood-sided house on a slope, with a rot allowance — steps and cost

The scenario

Picture a two-story house with horizontal wood siding on a slope in the hills above the city, with a deck off the back and a view toward the Bay. On the street side the house reads as one tall story and a garage; on the downhill side it shows two full stories and a crawl space.

The living area is about 1,900 square feet. The siding is wood, and on the weather side the paint has opened up: it has lifted in curls around the window sills and along the lower boards where the sprinklers reach. Bare gray wood shows under the upper eave. Where the film has failed, the boards have taken water and swollen at the ends.

A painter walks the house with a screwdriver. Pressing the tip into the sill and the lowest course tells the difference between wood that is soft and wood that is only weathered. A few places give way, so the job carries an allowance for dry-rot repairs found in prep, and it is stated as an allowance because nobody can see how deep the soft spots go until the paint is off.

The first rule on the hillside is a safe set-up. The downhill wall is reached with planks on a platform, with ladder feet on a level pad. On the high side, a taller ladder is used only where the base can sit flat. Nobody stands on a top step.

The age of the paint also matters. If the house is from the sixties, as many in this part of the city are, the same lead-safe work practices described on the lead-safe page apply, and a test swab comes before any scraping plan. In this example the owners have already had the test done and no lead was found, so the calculator's lead line is not used.

The owners plan the work for the dry part of the year and accept that a damp morning delays the start of the exterior work: paint is applied within the maker's temperature and humidity range, and the marine layer in the morning is typical for the Bay Area, so the first coat does not go on until the boards are dry.

The deck is outside this job. The owners say they will stain it another year.

What the job involves

1. Loose paint is scraped back to sound edges on the peeling walls; bare boards are sanded by hand or with a power sander and a vacuum.
2. The siding is washed and left to dry; soft spots are probed and marked.
3. Rot is cut out and filled or replaced for the allowance; cracked boards are fastened and open joints caulked.
4. Bare wood gets an oil-based or high-adhesion primer; sound areas get a spot-prime where the film is thin.
5. Two finish coats are applied, the first brushed on joints and edges, then rolled or sprayed; sprayed areas are masked and shielded.
6. Trim, window sills and the garage door are finished; the ground is raked and cleaned.

Materials and tools

• Scrapers, a hand sander and a vacuum attachment
• Plank staging or platform and footed ladders
• Primer for bare wood and exterior caulk
• Masking film and drop cloths

Add-ons often paired with this job

• Dry-rot spot repairs found in prep (allowance) — +$300–$1,500. The rot line is an allowance, a placeholder for the sills and board ends that are replaced. If more boards fail than expected, the painter reports it, and the owners decide before the work goes on.

Why it is done this way

A wood house is priced higher than a stucco house of the same size because every board edge is a place where paint can fail. The calculator uses the wood rate for the siding, adds the two-story access line and the extra scraping line, and keeps the rot allowance as a separate flat amount.

That structure shows where the budget moves. A wall that needs only a wash and a repaint falls under the sound-paint choice; a wall with curls and bare boards moves to the peeling choice, which adds time per square foot for the scraping and priming.

The calculator does not price carpentry. Replacing a whole run of siding or a rotted sill plate is a carpenter's job, and the example only carries an allowance for spot repairs.

What would change the price

• The living area is above or below 1,900 square feet.
• The hillside lot needs more staging than a two-story house on flat ground, which moves the stories line toward the three-story choice.
• Peeling is limited to one wall, which lowers the scraping line, or covers every wall, which raises it.
• The paint is found to contain lead, which adds the lead-safe line.
• More rot is found than the allowance covers.
• The owners add a deck, a fence or a pressure-washing line.