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Quote Teardown 05  /  Exterior painting, Philadelphia, PA

$9,800 to paint a 1952 house in Philadelphia. How many coats, and is it lead-safe?

Toshikatsu Oga  /  October 9, 2026
A painter in a respirator scraping peeling paint from 1950s wood clapboard siding, with plastic sheeting laid below to catch the chips.
Illustrative photo. Not the house, the crew or the quote in this issue.
  1. The quote
  2. The one line to ask about
  3. The arithmetic
  4. What to ask the contractor
  5. What this does not establish
  6. Questions
  7. Sources

The prep line says "as needed" and the paint line says "premium." Neither says how much scraping, how many coats or which product. On a house built before 1978, the scraping is also where federal lead-safe rules come in.

$9,800 to paint a 1952 house. How many coats? Lead-safe? Ledger of the illustrative quote with the line to ask about marked.

The card for this issue. The quote is illustrative, written for teaching; it is not any real contractor's quote.

The quote

Illustrative quote. Exterior painting, Philadelphia, PA.

LineQuoted
Prep: wash, scrape, caulk, as neededThe line to ask about$1,200
Paint body and trim, premium paintCoats and product not stated$7,600
Cleanup$1,000
Total$9,800

The one line to ask about

Prep: wash, scrape, caulk, as needed: $1,200

"As needed" means the quote does not say how much prep you are buying. Ask what will be scraped, how, and what gets primed.

EPA's Renovation, Repair and Painting Rule covers paid work that disturbs painted surfaces in homes built before 1978. Under 40 CFR 745.83, exterior work counts as minor repair only if it disturbs 20 square feet or less of painted surface. Scraping a whole house is far past that, so the contractor must be a certified firm using lead-safe work practices, and must give you EPA's lead pamphlet no more than 60 days before work starts (40 CFR 745.84).

The exceptions are narrow: 40 CFR 745.82 lists a written determination by an inspector or risk assessor, or testing by a certified renovator, showing the components are free of lead-based paint. Without one, treat the rule as applying.

Then the paint line: one coat or two, and which product. Two quotes that differ by a coat are not the same job.

The arithmetic

  1. BLS wage, painters, construction and maintenance (SOC 47-2141), Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington metro, May 2025: $27.79 mean, $37.00 at the 90th percentile. Plain wages, without the contractor's insurance, taxes and markup.
  2. Prep at $1,200 is 43.2 hours of painter wages at the mean, or 32.4 hours at the 90th percentile, before markup. Ask how many hours the contractor expects.
  3. Lead-safe threshold for exterior work: more than 20 square feet of disturbed paint (40 CFR 745.83).

Public numbers used above:

  • $27.79: Painters, construction and maintenance (SOC 47-2141), Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD, mean hourly wage, May 2025. Source
  • $37.00: Painters, construction and maintenance (SOC 47-2141), Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD, 90th percentile hourly wage, May 2025. Source
  • 1978: RRP applies to paid work disturbing paint in homes built before 1978. Source
  • 20 square feet: Exterior minor repair limit: 20 square feet or less of painted surface. Source
  • 60 days: Pamphlet no more than 60 days before renovation. Source

What to ask the contractor

Copy this into a text or an email. A contractor with a reason for each number can answer in a minute.

Before I decide, could you put in writing:
1. What prep includes: the scraping method, how much, and which areas get primed.
2. The paint product name and the number of coats on the body and on the trim.
3. Your EPA lead-safe firm certification, since the house was built in 1952, and how you will contain and clean up paint chips.
4. That you'll give me the EPA lead pamphlet before work starts.

What this does not establish

It does not say $9,800 is too much. It says the quote does not describe the work well enough to compare it with another quote, and that a legal requirement for a 1952 house is missing from the page. Lead-safe work costs more than ordinary prep, so a quote that is cheaper because it skips it is not a bargain.

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Questions

Does the EPA lead rule apply to exterior painting?

For paid work on homes built before 1978, yes, once more than 20 square feet of exterior painted surface is disturbed (40 CFR 745.83). The contractor must be a certified firm.

What should a painting quote say?

The prep in plain terms, the product name, and the number of coats for the body and the trim. Without those, two quotes cannot be compared.

Sources

Every public number on this page links to the record it comes from. Wages were looked up in USCCDB, which carries the BLS file as published. Statutes, codes and agency pages are quoted as published on October 9, 2026; check the source for changes.

  1. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Lead Renovation, Repair and Painting Program
  2. 40 CFR 745.82, Applicability (Residential Property Renovation)
  3. 40 CFR 745.83, Definitions (minor repair and maintenance activities; renovation)
  4. 40 CFR 745.84, Information distribution requirements (the EPA pamphlet)
  5. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, metropolitan area data (oesm25ma.zip)
  6. United States Construction Cost Database (USCCDB) v1.0, doi:10.5281/zenodo.22979157, CC BY 4.0

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