House painting in Australia, explained

A paint job is six decisions, and prep is the one that holds them together

Painting your house looks like one job, but it's really six smaller ones stacked on top of each other, and once you see the shape of it the whole thing gets simpler. First there's the inside: rooms, walls, ceilings and trim. Then the outside, where the weather is always working against the paint. The roof is its own job again, with its own rules. After that comes what it all costs, and what to buy and who to hire. And running underneath every one of those is the prep: the patching, filling and cleaning that decides whether the finish lasts five years or fifteen.

Get the prep right and the paint has a sound surface to grip, so the finish holds. Skip it, and the best paint in the shop still lifts, cracks and peels. You pay to do the same job again. That's the one idea to carry through everything below: a good paint job is bought with prep, the right product for the surface, and a licensed painter, not with the paint tin.

Each of the six parts gets its own section below, and each one stands on its own. You'll come away understanding it whether or not you read further. So let's start where the paint meets the most wall: the inside of the house.

Inside the house: rooms, coats and a finish that suits the surface

Interior painting is the part most people picture first, and it's a real, priced job. On SureQuote it's its own line of work, with several pricing options behind it. The useful thing to know going in is that interior painting is sized the way you actually live in the house: by rooms and bedrooms, not by square metres. When you ask for a quote, a painter thinks in 'three bedrooms plus the hallway', not in raw area, so that's the language to plan in.

Within a single room there are three surfaces, and they don't all take the same paint. Walls are the big flat areas, and they usually take a low-sheen or matt acrylic that hides small flaws. Ceilings are a separate surface again (flat white, painted before the walls so drips don't matter). Trim, doors and skirting are the third, often finished in an enamel for a harder, wipeable surface. That trim choice is the whole water-based-versus-oil-based question in miniature: water-based enamel dries fast and stays white, while an old oil-based enamel gives a higher gloss but yellows and gets brittle over time.2Dulux TradeView source More on that choice in the choosing section below.

The other interior question is how many coats. Two proper topcoats over a prepared, primed surface beat one heavy coat every time. The extra coat is what gives even colour and a finish that wears well, not a thicker single pass. So when you compare quotes, check what's actually in them: surface prep, primer where it's needed, and two finish coats, rather than one cheap pass that looks fine for a year.

Outside the house: the surface decides the system, and the weather sets the clock

Exterior painting is a bigger, weather-exposed job, and like the inside it's a real priced line of work, with a separate one again for fences and decks. The first thing that shapes an exterior job is what the house is made of, because the surface decides the paint system. Weatherboard, rendered walls, face brick and timber fences or decks each behave differently, and each wants its own prep and coating, because there's no single 'house paint' that does all of them well.

The next thing to know is that outdoor paint doesn't last a fixed number of years. How long the finish holds depends on the product, how well the surface was prepped, how the home is looked after, and where you live. A coastal or high-sun home works its paint much harder than a sheltered inland one. The clearest proof comes from the makers themselves. A premium exterior system like Dulux Weathershield is guaranteed not to peel, flake or blister 'for as long as you live in your home', but only when it's 'applied and maintained in accordance with the product instructions, to a suitable and sound substrate'.1DuluxView source Read that the other way around and it tells you the whole game: the guarantee rides on the prep and the upkeep, not on the tin.

So when an exterior job is quoted, the surface type and its state are doing most of the work behind the number. A sound, freshly-painted weatherboard wall is a simple recoat. A sun-baked, flaking one needs scraping back, treating and priming before a brush of finish goes near it. That prep gap is why two 'exterior paint' quotes for houses of the same size can look so different. The cheapest quote often isn't pricing the same job.

The roof is a substrate-specific job: tile and metal are not the same paint

Painting a roof is a real, priced job in its own right, and it's worth knowing about because it follows different rules to the walls below it. The one thing to know is that roof painting is set by the substrate: what the roof is actually made of. A concrete or terracotta tile roof and a Colorbond or metal roof are two different jobs, with different cleaning, prep and coating systems. Paint that grips a primed metal roof beautifully can fail on porous tile, and the other way around.

That split is why a roof can't just be lumped in with the rest of an exterior quote. Metal roofs usually need the right primer and bonding system, so the topcoat keys to a smooth, often already-painted surface, while tile roofs are porous and need cleaning and sealing so they don't drink the paint or let it lift later. Which system suits which roof is the painter's call on the day, matched to your roof. As with the walls, how long a roof finish lasts rides on that prep, not on the colour you pick.

Roof painting also tends to mean working at height and pressure-cleaning, so it's firmly a licensed-painter job, not a weekend one. If your roof looks tired, the practical move is to get it looked at and priced as its own job, alongside (or instead of) the walls.

What it costs comes down to four drivers, and prep is the biggest

Once you know the surfaces, the cost makes more sense, because the price of a paint job is set by four things and the paint itself is the smallest of them. The biggest driver is prep: the patching, filling, scraping and cleaning that gets the surface sound before any finish goes on. Prep is heavier on older homes with worn paint and cracked walls, and it's labour, which is why it moves the number the most.

The other three stack on top. The number and quality of coats matters: two proper topcoats over primer cost more than one thin pass, and they're worth it. Access and ceiling height matter too, because stairwells, second storeys and anything needing scaffold add time and safety gear. And the state of the surface matters, because a wall whose old layers have to be stripped back is a different job to a clean recoat. Put those four together and you can usually see why one quote sits above another: it's almost always prep and surface state, not a dearer brand of paint.

Your real number depends on your rooms, your surfaces and their state, so the most useful thing is a range built from your own home, not a fixed headline price. Use the live estimate below to get a fair-price range for your place, then see the full breakdown by area on the cost guide.

What will your paint job cost?

Choosing paint and a painter: match the product to the surface, and check the licence

With the surfaces and cost clear, two choices are left: what paint goes on, and who puts it there. Paint choice is mostly a water-based-versus-oil-based call, plus a finish (matt, low-sheen, gloss). Water-based acrylic dries in about 20 to 30 minutes, recoats in roughly two hours, is low-odour with reduced VOCs, cleans up with water, stays white, and flexes with the surface as it expands and shrinks. Oil-based enamel is slower to dry, higher in VOCs, and gives a bright, very smooth gloss, but it tends to yellow out of sunlight and gets harder and more brittle as it ages.2Dulux TradeView source For most homes that points to water-based on walls and modern water-based enamel on trim. Oil-based earns its place mainly where you want that hard, high-gloss look and accept the trade-offs.

Before any of that on an older home, there's a safety step that comes first. Houses built before 1970 often used high-lead paint. Paint made before 1965 could hold as much as 50 per cent lead, and the limit only fell to 1% in 1965, 0.25% in 1992 and 0.1% in 1997.3DCCEEWView source Lead is a health hazard. So if your home is from that era, the safe move is to have the old paint checked before anyone sands, scrapes or disturbs it. That's a job for a licensed professional working to the regulator's guidance, not a DIY task. Disturbing old lead paint without the right gear is exactly what you want to avoid.

Then there's the painter. Painter licensing is set by your state, not by a national rule, so what's needed depends on where you live and the value of the work. In Queensland, for example, building work valued over $3,300 requires a QBCC licence, and painting falls under that building-work threshold, so a sizeable paint job there should go to a licensed contractor.4QBCCView source Thresholds and whether painting is a licensed trade differ across Australia, so check your own state's rule before you hire. Whatever the state, the same checks help: confirm the licence and insurance, get the scope in writing, and compare a few quotes on what's actually in them. You can find and compare licensed painters in your area through the directory.

Paint problems and prep: fix the surface first, or pay for the finish twice

The last part of the job is the one that comes first in practice: dealing with what's wrong with the surface before you paint it. Prep and repair is a real, priced job on its own, covering filling cracks, patching holes, sanding back peeling paint, and treating damp or mould at its source. It's the least glamorous part of painting and the most important, because a fresh coat over a bad surface just inherits the problem.

Here's why it pays off, in plain terms. A coating only performs when it has a sound surface to grip. That's exactly the condition makers attach to their own guarantees. Dulux Weathershield is guaranteed against peeling, flaking and blistering only when it's applied to a 'suitable and sound substrate' and maintained correctly.1DuluxView source Paint over loose, flaking or damp surfaces and you lose that durability: the new coat lifts with the old one, and you're paying to redo the same wall inside a couple of years. Prep is what you're really buying when you buy a paint job that lasts.

Some problems are a painter's job and some need another trade first. Peeling paint, surface cracks and tired walls are patch-and-paint work. But damp that keeps coming back, rising moisture or large areas of mould usually point to a cause behind the wall: a leak, a drainage issue, poor airflow. That source needs fixing by the right professional before painting, or the problem comes straight back through the new coat. Lead paint on a pre-1970 home, as above, needs checking before it's disturbed. The safe approach is to get the surface looked at, let a licensed painter handle the patch-and-paint, and have any underlying cause priced as its own job.