Most exterior painting jobs in West Yorkshire fall somewhere between £800 and £6,000, which is a wide enough range to be almost useless on its own. The real answer depends on what your house is made of, how high it is, and what state the old paint is in. Here is how those costs break down for the kinds of homes we actually see around Keighley, Bradford and the Aire and Wharfe valleys.
A lot of West Yorkshire housing is bare stone or brick, which changes the sums. If your walls are natural gritstone, there is no masonry to paint and the job is the woodwork and trim only: windows, doors, fascias, soffits, bargeboards and sometimes gutters. If the house is rendered or pebble-dashed, the walls are the bulk of the work.
These are realistic ballpark figures for a professional job including labour and materials. Scaffolding is listed separately because it varies so much.
Preparation is the biggest variable, and it is the part you cannot see from the pavement. Flaking paint has to be scraped back, bare patches primed, cracks in render filled, and rotten timber cut out and repaired. A house that was last painted properly eight years ago is a very different job from one that has been left for twenty.
Height and access come next. Many terraces in Keighley, Haworth, Bingley and the Calder Valley are built into hillsides, so a house that is two storeys at the front can be three or four at the back. That often means scaffolding rather than ladders, and scaffolding on a slope or over a neighbour's yard costs more to put up.
Surface type matters too. Pebble-dash drinks paint and takes far longer to cover than smooth render, often using nearly twice the material. Old timber sash windows take longer than modern frames because of the glazing bars and the amount of putty and filling involved.
Houses on this side of the Pennines take a battering. Exposed west-facing elevations in places like Oxenhope, Queensbury and the hills above Hebden Bridge get driving rain and wind for much of the year, and paint on those faces fails years before the sheltered side does.
That makes paint choice a genuine cost decision rather than an upsell. A standard masonry paint is cheaper up front but may need redoing in five to seven years on an exposed wall. A breathable, high-performance system costs more per tin and can last ten to fifteen years. On older stone and lime-rendered properties, breathability matters a great deal, because the wrong paint traps moisture and causes damp and flaking.
Weather also dictates timing. The reliable window for exterior work here runs from about April to early October. Outside that, short days, low temperatures and damp surfaces stop paint curing properly, so good decorators book up early for summer.
Two quotes for the same house can differ by £1,000 or more and both be honest, because they describe different jobs. Ask each decorator to put in writing exactly what is included so you are comparing like with like.
If you live in a conservation area such as Saltaire or parts of Haworth, or in a listed building, check with your council before changing an exterior colour or painting previously unpainted stone, as consent may be needed. As a general rule, we would advise against painting bare natural stone at all: it rarely looks better, it is very hard to reverse, and it creates a maintenance bill that never ends.
A stone terrace needing woodwork only usually takes two to four days, while a rendered three bed semi typically takes one to two weeks. In West Yorkshire it is sensible to allow extra time for rain delays.
Masonry generally needs repainting every five to ten years and exterior woodwork every four to six. Exposed, west-facing elevations on higher ground will be at the shorter end of those ranges.
No. Many two storey houses with good access can be done safely from ladders or a tower, but three storey elevations, steep sloping sites and extensive repair work usually call for proper scaffolding.
Tell us about the job. We can come out, take a look, and send a fair fixed-price quote inside 48 hours.