The Paint Quantity Standard

Most painting companies say "two coats" and leave it there. Here is the problem: "two coats" is not a measurable promise. A coat sprayed too thin to save paint is still technically a coat. The only way to know your house was actually painted to the film thickness the coating needs is to measure the paint — in gallons. So that is exactly what we put in writing.

The Number Most Companies Hide Behind

There is a coverage number every painter knows and most never explain to you. It is how a company can spread your paint thin, call it two coats, and not technically be lying. Here is the whole thing, in the open:

Dunn-Edwards publishes the specification for EVERSHIELD®: apply it at 3.8 mils wet, which dries to a 1.5-mil dry film, and one gallon is rated to cover 400 to 475 square feet per coat. That is the manufacturer's own published number, and there is nothing wrong with it — it is the coverage you get on an ideal surface, applied perfectly. The trouble is what happens when a company treats that ideal as the target.

That published range describes an ideal surface, not a real one. It assumes a smooth, flat wall, sprayed with little overlap and little waste. Your house is not that surface. Real stucco has texture that drinks paint; complete coverage requires spray overlap; eaves, rafter tails, and detail work all consume more. On a real Phoenix stucco home, honest coverage runs closer to 250 square feet per gallon per coat — close to half the published rate, which means close to double the paint on your wall.

That gap is where the dishonesty lives. A company that wants to use less paint simply spreads it toward that published high end. The thinner they spread, the closer they get to the manufacturer's number, and the less protection ends up on your wall. They can still call it "two coats" — technically true — while putting roughly half the paint on your house that the job actually calls for. Nothing on the invoice gives it away. The number does the lying for them.

Our Standard — Two Numbers, in Writing, Before We Start

We do not anchor to the published ideal. We base our quantity on real-world coverage for Phoenix stucco, and we put it in writing on your proposal — not one number, but two:

A single "minimum" can still be gamed — set it low enough and any company looks generous. Two numbers cannot be gamed the same way. The minimum is what we guarantee; the likely is what we actually expect. Together they tell you the truth about how much paint your home will get, before a single gallon is opened.

And We Prove It

A number on a proposal is still just a number until you can check it. So we make the gallons verifiable two ways:

1. It is on your proposal in writing — both the minimum and the likely — before any work begins.

2. The paint is delivered to your driveway, where you can see it arrive and count it yourself.

How We Size Your Home — and Why We Round Up

An honest admission first: no one exactly measures a house during an estimate visit — there is not time, and a number that sounds precise is not the same as a number that protects you. What protects you is the direction of the error and the written floor underneath it.

Here is what actually happens: we size your home's paintable area by experience — and we deliberately size it high. The gallon math runs on that sizing, so a generous sizing means the guaranteed minimum on your proposal is computed from a generous base. When a company wants to stretch paint, the move starts with a skinny square-footage call at an ideal coverage rate. We do the opposite, on purpose.

The square footage you will see on your proposal is your home's living space — property information, printed up front beside the build year. What you will not find is a wall-area figure, because we do not sell you square feet of painting — we commit to gallons: the minimum we guarantee and what we honestly expect, both in writing. And if your home needs more paint than even the higher number, the overage is on us — one hundred percent. Your price does not move. The sizing is an estimate. The numbers are not.

What the number covers. The gallon figure is for the main wall body of your home. Trim, doors, pop-outs, and detail areas are brush-and-roll work where paint volume is small and coverage is irregular; they are coated to the same standard but are not part of the gallon calculation. Including them would make the number less accurate, not more.

Texture only pushes it up. Heavily textured surfaces — lace, knockdown, rough dash — drink more paint than smooth stucco. Where your texture calls for more than the minimum, you get more. You will never get less than the number on your proposal.

Raw synthetic stucco drinks the most. Previously unpainted synthetic (acrylic-finish) stucco is especially thirsty — bare and never sealed, it absorbs topcoat well beyond a normal repaint. A home like this will use noticeably more paint, and we tell you that up front so the number on your proposal reflects it — not a surprise after we start.

The gallons are on your proposal. The paint is in your driveway.