Should we sand and prime holes in our walls or pay someone to do it?

October 5, 2011 6:50 AM

Should we sand and prime patched-up holes in our walls or hire someone to do it?

We just had our 1,000-square-foot house insulated with blown-in insulation. Now we have 180 patched-up holes in our walls that need be sanded and primed before we repaint.

How difficult and time-consuming would it be to sand and prime the holes ourselves? If I estimate five minutes per hole, I get 15 hours; is that realistic?

We have one estimate for $1200. That seems like a lot for something we could theoretically do ourselves, especially when we have other upcoming projects that will require professional work.

Should we get another estimate, pay the $1200, or do it ourselves?

posted by kirkaracha to home & garden (14 answers total)

I would purchase an inexpensive orbital sander and do it myself. I can't believe that they would have left it so rough that more than 30 seconds of sanding would be necessary... the priming, of course, is a piece of cake.

Or, for $1,200 I'll fly from Michigan to do it and that includes the airfare.
posted by HuronBob at 6:55 AM on October 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

One thing I would be concerned about is the amount of dust sanding 180 holes will have. I would as what the professional work consists of in terms of isolating a room and doing room by room to limit dust. Oh yes my friend, you WILL have a dust war on your hands. And that stuff gets everywhere. Do you have a way to get rid of the dust? Shop-Vac with a drywall dust filter?
posted by amazingstill at 6:58 AM on October 5, 2011

How big are these holes? My dad is super DIY-guy, and we've always done all of our home improvement projects ourselves (which means that my brother and I, as the slave labor kids, got stuck with the unskilled tasks like sanding and priming). Should be a lot less than five minutes per hole. Get one of those hand grip things you can attach sand paper to and it'll be a lot easier. Swipe-swipe-swipe, move to the next one, swipe-swipe-swipe, move to the next one. Go back over them again to dust them off and check for uneven spots, then move onto the primer.

There is no way I'd pay someone even close to $1200 to do it for me.
posted by phunniemee at 6:58 AM on October 5, 2011

If they're already patched I would do it yourself. Drywall paste is very quick to sand. Hold a vacuum hose with one hand while you sand with the other and it will reduce the dust.
posted by bondcliff at 7:00 AM on October 5, 2011

I agree with the DIY route; another trick to minimize the dust is wet-sanding. Although the linked article recommends a special sponge, I have had good results with a regular sponge or even a wet rag. Usually I will lightly dry sand the final time for the smoothest finish.
posted by TedW at 7:08 AM on October 5, 2011

These holes are on the outside through the siding, right? If this is an older house with many coats of paint on it, the siding will probably contain lead. Have it tested or get a detection kit. If there's lead, consider the precautions listed here. The pro quote you got may assume having to deal with lead.
posted by beagle at 7:11 AM on October 5, 2011

It's not hard or complicated work. It comes down to how valuable your time is. Fifteen hours (which is already generous) is a weekend. Two Saturdays and a Sunday if you really drag your ass, or if the cleaning really becomes a problem.

$1,200 to save a weekend, weekend and a half? No way.

Seconding the wet-sanding, with dry-sanding to follow. Easy peasy.
posted by Capt. Renault at 7:24 AM on October 5, 2011

The good news about sanding those patches is that the compound is softer than the painted wall underneath it, so it will be pretty easy to just blast it with an orbital sander and have it smoothly blended at the edges of the patch. When it's drywall compound on drywall compound you have to pay more attention, and once you prime over these patches they'll be almost impossible to fix any sanding you missed, so be sure you don't acidentally skip one. But the job as-is is pretty easy.

The cleanup is annoying, though, so try to do it all at once, sand like a maniac and get it all done, then go back and clean everything.
posted by aimedwander at 7:26 AM on October 5, 2011

Rent a drywall sander and it will make sooooo much nicer.
posted by buggzzee23 at 7:30 AM on October 5, 2011

I work for a contractor and we do a lot of paint and plaster work. When we quote a contract price for something like that, it includes not only the cost of labour and materials, but also our costs for supervision, overhead (worker's comp premiums, running an effective OH&S program, office work associated with the contract, etc). I'm not suggesting you're wrong to feel that their price is too high, but I wanted to offer another point of view. People often forget that it's not always as simple as labour + materials. But get another price, theirs seems awfully high. Don't feel obligated to go with a company just because they gave you a price. See what else is out there.

And as the daughter of a DIY dad, I say you can absolutely do this yourself, no problem. A ShopVac is a good idea. Our fellas wear safety glasses and half-face respirators with the proper filters when doing this sort of work.
posted by futureisunwritten at 7:33 AM on October 5, 2011

Drywall mudding and sanding isn't hard - I've done my share - but it's messy work and there's a definite learning curve. If you do this and it's your first outing you're going to take longer and probably won't look quite as good as if you have competent professionals do it. At least not the initial, say, 15-20% of the ones you do.

For me, that means do it myself. Are you going to look at the first 1/2 of the project where you didn't quite get it perfectly smooth and flat and be annoyed? If so, drop the money. Despite my do-it-yourself attitude I let my wife push me into paying someone to come in and skimcoat and paint our kitchen earlier this year... and I have to admit, it's a quality I wouldn't have achieved.

My work is fine, but these folks were able to sand and skim a wall that had a bit of an orange-peel sort of texture into a perfect smooth I wouldn't have achieved. And they were done in 4 days, dry to dry. That was important to my wife so it was money well-spent.

I would have been happier with the cases of beer that money could have bought. And I wouldn't have been bothered by the continued slight texture, nor would it have bugged me by being in an intermediate state for two weeks while I worked on it in my spare time. So if it was just me that would have been the right way to go.

I think that's your real choice, though I'd also say that if this is completely new to you that you should enlist the assistance of someone you know who has done it and perhaps has some floats and trowels. There's a lot of specialized hardware that makes this job a lot easier that you can easily spend a few hundred bucks buying. If you're never going to use it again and lack the storage you might consider that as well.
posted by phearlez at 8:03 AM on October 5, 2011

The holes themselves are about two inches in diameter; the plaster goes out anywhere from six inches to a foot. They're in the interior walls.
posted by kirkaracha at 8:17 AM on October 5, 2011

I am in the middle of some drywall compound sanding and priming. Mine is a little bit trickery since it is a ceiling but not that much more. It is my first time doing this without my father's help so I am not completely confident but in the end it isn't too hard.

Why don't you try a room and see how it goes both from a time stand point as well as your comfort level with getting the work done with sufficient quality. Undoubtedly you have a friend or two that has done some of this in the past that can at least give you some pointers.

Good luck.
posted by mmascolino at 8:37 AM on October 5, 2011

It's not difficult; save your money and do it yourself. For holes that small, a mouse sander will make the initial sanding go faster. Then run your hand over it to feel for edges or lumps and finish it with sandpaper by hand.

Nice thing is that you can portion up the project to balance out how fast you want this completed vs. how long you can sand before it starts to make you cranky. I don't think it will take you five minutes per hole, though.

It's worth doing well, because if you slack off on getting the edges smooth, you're not going to notice it until you've painted and several months have gone by, and there's no way you're going to want to undo that.
posted by desuetude at 11:35 AM on October 5, 2011