Painting & Wall Covering Contractors Industry Overview

Excerpt from Painting & Wall Covering Contractors Report

Companies in this industry supply manpower and materials needed to paint interior and exterior walls and apply coverings to interior walls of residential and commercial buildings. Major companies include FD Thomas, North American Coatings, and divisions of The Brock Group (all based in the US).

Competitive Landscape

Building construction, renovation, and maintenance drive demand. The profitability of individual companies depends on efficiency of operations. Large companies can have advantages in efficiency by working multiple projects concurrently. Small companies can compete effectively by specializing in unusual or difficult applications and providing superior customer service. The industry is labor-intensive: average annual revenue per worker is about $90,000. The industry is fragmented.

Products, Operations & Technology

Major services are painting the interiors and exteriors of buildings, and installing or removing wallpaper ("paperhanging"). Other services include wall surface preparation and repair. Painters use brushes, rollers, and/or sprayers to apply a base coat of primer and usually two coats of paint. Skilled contractors achieve special finishes by hand or by using paint with texture-creating ingredients like sand. Paperhangers apply sizing to walls and measure and cut wallpaper into long strips. Surface preparation readies walls for paint or wallpaper, typically includes cleaning, and may involve removing old paint and wallpaper. Most painters fill and sand surface irregularities. Many contractors work only on walls that are paint-ready or that require minimal preparation. Job-specific metrics are number of rooms or square footage; for example, a 7-room or 2,000-square-foot home. A common annual metric is total number of workweeks deployed on jobs.