Prep levels — the bands and when each applies
Prep in Surfacely has its own production rate, in the same units as your painting rates — how much surface you prep in an hour. Pick the level that matches the condition of the surface and Surfacely works out the hours.
A slower rate means more prep. The ladder reads in the opposite direction to a percentage: Minimal is fast because there is barely anything to do, Restoration is slow because prep is the job.
Rates are shown in metric first, with the imperial equivalent in brackets:
- None — paint-ready: already primed or prepped by someone else. No sanding, no patching, no prep hours at all.
- Minimal — 75 m²/hr (800 ft²/hr) — scuff & dust: near paint-ready, a quick scuff and dust down, the odd spot fill. For surfaces in excellent shape.
- Light — 37.5 m²/hr (400 ft²/hr) — light sand: very good condition, light sand and dust down, minimal filling.
- Standard — 25 m²/hr (270 ft²/hr) — fill & sand: typical repaint in sound condition. Wash, sand, spot-fill, dust down. The usual baseline for a normal repaint — go faster than this only when the surface is genuinely near-new.
- Moderate — 15 m²/hr (160 ft²/hr) — moderate fill & sand: older surface, more filler work, a few minor repairs, some scraping.
- Heavy — 9.25 m²/hr (100 ft²/hr) — spot strip, heavy fill & sand: neglected or peeling, significant sanding, filling, primer spots, cracked paint removal.
- Very Heavy — 6 m²/hr (65 ft²/hr) — full strip, heavy fill & sand: weathered exterior, failed paint, extensive filling, stabilising primer, damaged substrate.
Beyond Very Heavy, two restoration-grade bands cover the heaviest work: Extensive — 5 m²/hr (55 ft²/hr) — major repair, heavy strip and full prime on structural or significant substrate damage — and Restoration — 2.25 m²/hr (25 ft²/hr) — detailed, slow heritage and full-rebuild work where prep dominates the job.
How it applies
Prep hours are the surface area divided by the prep rate, then scaled by how fiddly the surface is:
prep hours = area ÷ prep rate × fiddliness
Fiddliness comes from the surface's speed step — a heritage cornice preps slower than a flat wall for the same reason it paints slower. It is 1.0 at the Steady step, higher on slower steps, lower on faster ones.
So a 100 m² wall at Standard prep, on the Steady speed step, is 100 ÷ 25 = 4.0 prep hours. Painting it two coats at 15 m²/hr is 13.3 hours. Total 17.3, shown in the quote as painting plus prep, priced at your labour sell rate.
Prep is charged once, not once per coat
You wash, sand and fill a wall before the first coat, and you do not do it again before the second. Because prep is now its own rate rather than a percentage of painting time, that is exactly how it prices: the same wall in the same condition costs the same prep at one coat, two coats or three. Only the painting hours move with the coat count.
Automatic bump
Switching a surface to spray bumps prep to Moderate — the extra masking and setup is real work. You can override it if the specific job is different, but the default reflects real labour cost.
Setting your own rates
The ladder ships calibrated to the industry floor, and the slow end is deliberate — prep really is 30–50% of total labour on a normal repaint, and more on a weathered exterior. If your crew consistently beats or misses a band, you can set your own rate for any level in Settings → Company Pricing → Preparation. Clearing a value restores the system default.
Why it matters: painters who use a flat "prep included" assumption either under-charge on heavy repaints or over-charge on good-condition walls. Per-surface prep gives you per-surface accuracy — which is what wins competitive quotes on easy work and protects you on hard work.
Tip: a rate is something you can check against your own experience in a way a percentage never was. "Standard prep is 25 m²/hr" is a claim you can accept or reject after a morning on the tools. Time yourself on one wall and compare.