Paint Preparation Costs SA 2026 - Get Free Quotes

Paint Preparation Costs in South Australia

Preparation across South Australia generally costs $8 to $18 per square metre on a sound previously painted surface, $20 to $45 where the coating has broken down, and $45 to $90 where it has to be removed entirely. Repair work is charged separately at $55 to $95 an hour, with plaster patching at $80 to $250 per hole, crack repair at $15 to $45 per lineal metre and render repair at $60 to $150 per square metre. This is the largest variable in any painting job and the one you cannot see once it is finished. A painter who allows two days for washing, stabilising, filling and priming an older exterior, and one who allows half a day for a wash, will produce quotes several thousand dollars apart on the same house. Both are describing what they actually intend to do. Three years later only one of those houses still looks right, and the paint gets blamed for a decision made at the quoting stage.

What most people do not realise is that this stage can be bought on its own. That separation gives you two comparable quotes rather than one bundled figure full of assumptions. Ask for that to be itemised separately. A site inspection settles it properly.

Preparation and repair specialists work as a standalone trade in South Australia, and the customers are more varied than you would expect. Homeowners who want to do their own rolling but not the filling and sanding. Builders needing make good before handover. Agents preparing a property for sale. Insurance work after water damage. And painting contractors themselves, who regularly subcontract the heavy preparation on a difficult job.

In South Australia this stage also carries most of the risk in a painting job, not just most of the labour. Sanding, scraping, burning and pressure washing are exactly the activities that release lead from pre-1970 coatings and fibres from asbestos cement, and both are common in Adelaide's older suburbs. This page covers how a wall is assessed, the preparation sequence, cleaning, repairs, cracking, timber, primers, hazards, damp and doing it yourself. The trades that follow are covered in the SA painters guide, with detail on exterior and interior work separately.

Why Preparation Is Its Own Trade

Preparation is a different skill from application and the two do not always sit in the same person. Application is about laying a film evenly, cutting a straight line and maintaining a wet edge. Preparation is diagnostic. It is about working out what is on the wall, why it has failed, what will bond to it, and what has to be removed before anything else can happen. Those are different kinds of judgement.

On a straightforward repaint the same crew does both and there is no reason to separate them. It is on difficult buildings that the split makes sense. A heritage exterior with lead paint, a rendered facade with drummy sections and salt damp at the base, or a house with three previous coatings of unknown type all need someone who will spend a morning working out what they are dealing with before a brush appears. Some painting businesses do that superbly. Others are excellent applicators who would rather bring in a specialist for the diagnosis and the heavy work.

There is also a straightforward economic case for buying preparation alone. Application is the part a reasonably capable homeowner can manage on interior walls, while preparation is the part where mistakes are invisible until they are expensive. Paying a specialist for the difficult half and rolling the easy half yourself is a legitimate way to spend a limited budget well. Licensing applies either way. Painting and decorating is defined as building work in South Australia and anyone contracting to carry it out for others must hold a building work contractor's licence issued by Consumer and Business Services, with no dollar threshold below which that falls away. The licence can be limited to painting and decorating, which is what most of these businesses hold.

Why Preparation Is Most of the Job

On any repaint worth doing, preparation accounts for somewhere between half and three quarters of the labour, and it is the only part of the work nobody can see once the job is finished. That combination is what makes it the most commonly cut corner in the trade and the reason two quotes on the same house can differ by thousands. A painter who intends to wash the walls, fill the obvious holes and start rolling will always be cheaper than one who intends to strip failing coating back to sound substrate, and the quotes will look superficially similar. Reading for preparation rather than for price is the skill this page is trying to pass on.

The economics are unforgiving in a way that is worth stating plainly. Paint applied over a sound, correctly prepared surface will last ten to fifteen years externally and considerably longer inside. The same paint applied over a chalking, drummy or poorly adhered surface will fail within one to three years regardless of what it cost, because the failure happens at the bond rather than in the film. You are not buying paint, you are buying adhesion.

That is also why preparation can be bought as a service in its own right, which surprises many households. Where a property needs sizeable repair work before any coating decision makes sense, engaging someone to prepare and stabilise the surfaces, then pricing the painting separately once the substrate is sound, gives you two comparable quotes instead of one bundled figure full of assumptions. The corollary is that a quote given without anyone standing at the wall is a guess rather than a price. Surface condition cannot be assessed from a photograph, a floor plan or a description, because chalking, drumminess and moisture are all things you establish by touching the wall. Any painter who prices an exterior repaint sight unseen has priced an average house rather than yours.

None of this means the most expensive quote is the right one. It means the preparation scope is the thing to compare, and where one quote describes it in detail and another says preparation as required, you are not looking at the same job at all. Compare the preparation scope line by line and ask about anything described only as required. Most painters will describe it if asked.

Reading a Wall Before Anyone Quotes

A competent assessment takes twenty minutes and it determines everything that follows. These are the checks useful to know about, partly so you can do some of them yourself before you call anyone. The chalk test is the simplest. Run a dry hand firmly across the surface and look at your palm. Powder means the existing coating has broken down and the binder has failed, so anything applied straight over it will bond to the powder and peel away with it. That single test frequently explains a whole quote.

The adhesion test tells you whether the existing film is still holding. A painter will cut a small cross hatch pattern through the coating, press tape firmly over it and pull it off. Paint lifting away on the tape means the film has lost its bond and cannot be painted over. The tap test finds hollow areas. Knuckle or tap along render and solid plaster and listen for the change from a solid sound to a hollow one. Drummy sections have separated from the wall behind and will eventually fall regardless of what is painted over them.

The moisture check is visual and tactile. Look for bubbling in a band at the base of external walls, tide marks inside at skirting height, white powdery deposits, crumbling mortar and paint failing in one zone while the wall above is sound. That pattern means water, not paint. Then there is the age question, which is not a test but a decision point. Anything painted before 1970 should be assumed to carry lead in its lower layers until testing says otherwise, and anything built before about 1990 may contain asbestos cement in eaves, cladding and wet area linings.

A contractor who performs none of these and quotes from the footpath has not assessed your building. That is the clearest signal available to you at the quoting stage. Surface condition cannot be assessed from a photograph or a floor plan. That line is where two quotes diverge.

Three Tests You Can Do Yourself

Before any painter arrives, three simple checks will tell you most of what you need to know about your own walls, and they take about ten minutes with things you already own. None of them require expertise, and knowing the answers before you get quotes means you can read those quotes with some understanding rather than taking every claim on trust. The chalk test tells you whether the existing coating has broken down. Rub a dark cloth or your palm firmly across the painted surface, and if it comes away with a fine powder resembling coloured dust, the binder holding the paint together has degraded under years of ultraviolet exposure. Painting over chalk without a stabilising primer is one of the most common causes of premature failure on Adelaide exteriors, and it is why this test matters more here than in cooler states.

The tap test finds drummy render and solid plaster. Knock gently across the wall with a knuckle or the handle of a screwdriver and listen for the change from a solid dull sound to a hollow one, since hollow means the render or plaster has lost its bond to the substrate behind it. Drummy sections cannot be surface filled and will take any new coating off with them when they eventually let go. The moisture check looks for salt damp, which South Australia has more of than anywhere else in the country. Look along the base of external walls and at skirting height inside for bubbling paint, a white crystalline deposit, crumbling mortar or a tide mark running roughly parallel to the ground. Any of those means moisture is moving through the wall and no coating will hold until the cause is addressed.

A painter will add a fourth test you cannot easily do yourself, which is a cross hatch adhesion check. Cutting a small grid into the existing coating and lifting it with tape shows whether the film is still bonded, and a painter who performs one on an older exterior is demonstrating something useful about how they work. A painter who performs one on an older exterior is demonstrating something useful about how they work. Worth confirming before scaffolding goes up.

The Preparation Sequence

Order matters, because several of these steps undo each other if done in the wrong sequence. Sanding before cleaning grinds contamination into the surface, and priming before repair means repairing over primer. The sequence below is the one that works. Get the method named rather than implied.

Protect first. Drop sheets, masking, plant and garden protection, and containment where hazardous material is involved. Doing this after you start scraping means the debris is already in the garden. Clean second. Wash down to remove dirt, chalk, mould, cobwebs, cooking residue inside and salt on the coast. A coating applied over contamination bonds to the contamination.

Remove what is failing. Scrape and sand back loose, flaking or lifting coating to a sound edge, and feather that edge, meaning taper it gradually into the sound surface, so the join does not show through the finish. Repair the substrate. Fill holes and cracks, patch damaged plaster, replace drummy render, treat rust, repair or replace decayed timber, and renew perished sealant around windows and junctions. This is where most of the money goes on an older building.

Sand flat. Filled areas need sanding level and feathered into the surrounding surface, then dusting off. A patch that is proud or that has a visible edge will show through two coats of anything. Stabilise and prime last. A binding primer over any remaining chalk, a sealer over bare or absorbent areas, a stain blocker over anything that would bleed, and a suitable primer on bare timber, rust or non-ferrous metal. Only now is the surface ready.

Washing, Chalk and Coastal Salt

Cleaning is skipped more often than any other step because it looks like it achieves nothing. It is doing more than it appears to. Exterior walls in South Australia accumulate dust, chalk from the breaking down coating, mould and algae on shaded southern elevations, and airborne salt anywhere near the coast. Interior walls accumulate cooking residue in kitchens, soap film in bathrooms and general grime in hallways at hand height.

Pressure washing is useful and frequently overdone. High pressure erodes soft render, drives water into solid masonry that then has to dry before coating, strips lime pointing out of stonework, and on lead painted surfaces distributes contaminated water across the garden. Lower pressure with a suitable cleaner doing the chemical work is the better approach on most South Australian houses. Coastal properties need a specific step that inland ones do not. Salt has to be rinsed off with fresh water rather than blasted, because pressure alone drives salt into the surface instead of removing it, and a coating applied over salt will fail from underneath. Semaphore, Henley, Glenelg, Brighton, Port Noarlunga, Victor Harbor and both gulfs all fall into this category.

Mould needs treating rather than washing. It grows back through a coating if the spores are still present and the moisture source is unaddressed, so treatment with a suitable product comes before painting and the underlying ventilation or damp problem comes before that. Mould removal specialists handle the treatment stage. Wash water needs somewhere to go. Water carrying paint residue, chalk, stripper or lead contaminated material should be contained rather than allowed into a stormwater drain, which is administered by the South Australian Environment Protection Authority. Contractors working properly will describe how they handle it.

Repair Types and What They Cost

Repairs are where a preparation quote turns into a real number, and they should be itemised rather than absorbed. Small holes from picture hooks, screws and fixings are filled and sanded as part of general preparation and are not usually charged separately. Larger holes are, running $80 to $250 depending on size and whether backing is needed. Damaged plasterboard beyond filler size needs a cut out and patch, which means backing the opening, fitting a piece of board, taping and setting the joints in multiple passes with drying between, then sanding. That is a two visit job and is priced accordingly. Plaster patching and ceiling repair specialists handle the larger work.

Solid plaster on masonry, common in older Adelaide homes, is a different repair again. It is harder, less forgiving, and where it has lost its bond to the wall the surface repair achieves nothing because the substrate behind it is loose. Those sections need cutting out and rebuilding. Drummy render is the exterior equivalent and it runs $60 to $150 per square metre to cut out and replace. The temptation to coat over it is strong because it looks fine, and it will fall away within a few years taking your new paint with it. Render repair specialists handle the replacement.

Rust on metalwork needs the loose material removed and a converting or inhibiting primer applied before anything else. Where rust has caused pitting, section loss or perforation the component needs replacing, and coating over active rust simply traps moisture against the metal under a film that looks perfectly good. Perished sealant around windows, door frames and junctions is cheap to renew and expensive to ignore, since a failed seal lets water behind the coating and the failure appears somewhere else entirely. The answer indicates how the job was scoped.

Cracks on Reactive Adelaide Soils

Adelaide sits on some of Australia's most reactive clay soils and it shapes crack repair here more than anywhere else in the country. These clays swell when wet and shrink when dry, moving footings seasonally, and that movement transfers into walls. Cracks open through summer and close after winter rain. A rigid filler placed in a moving crack has nowhere to go and splits or pushes out, usually within the first year.

Matching the material to the movement is where the skill lies. Fine surface crazing in render can be bridged with a high build or elastomeric system rather than filled crack by crack. Hairline cracks that move seasonally need raking out to give the filler some depth, then a flexible filler or paintable flexible sealant that stretches instead of splitting. Plasterboard sheet joints benefit from jointing tape bedded over the crack before filling, which spreads the movement over a wider area. Hard cement based patching compounds belong in none of those situations.

There is a timing trick specific to this climate and it costs nothing. Cracks are at their widest at the end of a dry Adelaide summer and narrowest after winter rain, so filling in late summer or early autumn places the filler at close to maximum crack width. It then spends most of the year in compression rather than being pulled apart, which measurably improves how long the repair lasts. Some cracking should not be filled at all. Cracks wider than a few millimetres, cracks with a step or level difference across them, cracks passing through bricks rather than around them, diagonal cracking from window corners, and cracking alongside doors that have begun to bind all point to structural movement. Filling those conceals the only evidence you have and the cause remains.

Timber Repair or Replacement

Decayed timber is the judgement call that most often separates a good preparation contractor from a cheap one, because filler will hide almost anything for a year. Surface weathering, small splits, nail holes and shallow damage are straightforwardly filled and painted. That is normal preparation and it lasts. Rot is different. Where timber has gone soft and a screwdriver pushes into it without resistance, the fibre structure has broken down and filler bonded to it is bonded to nothing. The decay also continues under the coating.

The three options are consolidation, splicing and replacement. Consolidation uses a penetrating epoxy resin to harden the remaining timber before filling with an epoxy filler, and it suits heritage joinery where the original material has value. Splicing, sometimes called a dutchman repair, cuts out the decayed section and lets in a new piece of matching timber, which is the traditional approach on window sills and door frames. Replacement is the cheapest option where the component has no particular value.

The place this comes up most in South Australia is window joinery on pre-war homes, where sills decay from the bottom, glazing putty perishes and sashes swell. Heritage window and sash repair handles it where the joinery matters, and general window repair where it does not. Fascia ends, barge boards, verandah post bases and the bottom of external door frames are the other common locations. All four sit where water collects, and all four are frequently filled when they should be replaced.

Primers, Sealers and Stain Blockers

Choosing the right primer is the technical core of preparation and using the wrong one wastes everything underneath it. A binding or stabilising primer is for chalking surfaces. It penetrates the powdery residue and binds it back to the substrate so the finish coat has something solid to hold. This is the most commonly skipped product on Adelaide exteriors and the most common cause of premature failure on them.

A sealer undercoat is for new or bare absorbent surfaces, including new plasterboard where the paper face and jointing compound absorb differently, and bare render or masonry. Without it those surfaces drink the finish coat unevenly and the result varies in sheen across the wall. A stain blocker deals with anything that would bleed through. Water stains on ceilings are the classic case, since the compounds in them pass straight through waterborne paint and reappear weeks later, and the same applies to nicotine, crayon, marker, timber tannin bleed and rust marks. Shellac based and solvent based blockers do this reliably where a waterborne one may not.

Metal primers are substrate specific. Ferrous metal needs a rust inhibiting or converting primer, galvanised and zinc coated steel needs a primer formulated to adhere to it, and aluminium and other non-ferrous metals need an etch primer. Using a general purpose undercoat on any of them produces a coating that peels in sheets. Manufacturers including Dulux, Wattyl, Haymes, Taubmans, Resene and Zinsser publish technical data sheets stating exactly which substrate and condition each primer is designed for, along with coverage and recoat times. A quote naming the primer is a quote you can check against those sheets, and one that says primed as required is not.

Where Preparation Meets Lead and Asbestos

This is the section that matters most on older South Australian housing, because preparation is the stage where both hazards are created. Lead paint sits intact and harmless under later coatings until someone disturbs it. Sanding, scraping, wire brushing, burning off and pressure washing all release it as dust or fume, and those are the standard preparation operations. Any home painted before 1970 should be assumed to carry lead in its lower layers, and pre-1950 homes almost certainly do.

The controls are established. Test before disturbance, contain with sheeting that is folded in and disposed of rather than shaken out, use wet methods or extraction instead of dry sanding, keep occupants and particularly young children away, clean up with high efficiency filtration rather than a broom or a household vacuum, and dispose of debris and wash water as controlled material. Asbestos cement is the parallel issue and it appears in eaves, gable infills, wall cladding, wet area linings and sheds on a very large share of South Australian post-war housing. It is safe intact and hazardous when drilled, cut, sanded, broken or water blasted.

Preparing eaves for painting is precisely the activity that disturbs it, which is how an unremarkable repaint creates a genuine exposure without anyone intending it. Testing costs far less than remediation. Asbestos testing settles the question on a pre-1990 building, and lead paint specialists handle confirmed lead. Workplace requirements are administered by SafeWork SA, and health information by SA Health. A contractor who proposes to dry sand a 1930s villa or pressure clean an unidentified fibre cement eave has told you what you need to know about their approach.

Damp and Why You Wait

Moisture is the one preparation problem that cannot be solved by working harder, and in South Australia it is common enough to deserve its own section. Salt damp is widespread in older masonry across this state. Groundwater climbs through porous stone and brick carrying dissolved salts, and as it evaporates at the surface those salts crystallise and break down mortar and the face of the masonry. It shows as a damaged band roughly 300 millimetres to a metre above external ground level, with paint blistering in that zone while the wall above is perfectly sound.

No preparation method fixes it. Stripping the affected area, filling and repriming produces a wall that fails again in the same band within a season or two. The sequence is to address the cause, allow the wall to dry, and only then prepare and coat. Drying can take many months on a solid masonry wall, which is a scheduling reality rather than a delay tactic. Salt damp treatment specialists handle the remedial stage.

A frequent contributing cause is worth checking yourself because it is free. Paving, concrete, garden beds and soil built up against external walls over the years can rise above the original damp proof course and bridge it, at which point the course stops working. Reducing those levels is often a sizeable part of the remedy. Interior damp follows the same logic. A stained ceiling means a leak that has to be fixed and a ceiling that has to dry before a stain blocker goes on, and bathroom mould means a ventilation problem that will defeat any coating until it is addressed.

Doing Your Own Preparation

Homeowners take on preparation to save money and it can work, provided you are honest about which parts you are equipped for. Reasonable to take on: washing down interior walls, filling nail holes and small damage, sanding filled areas, removing hardware and switch plates, masking, and clearing and protecting rooms. That is a meaningful share of the labour on an interior job and it is time you can spend for free. Harder than it looks: getting filled areas really flat and feathered so they do not show through the finish, and cutting back a flaking edge to sound material without leaving a step. Both take practice and both are visible forever if done poorly.

Not reasonable without proper equipment and knowledge: anything disturbing lead paint, anything disturbing asbestos cement, working at height on exteriors, and diagnosing a damp or structural problem. The first two carry health consequences that arrive later and cannot be undone. A practical division many people use is to do the interior preparation themselves, engage a specialist for the exterior, and have someone assess the building first so they know what they are dealing with before they start. Lead paint and asbestos cement both sit firmly in that category, and preparation is precisely the stage that disturbs them.

Talk to your painter before doing any of it. A painter who is going to apply the finish has a legitimate interest in the surface underneath, and most will happily tell you what standard they need and what they would rather do themselves. Doing preparation a painter then has to redo helps nobody. Smaller painting contractors often handle mixed jobs where the owner has done part of the work.

Reading a Preparation Scope

Because preparation is invisible once the job is finished, the written scope is the only protection an owner has, and most quotes describe it in a single line. Learning to read that line is worth more than any amount of price comparison. A scope reading prepare surfaces as required commits the painter to nothing measurable, while one describing what will be washed, what will be sanded, what will be stripped and what will be primed can be checked against what actually happens. Ask for the preparation to be broken out from the painting as separate figures. That single request changes the conversation, because it forces the contractor to think about the substrate rather than the square metres, and it lets you compare two quotes on the part that actually determines how long the result lasts. Painters who work properly generally welcome it, since it shows where their price goes.

Look for the words that indicate the coating will be removed rather than covered. Stripping, mechanical removal, grinding back and taking back to substrate all describe real work, while spot prepare and feather edges describe something much lighter. Neither is wrong, but they suit different wall conditions and cost very differently. Check what primer or sealer is named, since it is the product that does most of the work on a problem surface. A stabilising primer on chalking render, a stain blocker over water marks and a substrate specific metal primer on rusted steel are all different products, and a scope that simply says primer has not engaged with the wall.

Finally, ask what happens if the surface turns out worse once work begins. On older South Australian housing that is a realistic possibility, and agreeing in advance whether it triggers a variation, a pause or a renegotiation is far better than discovering the position with scaffolding already up. Ask what happens if it turns out worse. Check it against the written scope.

What Drives the Price

Condition of the existing coating dominates, and the three tiers are really distinct rather than a spectrum. Sound, chalking, and failing each demand a different response. Removal method changes the rate considerably. Dry mechanical sanding is fastest and cheapest, and on any pre-1970 building it is not available, so chemical stripping, wet methods or shrouded extraction apply and each costs more per square metre.

Substrate repairs are separate items and should appear as such. Plaster, render, timber and rust are each their own line, and any of them can exceed the cost of the preparation around it. Access follows the same pattern as painting, with two storey work, sloping Hills blocks and difficult side access all adding equipment and setup before anyone touches the wall. Hazardous material adds a defined cost layer covering testing, containment, protective equipment, controlled clean up and disposal, and it should be quoted as its own item so you can see it. Drying time costs nothing and controls everything. Where damp has to clear, where new render has to cure, or where a stripped wall has to dry after chemical treatment, no amount of money compresses it and a program that ignores it produces a failure.

Preparation Costs Across Adelaide

Adelaide pricing tracks building age closely, since age determines both the condition of what is on the wall and whether hazardous coatings are in play. A 1920s villa and a 2010 house can differ by several times over for the same wall area. Confirm which primer is specified. Ask what the figure assumes about the surface.

The two exterior rows are the same house in two conditions and the gap is more than triple. That is the entire argument for insisting on a site inspection before accepting any painting quote. That gap is entirely preparation, which is the argument this whole page makes. Getting it in writing takes a moment.

Regional South Australia

Country preparation work carries a travel component and one specific constraint, which is that specialist assessment and hazardous waste disposal are concentrated in the metropolitan area. Most operators cover this without prompting. A quick site visit removes the guesswork. Worth raising at the first conversation.

The Mid North and Clare districts hold a high proportion of nineteenth century stone housing that has been painted continuously for well over a century, so layer counts are deep, lead is close to certain in the lower layers, and preparation is a bigger share of any job there than it is in Adelaide. Mount Gambier and the Limestone Coast face slower drying in higher humidity, which matters more in preparation than in application because damp walls, fresh render and treated masonry all have to reach a workable state before coating. Coastal districts everywhere need the fresh water rinse rather than a pressure blast, and a contractor who does not raise salt on a beachside property has not thought about the building. Grouping work is worth more here than in most trades because preparation frequently reveals additional items. Having someone assess a whole property in one visit, rather than calling them back for each discovery, saves both trips and surprises.

What to Look Out For

Refuse a preparation quote given without a site inspection. Condition is the entire variable and it cannot be assessed from a photograph or a phone call. Ask what testing was done. The chalk test, the adhesion test and the tap test take minutes and a contractor who performed none of them has quoted a guess.

Insist that repairs are itemised rather than absorbed into a rate. Plaster, render, timber and rust are separate items with separate costs, and a lump sum hides which of them the contractor intends to actually do. Be wary of any proposal to dry sand or pressure clean an older building. Both are fast and cheap, and on a pre-1970 house both are the wrong method for reasons that are about health rather than finish quality.

Ask what primer is being used and on what. Naming a product lets you check it against a technical data sheet, and primed as required gives you nothing to check. Question any quote that promises to prepare and paint a damp affected wall in the same visit. Drying takes the time it takes, and a contractor willing to skip it is selling you a repeat job. Finally, confirm what happens to waste and wash water, and confirm public liability cover with a certificate rather than a claim. Consumer guarantees are administered by the ACCC.

What to Look for in a Quote in SA

A preparation quote worth comparing reads as a method rather than a price. It should state which surfaces are included, what cleaning method is used and at what pressure, how failed coating will be removed and by what method, each repair as its own itemised line with a quantity, what sanding and dust control is included, which primer or sealer goes on which surface, whether hazardous material testing is included and what happens if it comes back positive, how waste and wash water are handled, and the expected duration including any drying periods. When you enquire, give the age of the building, the substrate, what is currently on the surface and roughly when it was applied, whether the coating is chalking, flaking or sound, whether there is visible cracking, damp at the base of walls, staining or mould, and whether any part of the building is fibre cement. Photographs of each elevation plus close ups of any failure save several rounds of questions.

Get three quotes and expect them to differ on method rather than only on price. Where one contractor proposes stripping and another proposes stabilising and coating over, ask both to explain, because that is the conversation that tells you who has actually looked at the wall. Keep a record of what was found and what was done, including photographs taken mid preparation showing what was under the old coating. Whoever prepares this building next will need it, and on an older South Australian home that record is worth more than the paint specification. You will also find wallpaper removal and new home painting contractors here for work at either end of a building's life.