Drywall Cost Estimate
You dont have to spend a lot of time in finding a cost estimate for drywall installations. 1. There are many websites and other resources on the Internet that will help you and 2. You could read through some basic guidelines to calculate drywall cost estimate. At the end of this article though, you will surely have enough information to calculate drywall cost estimate.
Drywall cost estimates depend on two things primarily Material prices and Labor prices.
Material prices
This is the price you would pay for purchasing the raw material for drywall installation. A lot of activity has happened on this front over the last few years, as the entire globe seems to be reeling under recession. Pertaining to the USA, the housing sector has gone through one of the worst possible slumps, as a result of which the material prices have gone down by 50% or so.
For example, in 2006, a 4 * 8 * ½ drywall sheet used to cost about $12, which came down to about $6 per sheet by 2008. This goes to show the impact the housing slump has had on drywall sheet prices.
In addition to the sheet itself, you would need to factor in screws, fasteners, drywall mud in your material prices. Put all of them together and you would easily come to an estimate of about 40 cents per square foot of wall space (Give and take 10 cents in the bargain).
Labor prices
Hanging the drywall and finishing the total area are two main factors laborers would take into count before calculating their labor prices. Normally, you will find laborers calculating the total labor time they would take to hang and install one drywall sheet. They would possibly multiply this with number of drywall sheets and add some profit here and there. To get the cost per sheet, all they do is divide the total cost with the number of sheets.
Normally, the labor prices range from $25 to $40 per sheet for average drywall installations. Some projects dealing with arches, vaults are priced a bit expensive at an average price of about $60 per sheet.
Anything in the range of $35-$45 for a decent drywall activity is considered to be a bargain well done.
It is thus not difficult for you to find out a drywall cost estimate. Just factor in the material prices and labor costs and you will have an estimate at your desk in no time. Please note that the figures quoted above were national averages of 2008, which surely would have gone down by now.