How Much Does Brick Staining Cost? Five Real Job Prices

What did our last five brick staining jobs cost?

Here are five recent jobs, from the smallest bill to the largest, and what each one came to. Between them they cover most of what we do: small fixes, whole houses, and one very large building.

Look at the two full homes. Both went to gray, and one came to nearly twice the other. Here is what makes numbers like these move.

What makes brick staining cost more or less?

Time on the job. The size of the wall is the starting point, but what moves the price most is how long the crew has to stay on it. Two things decide that: how many coats your brick needs, and how complicated the color is.

Coats. Some brick reaches its new color in one coat. The Hayden House did not. Its brick was very hard and not very porous, and getting it to an even, solid slate gray took four to five coats of gray stain. One coat and five coats on the same wall are very different jobs.

Colors and matching. One solid color is simpler than a blend. When a wall needs four or five colors, or a match so close that nobody can find the repair, the work goes slower, and slower work costs more.

Getting to the wall. On big buildings, access is part of the price. At Danville High School we rented lifts and brought a large crew to finish on the school's timeline.

This is why we do not quote by the square foot. Two houses the same size can need very different work. You get a firm written price after we have seen your brick.

How much does it cost to stain a whole brick house?

I tell homeowners to expect $15,000 to $30,000 for a typical house. Our two most recent full homes sit near both ends of that: $16,000 and just under $30,000.

The $16,000 house went from red brick to a blend of four or five grays. The Hayden House went from an outdated yellow to one solid slate gray, and its hard brick needed four to five coats to get there evenly.

Before the whole house, there is a sample panel. We stain a patch of your own wall and adjust it until the color is right, and nothing else gets stained until you say yes. The panel is $1,800, and it comes off your final bill. Most full homes then take about 7 to 10 days with a crew of four. For how the work runs from start to finish, see our page on full home brick color changes.

How much does a small brick staining job cost?

Our smallest jobs run about $1,000 to $2,000. That covers a small patch repair, a small color correction, or a few bricks that look a little off next to the rest.

The two small jobs in the table show the next step up. On one house, a brick distributor delivered a couple of pallets that did not match the rest of the home, and the new section came out patchy. We matched it to the existing brick in one day, for about $5,000. On another building, a section of mortar was finished quickly and dried a different color. Staining those joints so the wall read as one came to about $4,000.

The other way to fix off-color brick is to tear it out and lay it again. Depending on how big the problem is, that runs from a couple thousand dollars and a day's work to weeks of labor and tens of thousands. Staining the same problem usually costs about a tenth of that, or less.

What does it cost to stain a school or large building?

Large buildings are priced the same way. There is just more of everything. Danville High School in Danville, Indiana was a color change of the whole campus, inside and out. The brick went from a muted red and yellow to a rich brown built from four or five colors. With lifts, a large crew and a fixed timeline, it came to just under $200,000.

Few homeowners need a number like that. It is here because it shows the same rule at a bigger size: more wall, more colors and harder access all mean more time. Districts can see how we plan that kind of work on our page for school and campus brick staining.

Why does brick staining cost more than painting?

Because you only pay for stain once. By my numbers, painting a typical brick house runs $8,000 to $15,000, against $15,000 to $30,000 to stain it. But paint seals moisture into the brick, and it starts to bubble and flake. Keeping it looking right means stripping or sanding and repainting every 5 to 10 years, at $5,000 to $10,000 a round. The trapped moisture keeps working on the brick, and the bill that comes at the end is tuckpointing the whole house, $20,000 to $50,000.

The Hayden House owners weighed this. A solid gray is a color paint could have matched, for much less money up front. They were keeping the house for the long haul, and they chose one cost over a bill that keeps coming back. Stain is done once, and it comes with a transferable lifetime warranty in writing. The full side by side, with the lifetime math, is in brick staining vs painting.

What will staining your brick cost?

Your price will come from your own wall. We look at your brick, do a quick water test to make sure it will take stain, and send a firm written quote, usually within a week. To see how a home job runs from the first call to the warranty, read about our residential brick staining.