Weatherboard replacement in Melbourne runs between $100 and $150 per square metre. The spread is wide because the price is set by condition and access rather than by area, and neither of those can be established from photographs. This explains what sits inside that rate, what pushes a job to the top of it, and what a realistic total looks like.
The short version
- Budget $100 to $150 per square metre for weatherboard replacement in Melbourne, supplied and installed.
- The rate covers removing the old boards, fitting new ones, sealing and painting. It does not cover framing repair, because nobody knows what the frame looks like until the wall is open.
- Access is the single biggest swing factor. Work that needs scaffold rather than ladders costs more at the same square metreage.
- Most Melbourne houses need sections replaced rather than whole walls. Spot repair is cheaper per job even though it is dearer per square metre.
- Quotes are free and there is no callout fee, so a firm number costs you nothing but the time of a site visit.
People usually come to this question after a builder or painter has said the boards need replacing rather than patching. The instinct is to work out the area of the wall and multiply. That gets you a ballpark, and it is worth having, but it is not what the final invoice will say.
What follows is the honest version: where the rate comes from, why the range is as wide as it is, and a worked example with the arithmetic done out loud so you can put your own numbers into it.
What the rate covers
The square metre figure is for removing the existing cladding, supplying and fixing new boards, sealing the joints and cut ends, and priming and painting the result. On a straightforward wall that is the whole job.
What sits outside it is framing. Weatherboards fail because water got behind them, and water that got behind them has also been sitting against the studs and noggins. Whether that framing is sound is genuinely unknown until the boards come off, which is why a careful quote separates the fixed part from the part that has to be confirmed.
Why the range is so wide
A fifty per cent spread on a trade rate looks like vagueness. It is not. The same area of wall can be a simple job or a difficult one depending on three things that have nothing to do with size.
The first is height and access. The second is how much preparation the surrounding surfaces need before anything is painted. The third is whether the profile of the existing boards is still commercially available, because matching an obsolete profile means having timber machined rather than buying it off the rack.
What moves the price
Scaffold versus ladders. A two-storey elevation, or a rear wall on a block that falls away, needs proper access. Scaffold is a fixed cost that lands on the job before a single board comes off.
The condition of the frame. Sound framing means the new boards go straight on. Rotten studs mean structural repair first, at a different rate to cladding.
How much has to come off. Replacing three boards under a window is a different job to stripping an elevation, and the per-square-metre figure is least useful at the small end.
Profile matching. Older Melbourne homes were clad in sizes that are no longer stocked. Machining to match adds both cost and lead time.
Lead paint. On homes painted before the 1970s, preparation and waste handling both change, and that shows up in the labour.
A realistic total
Take a single-fronted weatherboard cottage where the front elevation and one side need replacing. Call it 45 square metres of wall between them, single storey, working off ladders, with the boards in a profile that is still stocked.
At $100 per square metre that is $4,500. At $150 it is $6,750. Add a contingency for framing repair that may or may not be needed once the wall is open, and the honest range you should be planning around is roughly $4,500 to $8,000 for that job. If the same house needed scaffold for a two-storey rear elevation as well, the area roughly doubles and so does the figure.
That is a significant amount of money, and it is worth saying plainly that not everyone can find it at once. If the failure is confined to a few boards, replacing those and repainting the elevation buys years while you plan the rest. Doing the worst wall now and the others later is a normal way to handle this, and a quote should tell you which wall is the worst one.
A recent job in Fairfield
On a recent Fairfield project the weatherboards had bubbled badly across a sun-exposed elevation. The affected areas were sanded back to bare timber, a protective undercoat was applied, and the wall was finished with two coats of exterior paint. That job was a preparation and repainting problem rather than a replacement one, which is why identifying which of the two you have matters before you price anything.
Things people do not see coming
The quote changes after the wall is open. Not because the price went up, but because the frame was finally visible. A quote that promises a fixed total including unseen framing is guessing.
Part-walls look odd. New boards on one elevation and forty-year-old paint on the next is visible from the street. Most people end up repainting adjacent walls for appearance.
Weather sets the timetable. Exterior coatings need dry surfaces above dew point. Winter jobs in Melbourne take longer for real reasons.
Getting a number you can rely on
Ask for the quote to separate three things: the cladding work, the painting, and a stated allowance for framing repair. If all three are one figure, you cannot tell what happens when the wall is opened.
Ask what happens if the frame is worse than expected, and get the answer before work starts rather than after. Any contractor who has done this work knows it is the likely variation, and should say so unprompted.
Get a fixed quote for your weatherboards
Melbourne City Maintenance has been repairing and painting weatherboards since 2005. We do the timber work and the painting with the same crew, and we quote the wall in front of us rather than a rate off a page. Call 0403 162 374 or request a quote. Quotes are free and there is no callout fee.
The figures on this page are indicative ranges for weatherboard replacement in Melbourne, not a quote. Actual cost varies with condition, access, profile availability and the state of the framing behind the cladding, none of which can be assessed remotely. Lead paint on pre-1970 homes and structural framing repair are regulated in Victoria by WorkSafe Victoria. Confirm what applies to your own property.
A friend found reviews of this company on a neighbourhood website so I included MCM in my list when I sought quotes for repairing and painting weatherboards on my house.
