Taper and finisher

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Drywall taper and finisher job in Vancouver

$30 to $42 an hour

Full time, Vancouver and the Lower Mainland

Finishing is the part of this trade customers actually see, so it is the part we pay most for. The top of that band is not decoration. It is what a finisher who can hold a Level 5 skim flat and still get off site on Thursday is worth to us. We are always open to hearing from people who can do that, rather than filling a numbered vacancy this week.

• Working to a named finish level.

  Every quote we write names a GA-214 level, so you know before you start whether a wall is Level 4 or Level 5 and you are not guessing at what the customer paid for. Level 3 behind tile, Level 4 as the usual residential finish, Level 5 where the light is going to be cruel.

• Coat discipline.

  Tape coat, fill coat, finish coat, each one thinner and wider than the last. Three thin coats beat one thick one and they crack far less. Chasing a wall flat in two coats because the schedule slipped is how tape lifts a year later, and we would rather move the schedule.

• Butt joints, feathered wide.

  The butt joint is the whole test of a finisher, because there is no recess to hide in. Ours go out roughly 10 to 12 inches each side by the final pass so there is no edge for raking light to catch. Anyone can make a tapered seam disappear. Butts are where you can tell who taped a room.

• Picking the right compound.

  Setting-type cures chemically and comes in 20, 45 and 90 minute versions, so it keeps a job moving in February when drying-type will sit wet all day. Drying-type sands far more easily, which matters on the last coat. Knowing which one the weather and the deadline call for is a paid skill here.

• Corners and bead.

  Inside corners that are actually straight and outside bead set true, filled and feathered into both walls. Hallway corners and kitchen islands take abuse for the next twenty years, and a bead that was bedded badly shows up as a cracked line within one.

• Sanding and dust.

  The unglamorous half of the trade. Vacuum sanding and containment because the customer is paying for a clean handover, then primer on the repair or the finished surface so their paint does not flash. Sanding is filthy regardless of how well you contain it.

Level 5 is what moves your pay to the top

We name a GA-214 level in every quote, which is unusual in residential work and it is deliberate. It means the customer knows what they bought and you know what you owe them. No arguments on the last day about whether a wall was meant to be flat.

Level 4 covers most residential jobs and it is what a flat wall paint needs. Level 5 adds a skim coat across the whole surface, and it is what a wall wants when there is a window raking light along it, when the paint has any sheen above eggshell, or when the customer is the kind who will stand at the far end of a room and look sideways h are real skills.

Only one of them is rare.

Being able to hold a full-surface skim flat, sand it without digging in and hand it over clean, at a pace that still lets the job finish, is the single thing that puts a finisher at $42 rather than $30. If you can do that, lead with it and show us photos taken with light across the wall rather than straight on.

We will also be straight about what we are not. We are not a union shop. BC collective agreements in commercial and institutional work pay journeyperson tapers and finishers above $42 an hour, and if that is what you want, go and get it. What is here instead is residential and strata work, fixed-price so nobody is padding hours, at the top of the open market.

• Three years or more taping and finishing, with photos of finished work
• A butt joint you are willing to have looked at under raking light
• Your own tools, knives, hawk or pan and sanding gear
• A valid BC driver's licence and your own transport between sites
• The judgement to leave a coat alone until it is ready
• No certification, because BC has no compulsory drywall trade certification

Texture matching, repair blending and priming experience all help, since a good share of our finishing work is patches in…