Mr Jones takes 4 hours to paint a fence.

Mark his son takes 6 hours to paint the same fence.
How long does it take for them both to paint the fence?

2 answers

In one hour,

dad paints 1/4 fence
son paints 1/6 fence
together they paint 5/12 fence

so, they paint a whole fence in 12/5 hours, or 2 hrs 24 min
It takes them 10 hours to complete two fences, so to complete one together, it would take 5 hours