I’m a remodeling contractor & wear many hats, proforming many parts of my projects myself. I do alot of kitchen remodels & basement living space finishes. I do all of my own staining & finish with great results & many compliments.
The worst part for me, is bidding for this service, I have a good list of prices compiled for just about every other portion of the jobs I undertake & I can figure paint, stain & finish matierials, but labor seems to be hit & miss. Do any of you have any ideals or any magic up your sleeves
I just got a offer to stain & finish 175 new, wood window grilles, both sides. I can do the work in my shop. The window grilles avg. 30″x48″
I will spray the stain on at low pressure & wipe off by hand & apply 2 coats of a pre-cat laquar with light sanding between coats. I use magna-lac by cambell it is a 2 coat system that self-seals & gives a great finish that has proven very durable.
Im trying to come up with a per piece price perhaps.
If anyone can help, thank you.
Replies
First, you might want to post your question over at Knots -- lots of woodworkers over there might have some ideas.
So you're thinking of staining and finishing 175 window grilles. Does your shop have enough space to spread all of those grills out, and spray all of them next Tuesday? Or is your shop like most others -- you'll need to do about a dozen at a time. If that is the case, then you'll need to guess at how many batches you need to do, and how many shop hours are needed for each batch.
Once you have that number (total hours), it should be as simple as multiplying it times your shop rate. (You have fingured out your shop rate, haven't you?)
Were is Knots? What is Knots?
Shop is never big enough.
Shop rate goes like this- 11% overhead , 18% hired help, 6-12% coffee & dounuts,
10-23% cool new tools, 5-8% more materials, 3-7% lunch, 3-9% more materials,
2-13% beer,(depends on the day) 28-31% uncle sam, More beer! Thats about 132% by now but who's counting,
I figure it this way, I lose money on every job, but do I make it up in volume!!!!
Knots: Instructions for finding
1) raise eyeballs a few inches
2) locate Breaktime near top
3) move left. click.
But once you say windows, all the woodworkers are gonna tell you come over here and ask the carpenters!
Seriously, there's no way that someone sitting at a computer somewhere else in the country can accurately tell you how much to charge for what you do. The closest we ever get is giving ballparks of what the market will bear where we're sitting. You have to go with what your time is worth. Spraying them won't take anything for time. You can knock the whole schmeer out in an hour. Its the couple of days standing there with a handymasker and an inch knife that you're going to have to accurately estimate first. Market here bears in the neighborhood of 50-60 per sash, depending on size, of course, for finish work, so if you're only doing insides, half it. I'm basing that on a 6 over 6."The child is grown / The dream is gone / And I have become / Comfortably numb " lyrics by Roger Waters
Thanks for the roadmap to knots I guess thats whole nother world for me to look into. I realize labor is different all over but I find ballpark #s help you sometimes look at things from different angles. Thanks for the reponse, however the project consist of removal wood grills not sashs.
Im new to this forum about 2-3 weeks now & really enjoy reading all the postings, theres alot of good advice & laughs.