What the #$!! happened to the roofing industry. I just saw an add for new construction roofing.
Looking for a crew to do new construction roofing.
Must be able to lay 45-55 square in 3 days
You supply nails and staples
Must have ins. and work comp.
$25-30 a sq.
15 yrs ago we got twice that or more for new construction.
Roofing may not be rocket science but it is hard work.
Having only roofed on the side I have given plenty of credit to anyone who roofs for a living.
It is just a shame that it has gotten to this point.
Worst part is there is always an immigrant crew to take the work and drive the price down and it is just going to bleed into the rest of the trades
Replies
I told a guy a month or so back that I'd shingle his roof (nice walkable pitch, no projections), labor only, for $55 a square. He is/was a friend, so that was a better rate than normal.
He was flat out stunned that I'd charge so much.
"Well, back in '93 I had a roof done for $30 a square by Doug So-and-so!"
I personally know Doug. He is working at sawmill for $11 an hour. Must've hit the big time.
There is no reasoning with these people.
I know to reroof a house 10-15 yrs ago used to go for about $120-150 a square and that included labor and materials etc.... I think I heard they are going for around $80-90 a square now.I just don't get that.
I just got a guy to shingle my garage for $25 a square, he walked up seeing us frame it and offered to shingle it for that. 12/12 pitch for $25 a square.
I've seen his work and its as good as mine so I gave it to him. He's in a bind and needs the work, I have to supply him everything, but I have no issues with helping him with whatever he needs.
Woods favorite carpenter
Jebadia,
In the 50's a man could make a decent living working in a factory. Enough so that his wife didn't have to work and he could even put his kids thru college and retire with a decent retirement plan and his healthcare paid for.. .
In those days management made about 10 times what the guys on the factory floor earned..
Today that guy working a factory job likely doesn't have any benefits. His retirement fund has been raided and they are speaking about taking away his healthcare and if he doesn't agree to it the factory will likely go offshore.. (it will anyway) Meanwhile to earn enough to make the payments the wife is working and his kids come home as latch key kids.
On the other hand management makes thousand times or more what the guy on the factory floor does.
Those values are getting to every part of society.
You are right.I don't plan on going up on any roofs if I can help it.I was just rather upset at what I was seeing.I am pretty sure that while someone is banging out those roofs that someone else will be sitting back making a killing. Like while he is paying out $400 a day he is probably making $1000 on top of it.I'll bet we were getting paid more near $70-80 a square on a new roof.
I don't know about that . I have my old estimating books here from the early seventies. Figures given for hand nailed roofs are 1 sq./hr. ( my memory is we were quite a bit faster than that ) We used to bill out at about $18-20.00 hr. so $20 sq., $160 a day But now with air nailers you can get 3-4 sq./hr so at $25-$30, $90 hr, $720 a day .
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
You need to check your numbers. You left out a big point."Must be able to lay 45-55 square in 3 days".
.
A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
Those high lay down numbers MUST be for pristine new construction only.
Did 10 squares on a 12/12 last year and it was about 30 hours. That included tearing off box gutters, re-framing parts, getting materials, etc.
Time spent actually nailing shingles w/air was maybe 10 hours, but I'm an old guy now. Spent about as much time moving the jacks and boards and opening bundles as actually placing and nailing.
Posted last year about the experience and fact that could get nobody to even bid the job (2000 mi away), some here thought is should be about a $20K job - yeah right, on a $30K house.
Lets say 2 sq./hr., $25 a sq.= $50/hr, $400 day.
16 sq./day 3 days 48 sq.
Now lets say 2 men do that work. Each guy is responsible for 1 sq./hr 48 sq. x $50 = $2400, each man brings in $1200 or $400 a day.
230 work days roughly , not including any overtime makes for $92,000 gross income for each man in a small company. And the ad asked for a crew not an individual. I don't see the problem. Nothing was mentioned about tear off or repairs, new work or old.
2 men or even three, the work goes up quicker and maybe the dollars shrink but the time limit isn't a problem. I did and am assuming new straightforward work. I am not going to claim or even think any and all roofs could be done at that rate but a whole lot of roofs could be.
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
Here in BC with construction going like crazy = short on manpower:
small addition, 700sqft, 5/12 pitch, 2 valleys with tie-in to existing roof, 22 foot ridgelength, 2 large skylights
2 man crew, all materials and fasteners supplied by owner,
Cost C$ 540.--The roofing industry here is in firm hands of East Indians.
All the "old" roofers are doing now industrial flat roofs.
They could not compete with cheap indian labor and manpower. It is not unusual to have 15 or 20 East Indians working on one roof.
I use a 5 to 6 man crew. In a day they tear off and install 50 squares including clean up. Hardly break a sweat doing it either. If you don't roof every day, just like any otherttrade you can't make money. Try hanging drywall for 7.50 per 12 foot sheet. I know a guy who does that and lives in a million dollar house
It's all about systems and skill. I've seen roofs get covered by a crew in a day and the same roof take a crew a week. I know the builder paid the same. The first crew made great money and upon inspection did a much better job. The specific crew I'm thinking about didn't use jacks for 12/12's. They might have had one on the bottom but moved around the roofs on foam cushions. Bob's next test date: 12/10/07
Jebadia,
From what I see around here those low prices must be paid because some builders* are building for nearly 1/2 what they used to get. There is a 4500 sq.ft. new house being built here for $210,000. While it's a pretty basic house without the usual cut up roof and 20 bumpouts etc. in the past the bid for someplace like that would have been $400,000
*the ones that are working
In the 50's a man could make a decent living working in a factory. Enough so that his wife didn't have to work and he could even put his kids thru college and retire with a decent retirement plan and his healthcare paid for..
Get real. In 1950, about 55% of the housholds in the U.S. owned their houses. The average new house was less than 1000 sq. ft. and had one bathroom. 35% of households lacked full plumbing. Air conditioning was a novelty, even in the South.
Today, home ownership is close to 70% of households. The average new house is over 2000 square ft., with an average of 2 1/2 baths. Central air conditioning is considered standard in most of the country.
The decade of the 1950s began with a foreign war (entered into, by the way, by a Democratic administration, as was the Viet Nam War). In two years, almost 39,000 Americans lost their lives. Since the overall population was about half what it is today, that would be the equivalent of 70, 000 deaths today.
In the latter half of the decade, there was a deep recession. There were 5.1 million unemployed in 1958. In 1959, a University of Michigan study found that 10% of the population of the U.S. population lived on the "poverty line" and 20% lived below the poverty line.
The 1950s were not the rose garden you make them out to be.
mudslinger
Yeh and cars needed their points set several times a year and tires wore out at 8 to10,000 miles..
Most adults people smoked and America exploded nearly 1000 nuclear bombs testing them. All that fallout caused a lot of cancer deaths..
But that was better than back in the 20's when most cars were started with hand cranks and there were still more horses than cars.. disposing of horsemanure was a major pollution issue. Home ownership was even lower back then..
Not sure what your point is.. Other than wanting to blame one party for all the evils in the world.. By the way are you suggesting that America should have let the communists overun South Korea? We can play the blame game if you want, don't forget that republicans made peace with the commies in Korea and Vietnam!
i have no particular point to make but i asked my dad and grandfather how they made it through the depression, One thing sticks out is that it was rare for anyone to have a mortgage, After WW2 the returning GIs got low interest loans which sparked the economy but may have brought in the idea you have to have one. It was funny when Mr Feilds threw out Abbott and Costello and put there things on the street but we may see this for real.
Not sure what your point is..
My point was stated in the last sentence of my post, where I said that the 1950s were not the rose garden you made them out to be. You tend to speak glowingly of a past that never existed and you tend to overstate our present problems.
.. Other than wanting to blame one party for all the evils in the world.. By the way are you suggesting that America should have let the communists overun South Korea? We can play the blame game if you want, don't forget that republicans made peace with the commies in Korea and Vietnam!
You really ought to refrain from the childishly partisan remarks. I never blamed one party for all the evils of the world; nor did I judge the merits of the Korean and Vietnam Wars. I mentioned that, in both cases, Democrats held the White House when the wars started. This is a simple fact. How can that be interpreted as me "wanting to blame all the evil in the world on one party"?
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Peach full,easy feelin'.
Mudslinger,
I didn't make the 1950's to be a rose garden , rememeber I grew up during that era. I know it has differances and I pointed out some of those. But I don't believe I'm overstating currant conditions.. Exactly how unfair currant conditions are depends on a variety of factors such as where you are located in the country..
If we did a job search in Detriot or the rest of the rust belt as well as some areas of Florida and border states with Mexico I understated the problem.. Small town family owned business in other areas may not have such extremes.
My point wasn't as you seem to believe to relive the 1950's but rather to compare a standard we once all accepted to what is currantly the norm..
As for your partisian remarks I might remind you that you brought up the issue of political party first..If you are uncomfortable with accepting the response you are free to either refute those remarks or use it as a learning tool so you will refrain from such a childish political slant in the first place.
..
Frenchy,
I mentioned--within parentheses--which party was in office when we went to war in Korea and Vietnam. I regret doing that because it detracted from the main point I was trying to make. That point is that the 1950s had trouble and stress aplenty and that they were hardly a golden age for the working man.
I was born in 1949 and so was a kid in the 1950s. My family was chronically broke and my father sometimes unemployed. My parents had eight kids from 1946-1962--the official years of the baby boom. I asked my father once what was his biggest bill and he replied that, by far, food was his biggest expense. We did not have health insurance. My father didn't have job security and never had a pension. We considered ourselves middle class.
This golden age of job security that you speak of never really existed. For a brief period after World War II, when the entire industrial world outside of the US was flat on its back, unionized industrial workers in the Northeast and the Upper Mid-West did relatively well. But in the rest of the country, conditions were stark by today's standards. Houses were smaller; life expectancy was shorter; people had less of everything.
Unemployment was fairly high during the second half of the 1950s. I'm going to try and post a graph showing unemployment from 1950 to 2005.
Edited 2/25/2008 2:27 pm ET by Mudslinger
Edited 2/26/2008 7:16 am ET by Mudslinger
Mudslinger,
I too then regret responding as I did. You are right, such debates and discussion merit their own discussions .. here they distract attention from the subject discussed..
I really don't want to get into a discussion about unemployment rates either. That is a subject filled with pitfalls..
Golden age for the working man? Not sure that ever existed. Given a choice I'd rather be the idle rich. But unfortunately I'm not a member of the lucky sperm club.. <grin>
However, In the 50's most moms could stay at home and devote her time to raising children. Unlike today when that is rarely possible.. Our parents had health care and retirement programs.. Today something like 40% of those working lack health care which means you and I wind up paying when they get sick..
My referance to the wage descrepancy is valid though. In Japan and Germany the earnings of CEO's to factory workers is in the order of about 13 times for Japan and 17 times for Germany. Not at all like the 125 times typical of America and the several thousand times some CEO's make..
(Not exact numbers but close enough to make my point)
What makes you successful? Are you able to instruct your employees and motivate them to do well? Isn't that in part because there is a reasonable wage descrepancy between you and your employeees? Sure you make the most but your compensation for others is in line with market forces aren't they? I mean you don't ride around in a private jet and isolate yourself from the workers who work for you do you?
Of course not.. that's why companies Like Honda and Toyota and Mercedes were able to achieve so much.. Instead of flying around the country on private jets and playing golf.. the owners were motivating and teaching others how to do well and improve products..
I don't mind CEO's getting rich. What I mind is when they get rich at the expense of those who actaully do the work to make them rich. Instead of fair compensation for their work the focus of too many CEO's becomes how can I maximise my rewards.
The end result is American workers loose their jobs and instead of the responsiblity falling on the boss who made that choice it's twisted to the workers fault..
That's what is so bloody unfair about today!
muddy... what 's wrong with this picture ?
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this graph shows the average for the '50's was 5% if you include the spike in '57Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
.View Imagehttp://grantlogan.net/
Today we's learnin' about rawks. They's all kinds of rawks. These [picks up rock] is rawks which you throw. These here [throws rock at Rusty] is rawks that you get hit with. E.Cuyler
hah, hah,hah....
View ImageMike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
It's not really funny.http://grantlogan.net/
Today we's learnin' about rawks. They's all kinds of rawks. These [picks up rock] is rawks which you throw. These here [throws rock at Rusty] is rawks that you get hit with. E.Cuyler
Mike, To borrow a phrase from Roger Clemens, I "misremembered". The 1950s as a whole had a unemployment rate of 4%.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
The official unemployment rate for Jan., 2008 was 4.9%.
The average unemployment rate, by decade, are:
1990s............. 5.8 %
1980s............. 7.3%
1970s..............6.2%
1960s..............4.9 %
In the summer of 1967, between my junior and senior year in high school, I went to work as a roofer on a Levitt job in Laurel, Maryland. We got paid piecework by the house. There were four basic models. The simpler houses paid $60 and the biggest and most involved house paid $115. It worked out to $2.75 to $3.50 per square. I remember saying to my brother that if we could only make $4 per square we could make a good living.
The consumer price index right now is 6.32. Multiplying that times my wages in 1967 (the CPI was 1 that year), my wages in today's dollars were $17.38 to $22.12 per square.
in the summer of '66 i was making $250 a month as an E-5...
i thought it was a lot of moneyMike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
summer of 66 had me working for the same rate as a summer camp counselor.Bet my chicks were hotter than your chicks
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
That wasn't Camp Chicken Ranch by any chance was it? ;-)
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
No, but my BIL had it on his bucketlist and managed to mark off as done early on in life!
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
LOL, Wondered if the reference was going to be caught. Should have known as you spent time in Texas and Co.
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
our councilor was a tac officer.... teaching us how to make love to a 155 howitzerMike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
In the 50's a man could make a decent living working in a factory. Enough so that his wife didn't have to work and he could even put his kids thru college and retire with a decent retirement plan and his healthcare paid for..
Get real. In 1950, about 55% of the housholds in the U.S. owned their houses. The average new house was less than 1000 sq. ft. and had one bathroom. 35% of households lacked full plumbing. Air conditioning was a novelty, even in the South.
Today, home ownership is close to 70% of households. The average new house is over 2000 square ft., with an average of 2 1/2 baths. Central air conditioning is considered standard in most of the country.
But that's the point. Today, besides having virtually no job security or benefits, we think we "need" so much more to live - including plasma TVs, three cars and a boat or snowmobile, pre-school and daycare and "enrichment" programs for the kiddies...
Life wasn't always easier back then but it was simpler. We've made it far more complicated and far most costly than it needs to be. And we're working more hours than ever just to keep the bill collectors at bay.
It is a plain fact that the cost of homes rose because they contain now much more features. What was standard 50 years ago is no longer applicable.
Life was simpler and therefore "cheaper". With people wanting more than they can afford (or not wanting to wait until they can afford it)they put themselves under enormous pressure to conform.
Advertising is doing a good job in creating a desire which wants to be satisfied. Once you separate the want from the need things become easier.
I recommend the book The Joy of Not Working (look it up on the net)
This not a joke. If you think this book is about paradise with absolutely no activity you are mistaken, it just puts you in the right frame of mind
Everyone wants to be financial independend. If your income would be 500/month but you need only to spend 495 you ARE financially independent.
Coming back to the roofing issue: of course you don't want to live in a dogshed but do you really NEED frontentrances with 22' ceilings in faux painted walls?
Semar,
You're preaching to the choir. I own a duplex, which I bought in 1990 for $65,000. The house is wood-frame house, with leaky windows and no insulation. It was built in 1949. Each side of the house is 960 sq. ft. I own and rent another house, built in 1940, that is 860 sq.ft. I believe in living within my means. I think the people in my parent's generation did too.
and that has changed now in our days.
Try selling a house with only one bathroom, without dishwasher, fireplace, laundryroom, double garage with electric openers, automatic lawn sprinkler systems, etc.
Of course making a home more efficient is desirable but at what cost. I have seen customers insulating wallsections to R30 but having floor to ceiling glass (R-2). To me it makes no sense. If you live in the house long enough maybe photovoltaic roofing panels will reduce your heating bills.
But more often HO buying more house than they really need.
My father already preached to me: Less is modern
I shudder when I see our local market: Houseprices in the 6-9 hundred k,
Mortgages to 400k amortized over 40 years. The bubble will burst, just like it did in the 80s. Our then home, worth 375k, finally sold for 172k. When all the bank and lawyer got paid out it left us with 600.-- Our only option then was to let the lender foreclose. We bit into the sour apple and started all over again from nothing. 20 years down the drain. We learned a good lesson.
We were not the only ones that suffered. My framer who then worked for 3/sqft took jobs for .50/sqft just to keep his family eating. People filled up at gasstations and then drove off without paying. It was just short of anarchy.
What I also learned was: these people did not make bad decisions, gambled money away in Vegas or are all stupid. The banking and governmental systems were to blame for just about all cases. Creating monetary situations over which the ordinary Joe has no control, then leaving them holding the bag.
What I also learned was: these people did not make bad decisions, gambled money away in Vegas or are all stupid. The banking and governmental systems were to blame for just about all cases. Creating monetary situations over which the ordinary Joe has no control, then leaving them holding the bag.
I couldn't disagree more. There was a typical sob story on ABC about a month ago. The victims in this case bought a very nice, large suburban home that they couldn't afford. The house cost $275,000 and they were facing foreclosure because the rate of their ARM went up. The home was in Cary, North Carolina, about 15 miles from my house.
There are a huge number of small houses in this area that sell for less than $150,000. I bought the 860 sq. ft. house mentioned in my last post for $108,000 three years ago. You have to wonder why these people didn't buy something that they could afford and get a fixed rate loan. That is something the ordinary Joe has total control over.
semar,
Your description of a 1950's house lacks only one point.. My fathers first House was as you describe but it sold for just $1995.00 (well 1948)
(nope didn't miss a decimal).
We really moved up scale when a few years later he bought one for $2345.. This one had three bedrooms and was a full 1100 sq.ft!
Sure Dad's $80 per week income made him solidly middle class and he could afford it. But today that same house sells for only $150,000.
To have a solid middle class income today you and your wife need $100,000 a year income..
100000 puts you in top 20% of earners today. That income is into upper middle class. There are a lot of people today that live in those 1k houses and living well. A family today does not need those big houses, they are filling a want.
frammer52,
$80 a week did the same for my dad!
But buying a expensive home may not be so foolish.. Depending on your timing etc.
Don't forget the bigger your housepayments the more Uncle Sugar subsidices your life style.. (and income)
I've told others repeatedly that I legally only pay about 2% of my income to federal taxes..and we are (were) over the number I mentioned..
Don't forget Uncle Sugar alllows you to deduct the interest cost of your house.. plus a few other things..
IF houses appreciate 10% (I like simple numbers) and you own a million dollar home you've made $100,000 tax free dollars. Plus been able to deduct all the interest you pay on that home! If market values go down and you don't sell so what? you haven't lost a dime!
Now this will shock everybody but houses don't depreciate!
Not if they are wisely selected.. Oh you can't buy in a crack neighborhood or whatever but inflation will increase the value of a property over time..
Simple rules.. When I was born the population of America was less than 1/2 it's currant population.. we haven't gained another 50 states so that means there is twice as much pressure on any chunk of land.. add inflation pressures and as long as you aren't forced to sell your house in a down market you win!
Plus it's your home so it's tax free!
Name me any other investment you can make that will provide you with shelter and over the long haul beat the rate of inflation.
The "trick" is to buy wisely and anticipate the inevitable down turn.. (another words have a rainy day fund)..
consider yourself fortunate for the time being
Here in Canada mortgage interest is not taxdeductable which reduces your take home pay quite a bit.
Selling your home taxfree is maybe also a matter of time. What will you do if it is decided you have to pay capital gains taxes? Selling your home might not be so easy. If you have no job maybe thousands others also have no job and cannot buy "your" home. Once your equity is erased it is becoming very hard to get back in.
Having no mortgage at all would be the best but moving up and taking on larger obligations will get you in deeper into the "bank slavery"
My point is: there are circumstances over which we have no control.
Today we commit large sums to be paid back over decades not knowing what the next year even will bring
The banks are not willing to make that commitment. Their small print allows them to change, but not you. Can you imagine what they would say if you enter a clause that says: I will make monthly payment as long as I have a job that pays me x$?
Here in BC it already takes more than 60% of your net income to pay for housing and it still climbing. Something will give. I see a dangerous decline of the social fabric, with the drugproblems increasing it
semar,
It's always risky thinking that you understand another countries culture and history.
For example Here in America I can go places where drugs and alcohol addiction are common.
Here in my neighborhood to get here those false steps can't be taken. Discipline hard work and ambition don't allow it.
As for the rest of your statement. Why sell? that sort of means that you are satisfied with enough money.. The rate my home has appreciated in the decades since I've purchased it has varied some but it has always been above the rate of inflation.There is absolutely no reason to believe that inflation with it's effects on the price of things will end anytime.
Besides if you were to visit it you'd understand that nobody builds a house in this way if you don't intend to live here the rest of your life and still have something to pass on down to your children..
In those days management made about 10 times what the guys on the factory floor earned..
Funny, we think of those as the "good ole days", when the people who oversaw the work got "only" 10 times as much as those who actually did the work.
The Mondragon Coops, in the Basque region of Spain, have been running globally-successful businesses for decades and they operate on the principle that managers can earn only 3 times as much as the starting guy on the floor. And every worker has to take his turn at being a manager.
Keeps everyone happy and working hard - that plus the fact that every worker is an owner of the business.
Reading this has been amusing.Several years ago I posted thread here in response to an ad I saw in our neighborhood. It said something like "SPECIAL! Reroof 1-car garage $999, 2-car $1299"Now, just to clarify, we're talking detached garages on small city lots - very basic, low pitch, small overhangs, no valleys, no cutouts, no extra space, any complications would cost extra.So a 1-car garage would be 3-4 sq. & a 2-car garage 5-6 sq.It was made clear to me in the responses to my thread that if I complained about those prices I was basically a cheap no-good SOB.At the time, I wasn't even looking for someone to do a job like that. I was just a guy who had done quite a bit of DIY roofing and it seemed like a generous amount of money especially as a "SPECIAL!".My how times have changed...
2 years in the remodeling and new construction business could be like is like 2 decades in other business. You won't see milk selling for 1/2 of what it sold last year but you will see wages and construction costs drop that much in certain regions. Bob's next test date: 12/10/07
"So a 1-car garage would be 3-4 sq. & a 2-car garage 5-6 sq."Just like bak then, you are assuming things and making up information which is why you got lambasted back then. My guys are building a two car garAGE RIGHT NOW WHICH WILL TAKE NINE SQUARES TO SHINGLE IT
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
"you are assuming things and making up information"And just like last time you are failing to read what I wrote. Maybe you don't get to town much but in small city lots the garages are all pretty much the same - no room to be otherwise. a 2-car is generally 20x20 (can actually be smaller, but not much bigger) low pitch, no overhang front and back, max 12" on the sides, so basically a 24x20 rectangle - 5 square with virtually no waste.You can talk 'till you are blue in the face about all the exceptions possible that might make the job more complicated, But I already stated that any complications would cost extra, so it's moot.Go ahead and get all worked up if it pleases you, but it won't do anyone any good.
Nanny---- i hate to break it to you---but i think you have neglected to calculate the effect of pitch on roof area.--your measurements are inaccurate----and piffen is to polite to tell you so.
late "90's-i hired a company to build a garage for me-----we hit it off--and for the next few years that company ended up subbing all their roofs to me-which ended up being sevral hundred garage roofs---virtually all on tight, urban lots.
a typical single car garage--came out close to 5 square----a 2 car garage came out to just about 7 square--give or take a bundle----a nice 2 car garage--say a 24x28 with a 7/12 pitch and proper overhangs--came out to about 9 sq.. I used to roof these solo--and i would do 2 on one day midweek--and one on saturday mornings--plus my regular roofing business.
you are welcome to your opinions---but it is gonna be hard to argue against the facts with somebody like piffen who has actually done the work about 800 zillion times( heck-piffen was probably roofing before horseless buggies were invented--so it's unlikely you are gonna teach him anything about the size of a garage roof,LOL)
Best wishes,
stephen
Hazlett---- i hate to break it to you---taking OUR typical garage specs (already described in too much detail for anyone else to care) and typical pitch of 4/12 the total roof area would be exactly 468 sq ft. I rounded up.Are garages different elsewhere? Of course. But the price I quoted wasn't found in the yellow pages. It was dropped all over our city neighborhood as a flyer as such things often are. A city neighborhood where there are 10,000+ garages all pretty much the same for 4-5 miles in each direction. I never claimed my numbers were universal. I claimed that they applied to the price in question, in this case, the "sale" price of $1,299.I have no idea if this is a typical price or not - a "good" price or not. I would never hire it done, so I'll never know. But this thread was started when someone quoted a low pay rate for laying the shingles, and I thought that this price for the simplest of roofing jobs would serve as one, among many, points of reference.If I was wrong, I apologize.
i don't wanna hear no apologizing from you... it'll mess up the vision i have in my mind
this is February.. no apologizing ... save it for MayMike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
"i don't wanna hear no apologizing from you..."I'm sorry. I apologize.Wait, I did it again, sorry.Dang!
Very roughly doing the math it comes to this, 2 hours per sq at 15 a hour is 30 bucks but thats what i pay, I still have to pay all the insurance, and taxes on top, I know im gonna here from all the speed demons about 2 hours a sq but by the time you figure loading , lunch, ridgeing , cutting valleys, cleanup thats what it takes, The reason there paying 30 a sq is there not paying the overhead and taxes, simple as that.
My issue is the poor guy laying shingle is going to average about $11/hr.I wouldn't get on a roof for less than $25 today.In the scenario I would have to lay 2sq an hour to make any money. And that would be by myself.
Maybe I am way wrong about it. I was a hired hand back in the day but I know we still charged about what I was talking about. All we used were nail guns unless something went down and we couldn't get a replacement right away.I know that they have been putting together some pretty fast crews these days. And yes many are Hispanic and very good workers. On the other hand you can't tell me that life is getting cheaper. Wages are still far behind what the cost of living has grown to.
it's all Bushs' fault.
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.. . . . . . . .
Is that all Bushes or all the Bushes
there were some bushes that I have fond memories of.......just not the Bushes.
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Edited 2/23/2008 8:43 pm by maddog3
You have a point here - and you don't.
>"My issue is the poor guy laying shingle is going to average about $11/hr."
That's his problem not yours. And I question your numbers. If that's all he can do, then he's stuck with what the market will bring. If all he's qualified to do is lay shingles, then that's what he'll get paid to do. He should have pulled himself away from the XBox and done some self education to learn how to do a higher level of construction science.
He ( in a general sence) didn't. Nothing ventured- nothing gained.
We ( as a collective body of productive, thinking, survivalist members) work our azz off to learn more, be smarter , find a better way - and work far harder, and longer than a 40 hour a week, waiting for our pay from "the man" at the end of the week.
I have been " the man". Noone wanted my spot once they learned that I slept three hours a night and my wife hated me - no Wii time.
>I wouldn't get on a roof for less than $25 today.
The fact that you won't work for money is probably a good sign a nd raises a question at the same time. Do you "feel" like you are worth more than that? Or do you have another benefit to add to the project that makes you worth it to someone to pay you more? I bill out at $50/ mh ( in a very moderate, if not lower end housing market ) and the first job I try to turn down is roofing - But it never fails that I find myself on a roof more than a few times out of every year. Just because my best customers feel more comfortable knowing that I did it.
There are alot of factor that go into the topic you are trying to tackle here. He77 at this point noone wants to buy a $200,000.00 house ( which are standing vacant all over the country ) for anything more than $150,000.00 so how do you find a way to buid a new one, and charge more to do it on top of that?Remodeling Contractor just on the other side of the Glass City
Point taken.I know I have laid near 3sq/hr at one point or another. That doesn't include laying paper, flashing or valleys.I prefer not to roof as I am very tall. My back is also not what it used to be.I really haven't put any real figures in it other than what I know the contractors I worked for in the past used to figure their bids at. Maybe that is what they were able to get in that part of the country at the time.I do know that to do roofs full time the insurances are expensive.I'm not saying I wouldn't get on a roof if I really needed the money but I wouldn't do it if I figured I couldn't put $25/hr in my pocket That said I would want overhead and profit on top of that.I have done my share of underbidding a project and making little money at it and putting in a ton of hrs.Live and learn.
I'd call it "insourcing" that is new labor coming in to the country and lowering the wages bar. Tell me if you're a contractor and can get pretty good work done for less than half the price that you'd usually pay where do you put your money?
It's an old story really. Roofing prices vary a lot according to how bad the building trades are doing at the moment. Supply and demand. Being fair isn't part of the equation for most guys who sell roofing jobs, then sub them out.
Back in the seventies I met a man (Joe became a good friend for a while) who was a flight engineer for United Airlines, a new hire who'd been laid off indefinitely because of an economic recession in the country.
He had the usual responsibilities for a thirty-some year old; wife, three kids and a mortgage. Previous to working for United he'd been a flight instructor, a job which was no longer available for the same economic reasons.
While collecting his first few weeks of unemployment he started looking around for business opportunities, something easy to learn and do with $$ potential. Somehow he hit on being a roofing contractor.
He first found a local roofer who needed multiple jobs and made a deal with him to sub him work that he got as a salesman/contractor.
When I met him, he'd been laid off from the airlines for about a year, had long since run out of unemployment benefits but was doing quite well selling roofing jobs and flying an occasional charter, which actually paid poorly but kept him current.
He was making so much money in roofing that he was thinking of expanding his business and forgetting the airlines altogether, even though that had always been his career path.
BTW, in those days all airline pilots, including flight engineers, were represented by unions and had excellent contracts, best wages in the working world.
So...you want to make real money in the roofing business, learn to sell and learn how to motivate subs. That and a little knowledge about costs is all you really need to know. Skills aren't part of the money end of the business.
So what does the customer wind up paying per square for these cheap roofs on new construction? Laying the shingles is about 1/20th of the actual work involved in roofing in my neck of the woods.My only frame of reference is remodeling in an area of very old houses. Client's out of pocket for tear-off, fresh 1/2" deck, and architectural shingles is about 500.00/square.Steve
mmoogie,
your frame of reference of about $500/sq for tear-off, overlay plywood and dimensional shingles--on older homes in established neighborhoods is pretty accurate
it's considerably different than the new construction market-----and the guys prospering in the market you and i are thinking of----don't bother with the new construction market. we can pay workers better----andwe don't have to deal with the " how quick can you do it and how cheap?" mind set that would be in the new construction game.
stephen
I'm 77 years old and refuse to hire immigrant labor. I recently reroofed a home I own that had nasty 70 year old wood shake and thousands of rusty staples to pull plus all the termite stuff. I hauled all the plywood up by hand and all the underlayment and heavy duty 40 year shingles by hand. The whole job took me from Nov. 15th to following March 1st. Lazy Americans who hire immigrant labor are simply passing the real cost to their children in the form of free medical care, education and dumbed down society in general.
i guess not hire'n someone who wants to work is your choice...
i have no... none... zero problem hire'n hispanic labor... i've tried the crackheads and the thieves...
just no fun working if you have to watch your tools all day and guys don't return from lunch and you find a skill saw gone...
sure it's not this way everywhere but it is here...
i find hispanic workers to be hard working and honest... the only 2 things i expect.. anything else i can teach..
with 2 hispanic guys helping you ...you could have been done in less than a month and you'd have 2 friends for life...
but if you enjoy the pain.... you now have a bragging point...
just as a point... unless you are native american... ur immigrant labor
p
i find hispanic workers to be hard working and honest...
On my first go with an Hispanic crew, I hired them to tear off a BUR roof, but the owner wanted to save the pea gravel which was fine by me, but she wanted it stored in an inconvenient place. Because of that fact, I decided to pay by the hour rather than the square.
I hired a 5 man crew and at the end of the day they gave me a bill for 41 hours. They'd worked 9 hours and they all arrived in the same vehicle. I questioned the math and the leader told me that at the end, there was only room for 3 to work, so the oldest and the youngest had to go sit down for 2 hours. I paid them for 45 hours and never worried about them cheating me again. http://grantlogan.net/
Today we's learnin' about rawks. They's all kinds of rawks. These [picks up rock] is rawks which you throw. These here [throws rock at Rusty] is rawks that you get hit with. E.Cuyler
Great story.
JimNever underestimate the value of a sharp pencil or good light.
dear dr jack....
who are these lazy 'mericans ?
and ... have your children encouraged their kids to learn spanish yet ?
i'll just bet you could look back to 1850 and read the same shid in the paper about those shiftless irish bastids
but this is different , ain' t it ?Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
I did my frst hack job for $2.50/square
Welcome to the
Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime.
where ...
Excellence is its own reward!
I feel more greatful for the wages we pulled in now that I have made this post. I apologize for even starting this post. I really didn't mean to get everyone so sturred up about it. We made te money then when we could.Jeb
no neeed to apologize. I thought it was a good discussion in a lot of ways. I might not touch the same job for less than seventy / sq now
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
I might not touch the same job for less than seventy / sq now
I pay a well insured/equipped, dependable shingle sub $75/sq for steep and $65/sq for walkable. Come down here and I'll wear you out with all you can stand for $70/sq. http://grantlogan.net/
Today we's learnin' about rawks. They's all kinds of rawks. These [picks up rock] is rawks which you throw. These here [throws rock at Rusty] is rawks that you get hit with. E.Cuyler
I replaced hundreds of storm damaged shingles at a retirement community (two story, 8 in 12) for seventy-five dollars a shingle.They seemed thrilled to have someone willing to do it.
Rich Beckman
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I replaced hundreds of storm damaged shingles at a retirement community (two story, 8 in 12) for seventy-five dollars a shingle.
That's 75 hundreds of dollars.http://grantlogan.net/
Today we's learnin' about rawks. They's all kinds of rawks. These [picks up rock] is rawks which you throw. These here [throws rock at Rusty] is rawks that you get hit with. E.Cuyler
It was a good gig. But I guess I misrepresented it.It was over several events over three years. By the last few events I was charging seventy five dollars a shingle. So maybe just the last hundred shingles were at that rate.
Rich Beckman
I would've been a better gig if they had paid sooner than 90 - 120 days.
It isn't just roofing. Plenty of help wanted ads for professional tradesmen in my area are really ads for what seem to be subcontractors. No wonder why more people are trying a run on their own... and driving down wages further.
If the "boss" is selling "your" services at $70 per (square/hour/sheet...) and is paying you half of that... sending a 1099... not providing any benefits... and requires you to own the equipment and insurance to do the work, then why do it for $35 per without trying to get say $60 per on your own as a 1099 boss (just a little cheaper to be the low bidder, which is still more than being 1099 by someone else)? Then the old "boss" starts selling "your" services for $55 per, but paying $27 (maybe) on the 1099....
Maybe I'm just stupid and reading too much into the downward cycle.
Plenty of people are expected to do more for less.
Except the CEO's, of course.