Is there a roundabout sq. footage price to charge for cedar shake installation? I have never done it before and don’t want to over or under charge. I really don’t know for sure how long it will take but I thought I could get an idea on sq. ft. price to have something to work off of. Thanks
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If you look in finehomebuilding magazine there is an add for a tin supplier. Their add is in there everymonth. The catalog is easy to understand but we did have to call many times to get the order right. I think our local HD can order the sheets for you.
OK...I gotta ask....what thread did you THINK you clicked on?J. D. Reynolds
Home Improvements
"DO IT RIGHT, DO IT ONCE"
both posts have me confused??????????????????
This is one of the most confusing threads for the last little while, just go somewhere else... I forgot you started the thread.
Tom
I'll try to answer.
After several years of experience, I could lay three squares a day with the tarpaper was on and the roof stocked.
With a staple gun I occasionally laid six squares a day on a 4/12
For someone who has never done it before, I would be expecting no more than a square per day, so you can figure your cost from there. I don't know what your labor cost is.
.
Excellence is its own reward!
Edited 9/30/2003 8:42:46 PM ET by piffin
piffin are you talking about roofing or cedar shakes? why would I stock the "roof" with shakes?
Piffin assumed you were installing the "shakes" on a roof because you didn't specify. Which would be my assumption as well.
I suspect you are installing "shingles" . Shakes are split, shingles are sawn. Confusion is common on this.
Don't worry about what anyone else is charging.
I'll give you the top secret estimating formula I use.
n=number of labor hours in the job.
r= rate per hour including labor, overhead and profit
p = price
m=materials cost
m+(n x r) = p
This works in any geographic location.
Tom
I'm here to help the humans.
No wonder you have him all confused, see if I can undo it a little bit.
How much you charge for a job, can be any job, is basically tied to the going rate of what your peers would charge. If Piffin can do three squares a day (10 hours?) and he charges $X per hour, an 18 square roof would have a labor cost of $60X. Now if Tom can only do one square a day if he were lucky, he might be able to charge $60X for the job, if Piffin was not around, and that means his hourly labor rate was only $1/3*X. My point is you cannot charge more because you are slow...
getting more confusing.
Tom
I disagree- I'm really slow, and my hourly rate is more than my competitiors- yet I still start busy and make a good living.
I've learned that pricing according to what your competitiors charge is a sure way to end up making the crappy wages most of them make, or going out of business like so many of them do. Just because "Acme Remodeling" can do a job for $XX doesn't mean you can, or should do it for the same price. We all have tasks that we're faster than others at, and tasks that we're slower- basing pricing or labor hours on anyone else's figures is just plain silly. And the excuse that "I can't charge more than my competitiors" or "that's 'the going rate'" is just that- an excuse. Ask Sonny Lykos for his opinions on that one.....
Bob
Bob, I'll agree with both of you guys. There is a realistic limit to how much you can get for most things. His main point was that it is not right to charge the customer more because you are slow. For instance, On a job a few years back, my rate was $28/hr if I remember right. Next to the new building we were putting up, there was an old pump house that needed new cedar shingle siding. Their caretaker had a carpenter who could work for only $15/hr so he seemed like a bargain.
It was painful to watch him work and I wasn't even the one paying him. He was lucky to get a bundle a day on that building, and it was all so crooked it looked like crap. I think they must have paid three times as much as I would have charged but they never asked, they just assumed that his rate was cheaper so his bill would be cheaper too.
They were paying him for his OJT.
I'll agree with your point too though. Just because I am gifted with fast hands and a tolerance for pain, that does not mean that I will lay twice the shingles as the average guy for the same money on an hourly basis. I will charge enough to realize reward for my pain. If that means that I give a firm price of $200 and the customer sees my walk home with $600 a day, it shouldn't matter to him if his other bidder was at $220 and only takes home $330/day..
Excellence is its own reward!
edit to fix typos
Edited 10/1/2003 10:29:01 PM ET by piffin
Although you disagreed with my previous post, I totally agreed with what you said about being slow and charging more. Sounds contradicting but really it isn't.
What I was trying to convey was for a defined job, if there is such a thing, you cannot charge more than your competitors just because you are slow, or you may not be able to stay in that business for too long.
For example, if Average Joe Painter can do a house to a defined quality of finish in three days and you can provide the same service and finish in six days, it doesn't mean that you can charge twice as much as the other guys. On the other hand, if you are so good and so fast that you finish in a day, then you don't charge the same as the other painters. You charge more because the home owmer is paying for your expertise and two less days of inconvenience.
From what you described, you are in a niche market where your quality and service obviously are not the same as Joe Whatever. You can charge whatever you think you are worth and what the market can bear. Your hourly rate is not even an issue here.
"And the excuse that "I can't charge more than my competitiors" or "that's 'the going rate'" is just that- an excuse"
That not just an excuse, that's BS. When there is a willing buyer and a willing seller, that's the fair market price.
Tom
Tim2,
Alot depends on the roof. I did one with valleys, hips, and a pitch break that was on lathe with laced felt. Cost $800 a square. Done some straight gables over plywood that cost $100 a square.
KK
Wait a second!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (LOL)
everyone is assuming this thread is abiut roofing. It's about siding, cedar shakes. How about this, as a novice how many sq. is realistic to accomplish in a day? I'll figure the hourly rate from there. Thanks guys, this site is always amuseing.
Sorry, my bad. Never seen shakes used as siding here.
Down the shakeless bayou,
KK
That's because you didn't say roofing in your original post. I haven't seen many "shakes" used for siding.
Are you sure you mean "shakes"?Tom
I'm here to help the humans.
Everyone assumed the thread was about roofing (other than poster #2) because that is where shakes are generally used. I have seen and used them on siding but very seldom.
Siding is even slower than roofing, especially if you have many openings and corners, and whether this is a one story or higher. You might consider giving good information to get good answers. You could be lucky to install 1/10 square in a day or you may get a square in a day..
Excellence is its own reward!
all right so what do all you guys call the cedar shingles on the side of a house? I assumed they were called shakes! I have never heard roofing shingles called shakes, but that's me. I just want to know an average price per sq. ft. or sq. for installing cedar "siding". Is that possible? I know it differs per person and different areas and all that but just an average to get me on the right track.
I'm not the only one who responded along those lines. Garbage in - garbage out.
It is clear that you are not clear on the terminology you are using so don't blame others for your scarcity of information. Here's a clue - words are used to convey information. You chose not to use very many of them and assumed that everyone would be able to read your mind and see what you are talking about. In order to play psycchicic and read between the lines, I need a few lines to read between.
Fact is that in this whole country, The name of the product - shake or shingle - has nothing to do with whether it is applied to siding, roofing, or the firewood pile. A shake is a shake and a shingle is a shingle.
Shingles are sawn on all sides taper cut. They are usually about 3/8" thick at the butt and 16 -18" long. exposure is normally about five inches
Shakes are thicker butts and generally handsplit. Most often they are 24" long. Exposure is 8-10"
There are minor differences in the way they are laid and in the size of the nails used.
a few posts back you asked for application rates and I gave them. You said you could fill in the pay rate. Now you want average pay scedules.
One more thing, Mike Smith loaned me his, "Bite me"
I am starting to feel sorry for your customer..
Excellence is its own reward!
Add to the confusion issue, what about hand split and resawn? :)
Tom
at this point I goota say it would be over the students head.
I had to graduate from first grade before they would let me try to do second grade work.
Excellence is its own reward!
Just checking to see if you have me on ignore. I tried to clarify the ingnorance of this thread early on.
But thanks for restating it.Tom
I'm here to help the humans.
I don't have anybody on ignore. Sorry if I passed on anything you said earlier.
Things sure went down hill fast for one that started in the basement, eh?.
Excellence is its own reward!
Ease up there "piffin". The "bite me's" and "feeling sorry for my customer" remarks are are unnecessary as far as I'm concerned. The only thing remarks like that will get you in this neck of the woods is a "good beating" perhaps with a "shake" or better yet a "shingle". You need to relax pal. Somehow I feel "Piffin is his own reward".
You be the one who started with the negative crap in the face of someone trying to hel;p answer your Q.
I see you still don't know whether you are using shakes or shingles. Either that or you are trying to keep it a big secret from anyone else who might be foolish enough to try to advise you..
Excellence is its own reward!
Goodnite Piffin.
Sleep tight, Tiny Tim.
Excellence is its own reward!
Did "everyone" assume the post was about roofing or just you piffin? I never mentioned roofing. Where I come from cedar shakes are used for siding. I felt I posted "good information" and hoped to get"good answers". Sorry if the "post wasn't up to your posting standards.
There are shakes and there are shingles, there are roofs and there are sidings.
More confused?
Tom