One of my fellow contractor buddies posted this on his blog. I echo his sentiments.
We all like deals. Right? I do not advocate price gouging, but I believe in paying a man his fair wage and dues for the valued professional craftsmanship of his trade. As the title of this blog post suggests, We are in a business to make a living. An honest legal living just like you. To get respect, one must give it. Respect our job and business and please, quit insulting us about what you think we should make without any knowledge of how much things really cost us.
I’m using a post from a forum to illustrate a point on what is a fair price for a service call. It’s well known to many contractors and other small business owners that the majority of the public, to which I’ll refer to as average HO (HO is contractor shorthand for homeowner), have not a clue on what it costs to run a legit business or how much the actual time and expense even a small project may take. These folks are too unindated with marketing media shows on many of the DIY channels and HGTV. What the general public fails to realize is these shows are heavily funded – subsidized by big corps pushing their Right Tools & Equipment For Home Improvement. Most materials are donated or sold at a drastically reduced price. Much of the labor is free or heavily subsidized also in one way or another. It’s TV folks not the reality!
Nevertheless on to the post.
HO complaint
A member of my communty Yahoo group posted a comment about a local handyman. I think it will make for some great fodder in this forum. The title is not accurate as it’s the HO’s friend making the complaint. Give me another 90 seconds to finish popping my popcorn.
Hi, All.
I just wanted to share a short story with all of you. Recently, some friends of mine contacted a handyman who advertises in the All ******xx Bulletin, (name withheld), about a small job they had: the shower stall in the basement of their unit had a water leak in the area near the wall and needed to be caulked. They thought it would be best handled by someone with experience who knew which caulking material would be most reliable and long-lasting.
They also asked that the basement toilet, which often ‘runs,’ be fixed. This was to involve merely replacing the tank ball.
Mr. ****** left that day without providing an estimate, but my friends figured that the work is not complex, should be completed quickly, and thus how much could it be?
Surprise! The total bill turned out to be $310.
Here’s the breakdown: the charge for the caulking job, which took 45 minutes, was $175. Mr. ******x then left to procure a tank ball, which he had not brought with him. He returned an hour and 15 minutes later and took 1/2 hour to replace the tank ball. My friends were charged $45 for the part (which they later priced at $11.49 on the internet) and $90 for procuring the part and installing it.
WOW! That’s like highway robbery, What a rip!!
To which Leo replied:
You are missing a few things here.
- First was the initial call where he drove out to the clients house to look at the problem.
- Second was the caulk, before he got to the clients home he needed to go to the store to get the caulk that was required for the job. Both of these have to be paid for.
- 30 minutes to install and 75 minutes to obtain
He probably paid about $18 for the part. I know my truck uses 4 gallons per hour of driving. I assume it took him about 15 minutes in the store, so that means he was on the road for an hour. So $20 for the part, $10 gas, an hour 15 of his time, lets say $40 (cheap) and half hour to install it ($20). That’s $90 of direct costs right there. $45 for profit on the job, which includes the time for the initial call.
People really just don’t have a clue on how much it costs to do a legal business. They look at how much it costs if they did it themselves and then charge $0/hr because there time is free. No thoughts about vehicle maintenance, insurance, overhead, profit, advertising and everything else that goes into operating just a small business. Every job needs to have all those costs in it or the business will be no longer in a short time.
Sounds like they wanted the guy to work for free. So lets see, $5 for a tube of caulk, $11 for the part (off the internet) 105 minutes of his time at $8/hr so the bill should have been in the range of $30. Right? Is that what they think would have been a fair price?
Sure some HO’s may get defensive and get an attitude from this blog post. They are are usually the kind of HO’s that haven’t a clue and their overly sensitive toes got stepped on. I don’t do cheap, but I am not outrages either. WE aim for affordable value and cost effectiveness. It is not outrages when things unknown to the ignorant are brought into light. Well, we do have those that do know better, but they will still try to nickle and dime a guy to death and chew them down on a fair deal.