Gosh, Just as I loved work and price the contractor who cleaned the dryer vent yesterday - today whole different story.
I got assured the price of install ($1200) is so high is due high amount of labor involved. To run gas pipe 35ft outside at 18" deep, another 10-15' in the unfinished basement - aka super easy
I was told it would need 3 people and day and half of work - I get it - it's quite a lot of man/hours and cost,
BUT
Reality is quite different: So far the progress is a follows: Water system is all done. Gas line is 90% done. Mostly waiting now for the company owner to arrive and finish up few things.
One guy was here for 4.5 hours. Second guy is still here from 10am - but my intuition somehow tells that his labor is quite cheap since he barely speak english and was born south of the border.
So 4.5 hours at say, $30/hour for one guy = $130 . Something like $15/hour for the Mexican = $100 - Granted the owner will be here to finish the rest - no additional labor cost, only profits.
So, My guess - and I think I am being generous with materials cost about $200 - comes out to about $750 profit?? Really? No freaking way
Man, you are tough, lol...
So they are installing a water treatment system, gas ine to your grill, and cleaned the dryer vent all for $1200? That doesn't sound terrible to me..
For example, I am going over my slips from today, I just got home and the end of the week I take the weeks invoices and go through them to make sure there is not anything crazy in there, like a free boiler or $20 cleaning that should be $200 {these things have happened}...
For example- emp3 and 6 left the shop in a single vehicle {just a service truck} at 7:42 arrived at customers property at 8:14 and left at 1:51, arrived at their second job at 2:11, their work description reads, "
repaired domestic water line stop valve, shut water feed at curb stop, drained water below level, removed and repaired stop with teflon packing and replacement valve stem
Drained and removed electric water heater tank, model Rheem xsa40
Installed American Water Heater Model HPE10260H045DV 60 ga hybrid model
Set units pressures and tested function, A+
cleaned and removed old tank, all packing materials and trash from the site"
The total on that invoice is $3789 {$2000 of that is taxable so $140 of that is tax}, the tank cost me $1020 other materials around $250, the labor and transportation cost me around $600, figure 2 guys for 6 hours so its 12 man hours at $50 per hour {one is just a helper, but after adding in the truck and their entire pay package it is all of $50 an hour}, so just going off them numbers the job profit is just under $1800. I think that is about fair, considering they are driving a $40K truck with $10K in tools $5K instock, insurance, licences, they left my building in the morning that cost me $750K, ect ect ect, that stuff adds up, it has to come from somewhere..
I hate when customers do this to me, it doesn't happen much anymore, but when I used to do the work myself with a helper, and was small, I would install an oil fired boiler for say $5000, it was $2500 of materials, leaving $2500 for me, but that had to go towards my expenses and my income. Now I would deliver the boiler the day before the job, then go and install it, the installs take me with a single helper around 7 hours for the basic swap out, start to finish all cleaned up...
Well, I had a few customers come out with their calculators and say "hey I called and I can get that boiler for $1400, you charged me $5000 so you are making $3600 and was here for 7 hours, I am not paying you over $500 an hour!!!' and I had really good prices when I started, no one installs boilers for $5K around here, and I do really nice wrok with really nice units and materials, no corners cut, you get a nice finished product... I dealt with them in all different ways I would say, "Ill pull it out and you can hire someone else, you think it wen tin fast watch how fast it will go back on my truck" or some customers I would explain it to them about other materials and over head, some needed to see that I could put a lean on their property and they wont be able to sell it until I get paid and interest and legal fees {that happened once, and his poor daughter ended up paying after he passed away because the probate judge awarded us $9K over what he owed for some reason, I offered her a credit but she said she didn't want it, it was a weird situation...
BUT ANYWAY, if they did good work and you agreed on the price before they started, they did it by the book, you kind of don't have a leg to stand on, the price sounds good to me, I wouldn't dig the trench for that kind of money never mind pipe it, I get $60 a foot for buried gas lines and $20 for exposed indoors, BUT it is done by the book, permit pulled, lawn cut and rolled back, run the trencher through a single pass and hand dig as little as possible, run the plastic gas line with the detectable tracer wire and yellow gas caution tape, use steel risers at the grill and a steel riser or steel termination at the house, psi test it, back fill it under pressure, run all the threaded steel pipe in the house {I don't use csst, we do steel pipe only for gas, some lp get copper but that is rare..}, reinstall your lawn, blow off the grass and clean it all up... Unless the inspector comes that day you have to lay it all out, wait for them to come back and then back fill it after they sign off on the permit.... Its a lot of work and a lot of materials...
