Need suggestions on how to tackle the townhouse deck.

[turbonyg 17]

How would you go about tackling this. It's a clean and recoat.

 

I did one last year that was similar but wasn't as high and didn't have the patio below, just rock. I used a ladder to climb over the rail so I would not have to go through the home and it was all very light carpet. I applied the stain by brush to help with drips and running. That one took about a total of 3 hours on site in 2 trips to clean and stain.

 

How much extra would you get for taping and plastic of all the lower area?

 

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

If you need to protect the lower area, just use 4mil plastic and clamp it to the joists underneath.

Throw a tarp down below to catch any drips from the rails.

Brush and go.

 

 

Rod

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

First question - is that vinyl or aluminum siding it attaches to?

 

Second, we don't charge for tarping, plastic and tape. It is built into our cost and used on every job. And our guys get photos before, during and after on every job to make sure we have shots of the protection in place.....

 

Beth

[turbonyg 17]

It's vinyl siding.

 

What percentage do you usually build into costs for everything except the stain?

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

You'll have to look at your cost for the materials and the time it takes you to mask to determine that.

 

Beth

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

In the beginning, I always timed myself to see how long it took to accomplish various tasks in different configurations.

 

Once I had a grasp over production time and the typical amount of materials used (plastic, tarps, tape) I could then factor my costs based upon

 

 

Time to complete the job plus set up, prep time and break down/cleanup became a number relative to the square footage of the job.

 

If there were no steps and I had to use a ladder, I would add time to that by lowering the sqft/hour production rate.

 

Materials are based upon their coverage rates minus 10-20% to account for spray lost and absorption variances on different species.

 

Having to hand apply meant a different production rate which was obviously lower than spraying and back brushing/padding.

 

Your hourly must include more than just what you make. It should include the employer contributions of F.I.C.A., S.S. and Medicare required.

Figure out your typical service area. Take a compass and put the point on your location. Now, depending upon the scale of the map you are using, expand the compass to

determine your service area (1/4"=1 mile for example) and make a circle. Anything within that circle should have a cost built into your labor costs. Ex; 30 minutes max/person driving to a job=labor x :30 minutes x # of crew.

 

If you are thinking your labor cost would be $40.00/hour/person, you could be losing money. Many companies I am aware of won't leave the house for less the $1000.00/day

Don't get me wrong, you don't want to base your costs on other companies, but the smart ones take All their costs into consideration before coming up with a price structure.

 

What are you paying your crew?

What are the required employer contributions? and the percentage/wage dollars?

How long does it take to do the job?

How many trips to complete each phase (wash/strip, Sand, stain/seal)?

What is the mpg of your vehicle being used?

How long does it take you on average to get to any point within your service area?

What would be considered your 'extended' service area and what types of work would you accept beyond the regular service area?
 

What are your insurance costs per month? Do the math and find out how much that is per day, per hour. 7 days a week. (yeah, we all work weekends when weather messes us up)

 

Do you have office staff? How much are you paying them? This should be included in the costs for labor for the time the office work would take. Why? Because someone has to man the phones, take messages, file paperwork, send faxes/emails/snail mail and process the transactions relative to the job.

The average customer requires: phone calls, emails or faxes to initiate, process and complete the transaction.

They require time for consultation, follow up and intermidiate communications for progress of job and sheduling.

This can range from 1 hour to several depending upon the customer and the complexity of the project.

 

Doing this kind of analysis and costing can help you to arrive at a price.

 

All the costs can be summed up in a sqft basis but make sure you know how much you can do, or better yet what your employee's WILL do. They aren't vested like you, so count on things taking a little bit longer where they are concerned.

 

You could use a sliding scale to cost your services which means the $$$/sqft price may drop incrementally as the sqft goes up.
We use this for decks mostly due to the fact that once you take out the prep, set up and break down, the production rate goes up as the work is being done due to the

most difficult part being the rails. The floor is the fastest and easiest which makes up the brundt of the sqft overall. So the sliding scale comes in handy and keeps you from over bidding due to a set price/sqft.

 

Enough for now.

 

Rod

[turbonyg 17]

Beth,

 

Just getting into staining I do not have a known amount of time for these projects to go by. Until last year I only cleaned decks, never stained. The handful I did last year I had talked to Shane on and he would give me a close estimate to what it would take him to do (time, and what kind of prep), then I would factor in 30-50% more time for me to accomplish and work out the price from there so I would make money on the job but not overcharge the customer for my learning curve.

 

 

Rod,

 

I do factor a lot of that stuff in already as that is what I do with house washing. When I started doing that I kinda of shot from the hip on pricing until I learned how long some of the different style houses were going to take and how much travel time is involved.

 

I may have to do the same with the deck pricing, but it seems like I have a lot higher chance of being off on the estimates do to having a lot things to use up time that may not have been accounted for.

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

Good deal Tony.

 

I never know what people have in their works so I tend to be a bit thorough based upon the question.

 

Rod