J
JamesT
Hi everyone
I've done several trades across construction, and the thing I struggle most with is pricing, especially on small jobs. I've just finished a job which was only 3 square metres, but took a long time, and I just wanted to see what others would consider charging for it. i know I well undercharged but I wanted the job. What would you charge for labour for a high quality finish given the following:
The customer wanted the job done yesterday, so rather than wait I had to squeeze it in amongst another job. The job is a 40mins drive away or more than an hour if traffic, and was on the third floor of a tower block, requiring a special permit, electric gates etc etc, all making the job take longer. The bathroom is tiny, so I'm always working on top of myself. I have nowhere else in the flat to work
The bathroom is waiting to be fitted out by someone else, so all it has is a plumbed in bath, and I was to retain the existing wall tiles from 600mm above the bath and remove those in between. So i had to fit in a couple of rows of Topps Tiles White Strattons (300 x 600mm) porcelain tiles between the bath and existing tiles.
View media item 15131View media item 15130Removing the tiles, old adhesive and patching up holes took me 5 hours.
The top row of new tiles remained whole and the whole bottom row had to be cut. The top row had a metal tile trim, and the bottom row sat on a bath seal, which kept moving all over the place under the weight of the tile. I had to stick it in place first.
The bath wasn't dead plumb and neither was the existing tiles.
Took me two days to remove all old tiles, clean up and cut and fix new tiles.
Third day I came back to grout which was a complete nightmare as the grout got stuck in all the uneven surface and had to be cleaned off with brute force and chemicals. The 2mm grout lines and uneven surface don't allow you to simply wipe the grout over. You have to force it into the gaps, and go over again to bring flush to surface.
Anyway, this is in London, and the standard price for such a sized tile, including adhesive and grout is £x/m2. Clearly no-one is going to do it for £x. I'm a bit slow, but an experienced tiler must surely do this in 2days.
So I would welcome some thoughts. I wanted this job for the experience so I priced low, too low, but next time I'd like to be more on the money.
I've done several trades across construction, and the thing I struggle most with is pricing, especially on small jobs. I've just finished a job which was only 3 square metres, but took a long time, and I just wanted to see what others would consider charging for it. i know I well undercharged but I wanted the job. What would you charge for labour for a high quality finish given the following:
The customer wanted the job done yesterday, so rather than wait I had to squeeze it in amongst another job. The job is a 40mins drive away or more than an hour if traffic, and was on the third floor of a tower block, requiring a special permit, electric gates etc etc, all making the job take longer. The bathroom is tiny, so I'm always working on top of myself. I have nowhere else in the flat to work
The bathroom is waiting to be fitted out by someone else, so all it has is a plumbed in bath, and I was to retain the existing wall tiles from 600mm above the bath and remove those in between. So i had to fit in a couple of rows of Topps Tiles White Strattons (300 x 600mm) porcelain tiles between the bath and existing tiles.
View media item 15131View media item 15130Removing the tiles, old adhesive and patching up holes took me 5 hours.
The top row of new tiles remained whole and the whole bottom row had to be cut. The top row had a metal tile trim, and the bottom row sat on a bath seal, which kept moving all over the place under the weight of the tile. I had to stick it in place first.
The bath wasn't dead plumb and neither was the existing tiles.
Took me two days to remove all old tiles, clean up and cut and fix new tiles.
Third day I came back to grout which was a complete nightmare as the grout got stuck in all the uneven surface and had to be cleaned off with brute force and chemicals. The 2mm grout lines and uneven surface don't allow you to simply wipe the grout over. You have to force it into the gaps, and go over again to bring flush to surface.
Anyway, this is in London, and the standard price for such a sized tile, including adhesive and grout is £x/m2. Clearly no-one is going to do it for £x. I'm a bit slow, but an experienced tiler must surely do this in 2days.
So I would welcome some thoughts. I wanted this job for the experience so I priced low, too low, but next time I'd like to be more on the money.
