Everyone who has seen these pics ask how much the bog and bath cost. lol. I will price some up next time but these are the originals I promise.
Basically Mick.
I over estimated everything. Materials and man hours. I estimated that we would need to work 8-9 hour days to complete the job in the 3 days I had quoted for. In reality, Day one, 6 hrs. Day two, 5 hrs and day three 5 hrs. Day three we had to hang around for the customer to turn up so could have been in and out in 3-4 hrs I recon. we wasted a lot of time with the loo on day 1 and 2, material wise, again I over estimated but what we didnt use I have for the next one so no probs there.
I still beleive that we could have charged double and still got the job. The nephew of the owner of the property wanted to pay the other firm that put the huge quote in. The friend of the owner wanted a second opinion, that is how we got to quote. At the end of the day we were happy with the price we put in but who wouldnt want twice the amount of money for the same amount of work??
This being our first extreme clean we worked out our material costs then decided on a decent hourly rate per person and that is how we came up with our price. After looking into this line of work we now realise that other firms do charge a much higher hourly rate. But hey, we have all got to start somewhere.
Not being a huge firm the staff is me and the mrs. We have a chap who works for us on larger projects but not all the time. So I cant really answer that question.
Next time I would check out the toilet first. That could have really taken all the profit from the job. because of some bad building work, the extension was built ontop of the man hole we needed. ( according to the drain man!) the only way to tackle it was from inside the property. We wasted alot of day 1 and 2 trying to rod it etc where as if we had got the chap in straight away it could have been done in 10 mins. leaving the 2 of us to crack on else where. Next time I think the best way would be to remove the bog and get a drain man in straight away.
I was lucky that the customers was willing to cover the extra charge.
I hope this has answered some of your questions.
Ant
TVCS