starting new business ??

[md_plumber]

what is the best advice for someone starting their own plumbing business. i can think of many, but want all advice i can get! thanks and wish me luck!

[PLUMBILL]

Pay with cash check with money in the bank only! Get all your discounts, don't get in over your head, don't think you are smarter then everyoine else.

[Heating Instructor]

Well put Plumbill.

[Herkiv]

Find out how much it actually costs to run your business and charge that much. That means truck(s), insurance, wages, bookkeeping, tools, fuel, licences, profit, everything. Be neat and clean. Treat your customer like you want to be treated.

[Spammanwhat]

Eat your wheaties cause you're gonna need it!

[PLUMBILL]

You need your Wheaties and more.

The guys in business that are making it, Love What They Are Doing don't mind working 80 hours+ and some weekends because they love helping people and there familes love and support them 100%.

if you got the above ingredients and do what was stated prior you will make it.

[jjbex]

If you don't do flat rate, be prepared to close up in a couple of years. I was T&M for 2.5 years and finally gave up and went back to work for someone else. I was working 80 to get paid for 40 because I was too nice of a guy. Now, it is what it is. My new boss gets to be the bad guy.

[Sylvan Tieger]

Flat Rape, yup is sure the only way to go after all I am only in business for over 25 years and doing plumbing almost 40 years and like most decent contractors know a plumber does not rely on one tool

Saying flat rate is the only way to go is like saying one basin wrench does all.

I made a fortune (literally several millions) by having a drain cleaners give me a flat rate price for drain cleaning and dummies dabbling in plumbing give me a "contract price" I was more then happy to sub work out to them BUT I went T&M they are no longer in business.

Some guys are great mechanics and terrible at business so these are the ones who have to be part of a team like a franchise or have to buy a how to price program to help them.


I can see it now, going into a 28 story building saying to replace the kitchen faucet will cost $300 only to find out the valves don't hold or the galvanized is blocked and then comes the RAPE part called "add ons" like draining down the riser and replacing the valves and possibly other related work that one looks into a "magic pricing book" to add in the FUDGE factors.

T&M if you know your over head and the profit margin you want is one way to go.

The flat rate takes the "average" time to do a job so the faster jobs pay for the ones that take longer so the good ones actually pay for the bad ones. Thus the easy jobs are raped for the bad ones like sending in a slow stumble bum on T&M BUT then knowing the so called mechanic is not as fast as the other journeymen you have, you can adjust your T&M pricing accordingly.

ALL decent mechanics know how long a job should take and if you want to give an up front price great but the T&M covers those jobs where nothing goes right and going to a book for ADD on's doesn't impress most people

I wonder how someone gives a flat rate for a building that had a major freeze up?

Do you change all the piping and radiators and the boiler? Or do you turn on the water and make repairs as needed charging by the hour and materials used?

How do you give a FLAT RATE /UP FRONT price for chopping through a concrete slab not knowing if it is 4" or 24" (Mantahhan I had a slab over 4 FEET THICK)

How about a stoppage that takes 12 hours as once you started snaking you realized the waste lines are packed with grease and old grouting and some cement blocked the line are you going to be a nice guy and say no problem I said $225 ILL stay all night and NO Extras no add ons etc.

Contract pricing is great as I did hundreds of jobs that were were over $100,000 but for repair work like replacing a toilet and figuring labor 2 hours @$200 per and materials $180 only to find out the lead bend is corroded and then the pricing book comes out with the add on and your speak about a service contract and how if they become a client you can wave the diagnostic fee and and give them a "preferred" client pricing which is the price that should have been charged in the first place.

T&M for service calls and drain cleaning I was able to retire at 40 years old BUT became so board I decided to open two more plumbing companies.

When you go contract /flat rate you take your slowest employee and use that as a basis for the time and then add in a fudge factor and a hefty mark up on materials so you can hide what your hourly rate actually is.

The problem is trying to hide the RATE is when your changing a washer of doing a simple fixture stoppage.

The ones who really make a decent living in flat rate are the folk selling the books and programs to dummies who have no clue to how long a Job should take or do not know what materials they are going to need.

To do flat rate. figure in your time THEN ADD some extra and mark up materials over 150% and then try to push them into a diagnostic fee Or give then a tall tale (LIE LIKE CRAZY) and tell them you love them and can offer then a special discount if the blah blah blah you wave the diagnostic fee and give then pricing from column B instead of the rip of price in column A

As long as you make enough for a decent living and have fun doing it then you can price any way you like but to say one pricing method fits all is ludicrous.

Here from 1999 and I am still in business so much for going out of business so another FLAT rate tale goes by the way side as being un true.

The reason the flat rape guys go under is they HAVE NO CLUE to what to charge so they kind of need someone to guide them for a hefy fee with pricing books and tricks like fudging and add on's and special diagnostic terms that the T&M guy does not need to be bothered with


http://www.masterplumbers.com/plumbviews/1999/tandm.asp

[Herkiv]

Nice rant, Sylvan. It's easy to see why T&M and FR discussions quickly go over the top.

But it's been my experience that most of the people bad-mouthing flat rate have to misrepresent it to make it look bad.

When you plumb a house or a commercial building you give a flat rate.
When you remodel a basement bathroom, you give a flat rate.
When you go for lunch, you get a flat rate on your burger.

I've looked at a lot of flat rate systems. The first thing they tell you is that you have to know your cost of doing business. The sad fact is that far too many plumbers have not enjoyed your degree of success. You may have your own opinions as to why that is, but it's a simple fact. Everybody does not live in New York, and it's different out here in the world.

How do you bid concrete when it could be 4" or 24"? Simple - by the inch.
How do you bid a building that has frozen? Well, that's usually beyond the scope of the flat rate book. You bid the repiping, just like any other remodeling job.

It really doesn't matter whether you use flat rate or T&M, so long as you charge what it costs you to operate. Overhead, direct costs, wages, profit. The reality is that most T&M plumbers could not tell you what it actually costs them to send a man out for one hour. They arrived at their price by calling around to see what the other plumbers charge, then based their price on that.

That may not be true in New York, but it certainly is here.

One of the accusations thrown at flat rate is that it is so badly abused. It doesn't have to be. It's just as easy to abuse T&M. "How much do you charge an hour?"

"Well, I charge $70."
"Then why is your bill so high?"
"Because I double whatever my material costs, charge for any hour or part of an hour, charge a service call and the first hour, charge a trip charge from job to job, and round up to the next hour even if it's just five minutes into the hour. Then I add a tool fee and charge $15 for sawzall blades."

Sylvan, how can you brag about making so much money in one breath, then condemn people who are making a living charging by a different method in the next breath?

There are reasons for the things that flat rate contractors do. For example, the service contract and multi-level pricing. Many urban plumbers say that it's costing them huge amounts of money per customer for advertising. They might spend $280 or $400 in advertising for each new customer. So it's important that you can retain customers. Other companies have stumbled on a nifty way of retaining customers. It doesn't always work, but it works often enough to be useful:

They offer some kind of membership. Sam's Club charges $35 per year, then you can shop at their store and get their great deals. Barnes and Noble bookstores have a $25 per year fee for their membership card and they give you ten percent off on every book you buy. Albertson's grocery gives you a Preferred Customer card, and you save on most of the products in the store.

Why do they do this? The theory is that their lower-level price works out to what they need to make a steady profit. If you don't get the "membership," you pay a higher price. They actually want you to have the membership because then you're more likely to return to their store to get the values promised by the membership.

And so it is with flat rate plumbing. I use it, and I want all my customers to get a service contract. They won't usually save enough on the first job to pay for the service contract, but eventually they will - so they want to call you rather than someone else the next time they need service. It's just that simple.

All flat rate books are not alike. They are based upon what the plumbing company owner came up with when he figured his costs. But there are other advantages, both to the homeowner and to the plumber.

Ever handed someone a bill and saw that sticker shock in their eyes? Ever been told, "I don't have that much money. Can I pay you by the month?" With flat rate, up-front pricing, the customer knows whether they have the money before you start. The animosity that comes with getting a bill after the job is finished that far exceeds the expectations of the customer isn't worth it.

You do (or used to do) drain cleaning. How did you charge? A minimum charge per hole? So much per foot past a hundred? That's flat rate, Sylvan. Did you charge for travel time if it was outside your area? So much per mile? That's flat rate, too. You don't figure the amount of your truck payment per job and add up how much gas you used, then tack on your labor and profit; you charge by the mile.

I don't know what kind of plumbing you do now, but as I understood before, you replaced roof drains on commercial buildings, and you did drain cleaning. Those were your specialties. As I recall, you charged a specific amount per roof drain. You claimed to make a considerable amount per day and you paid your helper well. And you claimed you were worth it.

Here in rural America, we do a lot of other things. We don't do so well. A potential customer calls:

"How much do you charge per hour?"
"$75"
"Wow, that's a lot. I'll have to call around, and I'll get back to you."

The other guys in the area are charging $65 or $70, so they get more work. You talk to them and they say, "We're thinking of getting out of plumbing altogether. We sell vitamins on the side and we're making a lot more doing that." What's the solution?

My solution was getting out of the priced-out game and switching to flat rate. That company you mention that makes flat rate books? I didn't use them. I made my own. But I can certainly see the advantages to buying into a going system, like being able to change prices globally rather than one at a time.

I was particularly careful when making my book to keep the prices within a normal range rather than using excessive rates. If I find a task that isn't in the book, I add one. I try to sell service contracts at a low yearly rate to help retain customers. The difference in the first price and the second price is about 10%. So how long does it take for a customer saving ten per cent to save that?

My customers like it. The response has been far better than I expected. People here are incredibly cheap. They may need ten things fixed, but will only have you fix the most important because they can't afford more. They'll drive a 60-mile round trip to Home Depot or Lowe's and try to do the job, badly, themselves to avoid having to hire a plumber.

One of the things that made me think that flat rate would be a good idea was the simple fact that I was getting more and more people asking the question: "What's this going to cost me?" or, "Can you give me a ball park figure?" or, "I have to know what this is going to cost to see if we have enough money to pay you."

If you're fortunate enough to live in an area where you can charge an hourly rate high enough to make what it costs you to do business and the customers don't shop you out for the cheaper rate, then more power to you. Quite often, price is the only consideration - it doesn't matter if you're the best plumber doing the finest work in the area, it matters if you charge less. And when the customer gets the hourly rates, they really don't know what the job's going to cost, just that you'll do it cheaper than the next guy. When you give them the price up front, they are often surprised because they are thinking in terms of how many hours it would take hubby to do the same job - he'd be at it for three days with a dozen trips to the home center while you may only take an hour or two.

So give us flat rate guys a break. Those of us who aren't too greedy are raising the bar for the entire profession. Flat rate firms try to be neater, to leave the work area cleaner than we found it, and we're trying hard to learn the business end of the profession - a real sore spot for most people who make the transition from employee to chief cook and bottle washer.

[Sylvan Tieger]

"But it's been my experience that most of the people bad-mouthing flat rate have to misrepresent it to make it look bad." <<SNIP

ANSWER .My experience with flat rate is the add on's and double listings used for billing like diagnostic fee and fudge factoring and every aspect becomes a small contract aspect of the job.

For example if I am called to install a kitchen faucet on T&M and the valves do not hold as I am on the job and so what if it takes another 30 minutes to install them no big deal BUT many flat rape contractors will say the valves don't hold thus I have to check the book and figure in the full hour instead of trying to save the account money they just add on another "extra' but give it a fancy double talk name.

I wonder why car dealers do not give a flat rate on trouble shooting electrical problems?
I guess giving a "contract price on a NO heat call makes a lot of sense to.

Flat rate for a dripping faucet one would figure a new handle, new escutcheon, new seats possibly new spindles even if it is just a washer replacement OR worse yet figure a washer then ADD ON extras like seat, spindle etc.

T&M your there for a Service call 1 HR minimum plus parts If you do a job in less then 20 minutes one can always say I am here any way do you need me to check the heater or clear a sluggish drain NOT penny anti the victims to death saying I gave you a contract price to clear a toilet nad it took off of 4 minutes with an auger if you want more work I will have to give you another price as per the pricing book


"When you plumb a house or a commercial building you give a flat rate.
When you remodel a basement bathroom, you give a flat rate.
When you go for lunch, you get a flat rate on your burger."


Answer When you plumb a house or a commercial building you give a flat rate.
When you remodel a basement bathroom, you give a flat rate.

Nope I did a job with a hand shake and this job T&M went over $160.0000

When you go for lunch, you get a flat rate on your burger.


In NYC there are many fine restaurants that do not have a price list IF you have to ask you certainly do not belong in that league.

I have gone to LUNCH where the bill cost over $1,000 per person NO prices on the menu. I happened to have gone twice as the filet mignon with the ambience was amazing (Drinks extra)


"I've looked at a lot of flat rate systems. The first thing they tell you is that you have to know your cost of doing business. The sad fact is that far too many plumbers have not enjoyed your degree of success. You may have your own opinions as to why that is, but it's a simple fact. Everybody does not live in New York, and it's different out here in the world"


TRUE what good is T&M if your charging less then your expenses When in doubt CHARGE HIGH
'
YOU can live in the middle of death valley and do contracting all one has to do is crunch the numbers

phones rent payroll EVEN if your wife works with you FIGURE HER IN as an employee, rent phones insurance etc THIS is why the Lord made accountants and MBA's to help the un knowing learn rather then seeking another plumbers advice who hear from another plumber who lost every business they tried.

One of the members of my list went by the book only I go BOTH contract and T&M he went under with in a year of taking classes by a woman out there telling plumbers how to YET she never actually ran a successful company on her own.

The T&M works for lets use the example of a roof drain installation and you receive a call " go to XXX 3rd ave and replace the roof drain"

This is normally all the information I receive.

ILL take my truck and the contractors know as soon as I get to the job they are paying a no less then $1,500

This $1,500 includes removing the old bituminous membrane down to the slab installing a new cast iron roof drain up to 4" using a 3 x 3 x 4 PSF sheet lead and any work below the slab is T&M including stoppages or any drain larger then 4"

My personal best was 10 drains in 6 hours using per unit price AND T&M as stoppages and piping materials below the slab are unknown how long it will take to replace or clean out


"You do (or used to do) drain cleaning. How did you charge? A minimum charge per hole? So much per foot past a hundred? That's flat rate, Sylvan. Did you charge for travel time if it was outside your area? So much per mile? That's flat rate, too. You don't figure the amount of your truck payment per job and add up how much gas you used, then tack on your labor and profit; you charge by the mile"


I DO drain cleaning and storm and sewer cleaning and the profit margin is 4 times as much as "heating calls"

My 1995 GMC 3500 has 42,000 miles on This is my ROOF drain van that goes to Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx

My 2005 Ford Super duty jobbing reapirs has 6,000 on it

My Dodge 350 water jetting ,video inspections, snaking etc has 9.700

I decided to be the most expensive plumber /drain cleaner in my area and only work in a 3 mile area .

A tank of gas lasts me about a month My "NET" is close to $1,500 per day ONE MAN. I pride myself to start work at 9 AM finish by 2 or 3 PM and do not work Fridays or week ends UNLESS I am very well compensated for it

The other plumbers in my area work 60 hour work weeks I work 20 - 30 .

My day of enlightenment was working in a 42 story building in Manhattan and I decided to find the "going" rate of law firms working in this building

The low was $90 per hr and there was a law firm that told me no accounts under 5 million are accepted

I said to myself SAME building, same licenses possibly the same phone system (Merlin system rules) and the difference has to be how much confidence the person has on their ability.

I have many accounts that have leader lines 3" and my FLAT rate is $125 each plus tax and these homes have between 17 -23 EACH

I can do both houses in 7 houses using the 3,000 10 GPM Jetter SO YES I do so called contract work

BUT like any tool I can go just as easily to T&M as I Charge for my labor only over $175 per hr IF I take a helper then its $250 per hr min of 4 Hrs

Do I work steady NOPE do I need to work steady NOPE do I want to work a 40 + hour work week NOPE.

If one man can make $5,000+ a week How much more does he really need to live a decent life?

My wife and I own a 19 room home and my office is 4 doors down from my house as I hate being a fly by night working out of my house so the $1,200 per month on the office is no big deal.

There is absolutely no valid reason why a great plumbing, drain cleaning/ heating contractor cannot become a millionaire BUT there are a lot of self hating contractors who think if they charge a living wage they are crooks. I was written up in cleaner as the most expensive drain cleaner in my bough YET after that article came out I picked up over 16 new accounts as many people realize you get what you pay for

I Quote prices over the phone constantly sight unseen by saying "a gas fired 10 year 50 gallon gas heater will cost you $1,500 to replace unless the valves and other related piping has to be replaced then its extra"

My ONLY other contract price would be when I go to court or do an inspection as then I charge $250 per hr min or 4 hours plus expenses and traveling time to and from

I am saying ONE system is not a fix all and for someone starting out T&M is the easiest to do as they cannot get hurt IF they crunch the numbers

[Herkiv]

Well, Sylvan, I guess I need t o thank you. Any customer of mine reading your post would think I was some kind of a saint.

I can only begin to imagine what the city of New York must be like.

I'll touch on a few points that you made:

ANSWER .My experience with flat rate is the add on's and double listings used for billing like diagnostic fee and fudge factoring and every aspect becomes a small contract aspect of the job.

I have a diagnostic fee. In the event that the customer does not wish to hire me once I've gone to their job site and given them a price, I charge a small fee for my time. It's about half what a flat rate company from another nearby city charges.

If the customer chooses to hire me, the fee is included in the price I give them. That's for the first task. A second task is taken from a separate list - with the cost of getting there already deducted from the price. If I see that the stops need to be replaced, I tell the homeowner that I can replace them and the cost would be XXX.XX. Here's where locales differ: your customer would laugh at you because that price was so low. My customer would choose to leave the valves as they are.

The reason is simple: my customers are not lawyers charging $90 per hour or more. A little research might show that lawyers across the country do not make what NY lawyers do, and that all lawyers are not successful. Speaking with a DEX employee (phone book advertising), I was told that the two people least likely to pay their bills were lawyers and plumbers - with lawyers being at the top of the list.

In Idaho, only 1 in 5 people has a living wage.

YOU can live in the middle of death valley and do contracting all one has to do is crunch the numbers

Maybe you can, maybe you can't. Just because the numbers say you can make it with a specific amount per hour does not mean that you can find even a single customer in an area, say, Death Valley, who can afford to pay what you think you need to charge. Here, the first customer who I billed by the hour at the rate I should charge would laugh me out of town.

ILL take my truck and the contractors know as soon as I get to the job they are paying a no less then $1,500

I think you'd have to come up with a new definition for that one - something like Bid+ or Flat Rate +. Again, if you were charging by the hour, you'd be quoting an hourly charge. You seem to me to be charging a flat rate, and if you go over a certain amount of time or have extra work, you charge more. In other words, unlike flat rate, you charge whatever the heck you want to beyond a certain point. How is that T&M?

My personal best was 10 drains in 6 hours using per unit price AND T&M as stoppages and piping materials below the slab are unknown how long it will take to replace or clean out

And in what convoluted fashion could you call ten drains in six hours at $1,500 each T & M? Did you quote $2,500 per hour? Please help me to understand what you're talking about.

My "NET" is close to $1,500 per day ONE MAN.I pride myself to start work at 9 AM finish by 2 or 3 PM and do not work Fridays or week ends UNLESS I am very well compensated for it .

Assuming you don't eat lunch, that's five - six hours. So, an average of $273 per hour. So if you made $15,000 in one day doing roof drains, it must have felt like quite a bonus. One of the biggest complaints about flat rate plumbers is that they're getting about $300 per hour. Some actually are, I suppose. There are articles about how easy it is to price oneself out of the market using flat rate. I certainly wouldn't think that $300 per hour was extravagant in New York.

BUT like any tool I can go just as easily to T&M as I Charge for my labor only over $175 per hr IF I take a helper then its $250 per hr min of 4 Hrs . . .

If one man can make $5,000+ a week How much more does he really need to live a decent life?

If one man can work for an hour and charge for four hours, he might make five thousand a week pretty easily. But not here. There is constant pressure from each and every customer to keep the price lower than your competitors, or to at least be no higher than they are. I have a good reputation, but it didn't save me when the big box stores came to the area and every cousin, brother, husband, uncle or parent who thinks they can do plumbing had ready access to both materials and a support group of clerks telling them they can do it themselves.

Where I live, everybody has a pickup truck. Where you live, everybody takes the subway. Things are just a tad different here. Incomes here range from maybe $7,000 to $60,000. Very few make anywhere close to $60,000. Because plumbers are perceived as making too much money, a carpet layer might be able to do better than a plumber. Someone buying a piece of carpet doesn't know the company's cost of the carpet, and installation is included. But a hundred bucks an hour? Sorry, I'll have to call around.

And where I live is not unusual. I'm continually reading on the net how plumbers in PA are charging as little as $30 per hour. I get a lump in my throat when I think about how poorly some people are doing, even though I'm not doing real great. I'm certainly in a better position than they are.

I really wish that there was some way that I could impart to you what life is like in the rest of the U.S.

[Sylvan Tieger]

The key issue is not flat rate or T&M as both will work if the contractor is

1- Very talented

2- Knows what their over head is

3- Knows how much they expect out of life in monetary rewards

4- Realize there is NO SUCH THING AS THE GOING RATE

5- What I did was simple I hired an MBA to set up the company and let know exactly how much it cost me to place the key in the office door every morning and then I told him what I expect to make per week, after 6 months I no longer needed his services and started to do the following

When I was working a 60 hour work week I raised my prices 25% and lost 5 % of my accounts THEN I said well look at this more money less hours SO I increased my prices again with in a year and lost no accounts I kept raising the bar and gave up accounts that took over 90 days etc.

In the mean time the other contractors said NO WAY and I'M still here and they are still working under paid for their talents.

Everyone has to figure out their worth and like a plastic surgeon each one charges what ever they feel like, the best get proper compensation

[nikkie]

I think a good start for a new business to begin with would be scheduling software! Have you taken a look at The Scheduling Manager from Thoughtful Systems?
(http://www.thoughtfulsystems.com/softwa ... anager.asp). It's pretty cool, and they have versions starting at $495. It does everything -- customer information management, job scheduling, payroll, mapping, accounts, etc. It also interfaces with Quickbooks.

Nikkie

[Sylvan Tieger]

[quote="nikkie"]I think a good start for a new business to begin with would be scheduling software! Have you taken a look at The Scheduling Manager from Thoughtful Systems?
(http://www.thoughtfulsystems.com/softwa ... anager.asp). It's pretty cool, and they have versions starting at $495. It does everything -- customer information management, job scheduling, payroll, mapping, accounts, etc. It also interfaces with Quickbooks.

Nikkie [/quote]

Do you realize for $495 one can buy a top of the line hand held electric snake and make their money back just using it 2 or 3 times?

Why does a new company need to waste so much start up money when for $495 your talking hand held snake and sawzall


As far as I am concerned the idea is to make money in my pocket not spend it on something useless for a start up.

Before I made my first million dollars in sales I used a note book for scheduling and THAT was subject to change as emergency jobs came in.

Copper and other material prices change per day so by the time I am mailed my material list especially copper /lead and brass I had better check with the local supply house or I will take a beating on materials.

$495 is a months phone bill or a down payment for insurance or several lengths of piping and fittings.

Scheduling soft ware is the very last thing I ever thought off even with a crew of over 18 employees during my hay days.

What if the "scheduled work " is the installation of a kitchen faucet and then a call comes in gas leak ,frozen pipe or main sewer stoppage? so much for the faucet installation huh? and THUS the scheduling goes by the way side.

PLUMBING -HEATING- HVAC- SEWER CLEANING ARE ALL Subject to change without notice

Scheduling is GREAT but what if the Journeyman is on a job and the owner says while your here can you fix this ARE you going to say NO SORRY make a new appointment as I am on a schedule and we have to fit you in OR do you keep your account happy and do what has to be done?

The ONLY CALLS I can (Almost) guarantee is the first call after that anything goes as plumbing and most trades are on an emergency basis .

Take the same $495 put it in the bank collect interest for a year then go out and buy yourself a burger deluxe.

This is NOT a taxi cab business from point A to point B allowing for trafic IMHO

[Sylvan Tieger]

[quote="Herkiv"]Well, Sylvan, I guess I need t o thank you. Any customer of mine reading your post would think I was some kind of a saint.

I can only begin to imagine what the city of New York must be like.


Well insurance is higher in the BIG APPLE just as the value of land

I'll touch on a few points that you made:

[quote]ANSWER .My experience with flat rate is the add on's and double listings used for billing like diagnostic fee and fudge factoring and every aspect becomes a small contract aspect of the job.[/quote]

I have a diagnostic fee.


Why a "diagnostic" fee to say "YUP you have a stoppage" isn't that why you were called there in the first place?

In the event that the customer does not wish to hire me once I've gone to their job site and given them a price, I charge a small fee for my time. It's about half what a flat rate company from another nearby city charges


WELL IF one had given the hourly rate (plus any materials used) over the phone you would not waste their time and money giving a diagnostic fee

BY MY Quoting over the phone we saved my time and theirs



If the customer chooses to hire me, the fee is included in the price I give them. That's for the first task. A second task is taken from a separate list - with the cost of getting there already deducted from the price. If I see that the stops need to be replaced, I tell the homeowner that I can replace them and the cost would be XXX.XX. Here's where locales differ: your customer would laugh at you because that price was so low. My customer would choose to leave the valves as they are.


EXACTLY now going in @$200 per hr your ready to replace the faucet and say the valves don't hold let me change for $15 EA and if I can still install the faucet in an hr or less it only cost you the extra parts NO additional hidden in a book factoring in fudge

The reason is simple: my customers are not lawyers charging $90 per hour or more. A little research might show that lawyers across the country do not make what NY lawyers do, and that all lawyers are not successful. Speaking with a DEX employee (phone book advertising), I was told that the two people least likely to pay their bills were lawyers and plumbers - with lawyers being at the top of the list.

Kind of funny you say that GO to NYC drain cleaners and you will see a company charging $49.99 and NONE HIGHER he states MY min sewer cleaning STARTS @$325.00 and I am already fully booked for Mon - WED

In Idaho, only 1 in 5 people has a living wage.

WELL IF I lived in Idaho I Certainly would NOT BE one of the 5 making a living wage. The CREAM of the crop manages to get to the top no matter where they live BECAUSE folks live in poverty level doesn't mean I have to join them.

Look at Wild Bill Clinton second poorest state in America and YET he managed to make millions and now lives in one of the most expensive areas in NY

[quote]YOU can live in the middle of death valley and do contracting all one has to do is crunch the numbers [/quote]

Maybe you can, maybe you can't. Just because the numbers say you can make it with a specific amount per hour does not mean that you can find even a single customer in an area, say, Death Valley, who can afford to pay what you think you need to charge. Here, the first customer who I billed by the hour at the rate I should charge would laugh me out of town.
[quote]
ILL take my truck and the contractors know as soon as I get to the job they are paying a no less then $1,500 [/quote]


One has to realize if your doing plumbing for more then 30 years you should have an idea how to install a roof drain and knowing that a drain can take as little as 1 hr to over 7 one has to take their knowledge in pricing.

So basing ONE DRAIN @$1,500 and anything below the slab is "extra" as the piping materials are un known until the slab is actually opened and neither is the size of the piping as many roofing contractors sleeve the drain when new roofs are installed.


I think you'd have to come up with a new definition for that one - something like Bid+ or Flat Rate +. Again, if you were charging by the hour, you'd be quoting an hourly charge. You seem to me to be charging a flat rate, and if you go over a certain amount of time or have extra work, you charge more. In other words, unlike flat rate, you charge whatever the heck you want to beyond a certain point. How is that T&M?

[quote]My personal best was 10 drains in 6 hours using per unit price AND T&M as stoppages and piping materials below the slab are unknown how long it will take to replace or clean out [/quote]

And in what convoluted fashion could you call ten drains in six hours at $1,500 each T & M? Did you quote $2,500 per hour? Please help me to understand what you're talking about.

Simple, suppose you are called to be an expert witness and you quote $4,000 per day or any part their of knowing you can be tied up in court for hours and hours before the case is called and by some freak of luck your called in to testify and your finished in 15 minutes YOU already gave a price PER DAY and if you go to court and the judge says come back tomorrow THAT is another day so again your billing $4,000

The roof drain price one one think $1,500 is high unless they sat down and ask How did you arrive at that number.


Well any drain 2" -4" JR Smith 1330 CI IC W/ CI dome is going to be installed for NO less then $1,500 EACH


This $1,500 takes into consideration the 3 x 3 x 4 PSF sheet lead and the traveling time TO and from the job and the lost time waiting for elevators and the the lost time when the building staff goes to lunch for ONE HR and the liability in case while working on the slab a large void has to be filled.

Merrill Lynch for example told me prior to installing the drains that every hr the computers arec down they lose over 1 million dollars in transactions HOW MUCH IS IT WORTH not to hace a leaking drain over a computer room?

Speaking of Idaho I guess NO fancy resturants can exist there or any decent doctors as the folks are way to poor to afford decent doctors or Mercedes sales must be one car sold every 10 years.


Unlike many of the folks out there I happen to like to be compensated for my time and am kind of proud to say over the phone my hourly rate is as folllows either they say wow and hang up Or say ok when can you fit me in?

One thing I learned I NEVER EVER try to hide my rates and I never assume what people can or cannot afford.

That is why some folks go to clinics and others spend hundreds of thousands going to a plastic surgeon.

Thankfully there are 1,500 master plumbers in NYC and some shops have over 200 employees so those who cant afford me can call someone else.

Competition is great and by quoting over the phone I let the price shoppers I am not the plumber for them.

I actually turn away jobs as I picked a very limited area where I want to work (normally no more then 2 miles from my office) EXCEPT roof drains and I make sure I am well compensated and also when I go to courts I make it worth my while.



[quote]My "NET" is close to $1,500 per day ONE MAN.I pride myself to start work at 9 AM finish by 2 or 3 PM and do not work Fridays or week ends UNLESS I am very well compensated for it . [/quote]

Assuming you don't eat lunch, that's five - six hours. So, an average of $273 per hour. So if you made $15,000 in one day doing roof drains, it must have felt like quite a bonus. One of the biggest complaints about flat rate plumbers is that they're getting about $300 per hour. Some actually are, I suppose. There are articles about how easy it is to price oneself out of the market using flat rate. I certainly wouldn't think that $300 per hour was extravagant in New York.

I actually dont eat lunch , I have my 4 cups off coffee at 8:30 walk to my office and start work at 9 and hope to stop by 2 or 3

$300 per hr in NYC I basically would starve to death and certainly could never afford to have retired at 40 BUT got bored so Im back in the game

[quote]BUT like any tool I can go just as easily to T&M as I Charge for my labor only over $175 per hr IF I take a helper then its $250 per hr min of 4 Hrs . . .

If one man can make $5,000+ a week How much more does he really need to live a decent life? [/quote]

If one man can work for an hour and charge for four hours, he might make five thousand a week pretty easily. But not here. There is constant pressure from each and every customer to keep the price lower than your competitors, or to at least be no higher than they are. I have a good reputation, but it didn't save me when the big box stores came to the area and every cousin, brother, husband, uncle or parent who thinks they can do plumbing had ready access to both materials and a support group of clerks telling them they can do it themselves.

Where I live, everybody has a pickup truck. Where you live, everybody takes the subway. Things are just a tad different here. Incomes here range from maybe $7,000 to $60,000. Very few make anywhere close to $60,000. Because plumbers are perceived as making too much money, a carpet layer might be able to do better than a plumber. Someone buying a piece of carpet doesn't know the company's cost of the carpet, and installation is included. But a hundred bucks an hour? Sorry, I'll have to call around.

And where I live is not unusual. I'm continually reading on the net how plumbers in PA are charging as little as $30 per hour. I get a lump in my throat when I think about how poorly some people are doing, even though I'm not doing real great. I'm certainly in a better position than they are.

I really wish that there was some way that I could impart to you what life is like in the rest of the U.S.[/quote]


The problem is many legitimate contractors feel this need to compete with folks working out of the back of a car or work out of their home.

Even as a one man shop I have an office 3 vans and hire mechanics when needed @$45 per ON THE BOOKS and I accept personal checks Visa Master charge and even bill accounts and wait some take as long as 6 months like the Bronx Post offices took over a YEAR to pay me and NYC Housing owed me over $187,000 for 5 YEARS for final payments

Rather then work for contractors or trying to play the how low can I go game try playing GO HIGHER then anyone around you work 2 or 3 days aweek making the same or more then the guys who work really cheap 6 days a week 14 hrs a day.

I completed a job yesterday and was told I was 3 times higher then the other contrtactor and they knew it before I even started the job.

The owner said he liked my style as I told him from the get go you want cheap call so and so and gave him the name of the other plumber in my area.

EDUCATION is the key

I explained I do not use PVC. I use cast Iron for drainage I never use CPVC or plastic for domestic water. I use Type K copper below ground and L above. I explained all the work when possible will be performed by me not some $20 per hr helper and when I need help I hire mechanics and pay my help $45 per hr as I know they can be trusted to do the job properly

Once you explain why your a cut above the rest you can charge accordingly. NOT EVERY lawyer charges the same not everyone one is licensed to do plumbing NOT everyone is a MASTER PLUMBER with the formal training to justify their prices

I would never even think of trying to go against a non licensed or non skilled plumber.

If I cannot get my price I would rather sit home playing on the computer.

By the way I decided to give myself a $25 per hr raise as of the first of the year and if I lose a few accounts no big deal by the extra I am giving myself I hope to work a 2 day week of 5 to 6 hours max and the increase should cover the few lost accounts I may lose.

Last time I gave myself a $40 increase I actually picked up new accounts go figure

Never think you have to be competivie with price offer quality, explain why your a master of the trade not someone dabbling and tell the victims that the on going training (CEU'S) cost money for their proterction.

Someone has to pay for my 10,000 hours and 744 hours of class room studies for plumbing then another 5 YEARS training before I was even alloed to take my 4 part masters exams and the 8 hours of CEU I have to take plus my office furnature and phones as I am not a fly by night I deserve to be compensated and do not have a need to hide what I am charging though some price book with hidden factors.

When I bought my first Mercedes (560SEL) I walked into Manhattan Mercedes saw it bought it just as I heard the salesman say to the guy next to me "if you have to ask how much you have no business coming here"


The guy was asking about the luxury tax and the gas guzzler additional tax on the car


JUST CHARGE the RIGHT price so you can spend quality time with your family and never let a business own you because then its no more fun