# Estimating



## CookeCarpentry (Feb 26, 2009)

Leonardorribeio said:


> So what you say ? whats the right % ?


The right percent for cabinet installation should be no less than 1.5% of cabinet cost BUT no more than 348% of cabinet cost. 

This is, of course, calculated on a cabinet cost without a material mark-up, prior to sales tax being paid, and is only applied to painted cabinets. Stain grade is an entirely different pricing structure.

As a side note, this formula only works on Tuesday afternoons, if the customer was born before 1978 yet not after 1959.


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## J F (Dec 3, 2005)

To the op, how did you do your estimating for your _first_ 25 years in biz? :whistling


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## DaVinciRemodel (Oct 7, 2009)

J F said:


> To the op, how did you do your estimating for your _first_ 25 years in biz? :whistling


I went to the website also and saw that. Notice it says "25 years experience..." But doesn't tell us experience at WHAT? :laughing:


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## DaVinciRemodel (Oct 7, 2009)

Mark - could you check the double secret contractor estimating book? I thought it was Wednesday mornings that the formula worked! :laughing:


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## J F (Dec 3, 2005)

DaVinciRemodel said:


> I went to the website also and saw that. Notice it says "25 years experience..." But doesn't tell us experience at WHAT? :laughing:



Must be "life" experience....birth to age 25. :whistling


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## CookeCarpentry (Feb 26, 2009)

DaVinciRemodel said:


> Mark - could you check the double secret contractor estimating book? I thought it was Wednesday mornings that the formula worked! :laughing:


Wednesday is for the _stain grade_ cabinets.....you really are slipping....try and keep up, will ya? :laughing:


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## Vision Custom (Jan 13, 2009)

Leonardorribeio said:


> So what you say ? whats the right % ?


 
Treefiddy...:thumbsup:


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## DaVinciRemodel (Oct 7, 2009)

Vision Custom said:


> Treefiddy...:thumbsup:


You're going to get banned with that - Or maybe you're hoping a Mod will see it and just close this freak'n thread :clap:


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## wellbuilt home (Oct 22, 2007)

I use all three of your methods . 
Plus a few more that i figured out over the years . 
I use material x 2.5 alot for some types of work . 
Other thing i use a square foot price . 
I like material x full labor cost x % = # . 
cabinets get figured by the box + lin foot for trim & crown + appliance installation. 
In the end after 600+ additions i could just guess and be close to my numbers . 
Your in the city and you could charge much more then i do.
Now the real issue is not how much to charge but who else is looking at the work . 
If your competition is living under a bridge and on foot it doesnt really matter how or what you use to get your # all you can do is sell your self . 
I need about 800 bucks a day to keep the lites on at the house so im shooting for that # 
I haven't sold much in the last 6 months but we are still working. 
:thumbup: John


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## BamBamm5144 (Jul 12, 2008)

Wow until right now, I did not realize all these questions were posted by the same person.


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## J F (Dec 3, 2005)

I'm actually starting to feel a bit sorry for "Leo", yeah, I know...me. :whistling

I wonder a bit if this is his first venture into "cyberspace". Whether he has a clue of what he's got himself into or not.

He certainly has got us all in a froth (myself included). I, myself, would like to hear him answer some of our questions...maybe he will, maybe he will not.

We've certainly chewed him up and spit him out.

Leo...what say you? Do you have some answers for inquiring minds. The pack _will _help you...as long as they _trust_ you.

-----

I plan on posting this on his other threads.


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## Leonardorribeio (Oct 18, 2009)

wellbuilt home said:


> I use all three of your methods .
> Plus a few more that i figured out over the years .
> I use material x 2.5 alot for some types of work .
> Other thing i use a square foot price .
> ...



Thank you.


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## EJulian (Jan 20, 2011)

Hang in Leo. 

One thing I've learned is that if you never ask, you might never learn. If you want everything you learn to be the hard way, never ask. When you are willing to ask, sometimes the answer you need comes.


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## Jason-F (Jul 4, 2009)

You can definatly charge by a percentage system for some things, Like roofing, painting, flooring, framing. You know pretty much exactly what your man & material costs will be and can build your margin (A percentage) from there.

I use Material cost + expected labour cost * 40 (overhead percentage I require)


I am sure it would be much more difficult to do this for reno's tho because there are 2 many variables.


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## bystry (Jan 14, 2011)

Read "running a successful construction company " by David Gertsel. There's the whole chapter dedicated estimating.


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## JRSeifert (Apr 22, 2010)

bystry said:


> Read "running a successful construction company " by David Gertsel. There's the whole chapter dedicated estimating.


Agreed. When I got started this book was my bible. I still re-read it once a year. I've moved beyond some of his methods, but others I'm still working on.

Leo, here's what I do.

1.) Keep track of your time. *ALL* of it. Figure out a system if you don't have one. Make it specific. Even though I'm the owner of the business, I still keep a detailed time card for EVERY day of the week.

1a.) Don't just keep track of your hours. *Track specific tasks on specific jobs*. Let's say you have a customer named Smith. If, in one day, you do a little floor framing, a little wall framing, and a little roof framing, all on the same job, you break those things down: 2 hours floor framing - 4 hours wall framing - 2 hours roof framing = 8 hour day at the Smith Job. Keep track like that for every day you spend on that job.

2.) Do a post-production breakdown. When Smith's job is done, go over all the hours and categorize them. For example, let's say you and another guy built an addition. The floor area was 500 square feet (you know this from the plans, or from your own measuring), and your TIME CARDS tell you that it took the two of you a combined 26 man-hours to frame the floor - sill, joists, rim, and sheathing.

Now you take your 26 man hours, divide by 500 square feet, and you have .052 man-hours per square foot.

You now have a production number you can apply to *any future job that involves floor framing. *

Example: Let's say you're bidding another addition, and the square footage of the floor is 350 square feet. Take 350 x .052 = 18.2 man hours. Round it up to 19 if you like. That's how long it *SHOULD* take you to frame the floor *if the conditions are similar* to Smith's job. Now apply whatever your company rate is per man-hour. If it's $40 per hour, take $40 x 19 hours, and your labor cost is $760 to frame the floor.

Is it perfect? No. But it's *mathematical*, *based on evidence*, and it's way *better than a guess*.

Do enough jobs this way and you start to get averages and trends, which are even more helpful because they help weed out those oddball jobs that take more or less time than they should. In statistics, those are called outliers.
*
THE MAIN POINT IS:* You're using past history to bid future jobs. I used framing as an example, but you can make this same system work with painting, drywall, roofing, siding, whatever you do!

Guys who have been doing this for a long time get better and better at it and develop little tricks. When you're new though, you have to get down to the nitty gritty details. It takes persistence and an almost obsessive desire to know how much time everything takes.

Hope that helps somewhat.


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## Bonzai (Dec 23, 2009)

rselectric1 said:


> There is no catch all percentage. If that were true my rate for installing a single receptacle would be around $3.00. (It's not)


Yeh more like $3.50 LOL. Exactly right though.


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## MattRoefer (Mar 1, 2010)

always round up on your numbers and don't forget prepping days, and clean up days....always round up the number of days it's going to take you!


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## bystry (Jan 14, 2011)

JRSeifert said:


> Agreed. When I got started this book was my bible. I still re-read it once a year. I've moved beyond some of his methods, but others I'm still working on.
> 
> Leo, here's what I do.
> 
> ...


Excellent advice. I use UDA and QUICKBOOKS integration system for that. Once you collect all data over the years UDA software becomes indispensable. Banks love its transparency and level of detail. It is crutual on $.5 million plus jobs.


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