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Help with price

Cameronmalson1985

Active member
Messages
119
Location
South Wales
Hello people. 

I been asked to give a quote on 65 fascias and guttering cleans for a local housing association. 

The person in charge said dont price it like you would Mrs Jones down the road as they will just get their own boys to do it , and bare in mind you will get 65 and could possibly lead to more. 

Any help on this would be awesome and greatly appreciated 

thank you 

 
Hello people. 
 
I been asked to give a quote on 65 fascias and guttering cleans for a local housing association. 
 
The person in charge said dont price it like you would Mrs Jones down the road as they will just get their own boys to do it , and bare in mind you will get 65 and could possibly lead to more. 
 
Any help on this would be awesome and greatly appreciated 
thank you 
Hard to suggest anything based on minimal info. Are they front and backs of larger houses? How long do you think each will take? How much do you want to make per hour?

These are the starting points to consider not what they tell you they want to pay, YOU choose and if they say yes that's good and if not so what....



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Thank mate. 

Most are 3 bed houses some are 2. I did drive over and had a look and to be honest most of them wasn’t really bad. Some only had the odd green marks on them. It’s for front and back on them all 

 
It's going to average an hour at the very least on each I reckon, and that's ones with like barely any dirt on the exterior. If you don't have them and get this contract; do yourself a favour and Google pro gutter tools buy them and a Harris pole. The longer the better.

So price wise I would always target 40 an hour min on commercial but maybe you'll want to go in around 30 quid ph since it's so substantial in overall worth? You could easy do ten or more of them in a longish day if they are close by to each other and consider getting paid help too.

If you get a helper you can lower the bid, pay a wage, get another half the work done per day min and still be in decent profit.

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I would be very concerned if you're going to do this on your own. Fascias not a problem but gutter cleans are hard work. Do you have to clean the windows as well as there is no chance whatsoever that you won't get them dirty. If you can pump chemicals and have hot water then it won't be so bad. 

In my eyes if someone said do 6 a day then that is a very hard day, even with chems and hot water. 

I did approx 1500 metres, 66 semi detached houses, of gutter clearing out, for about £2.50 a metre and would personally want more for your job. 

 
I'd just say to the guy where do you need the price to be? Safe yourself a lot of time. He might be thinking 15phr.. 

 
Don't price it like Mrs Jones down the street means come in as cheap as possible and you'll get the job, Some people expect jobs done for peanuts, No matter what the job if you under price you will end up regretting it.

Doing f.s.g for days on end is going to be serious hard graft 65 houses including all the windows some of which might never have being cleaned  is going to take days and you will have to skip your regular window cleaning jobs if they want the 65 houses done by a certain date and all 65 houses completed as total job lot and not so many across a number of weeks 

 
Don't price it like Mrs Jones down the street means come in as cheap as possible and you'll get the job, Some people expect jobs done for peanuts, No matter what the job if you under price you will end up regretting it.

Doing f.s.g for days on end is going to be serious hard graft 65 houses including all the windows some of which might never have being cleaned  is going to take days and you will have to skip your regular window cleaning jobs if they want the 65 houses done by a certain date and all 65 houses completed as total job lot and not so many across a number of weeks 


 "is going to take days" - for me it would be weeks. ?

I would hate to have to clean fsg for a couple of houses a day.  The very thought of 65 and potentially more to come has already made my arms weak. That for me would be an arm killer, more so for a new cleaner. Even if I was desperate for work I would steer clear of this enquiry.

As @Iron Giantsays, "dont price it like you would Mrs Jones down the road as they will just get their own boys to do it" is the sentence that sends alarm bells ringing in my head. They want it done for nothing.

 
InI'd go in at what YOU would normally charge, not what they want you to. Going off what you said I'd be looking at AT least £4k. Odds are you won't get it, but it's better than about 12 days of hard graft for pennies.

 
At the very most id knock 15 percent max of your usual due to the volume but that's its. I would start by offering ten percent and increase to 15.

 
Wow, That a big job. All the best with it. I know full well back to when I was starting off i would of ended up working the last two or three days for free as I’d underprice it so badly.

Have guy seen the houses yet, if not is there anyway of asking to see all the houses? Or are they all the same size?

i know it’s easy to get excited and put in a cheap price, but stick to your guns. If he ends up saying too expensive then you’ve saved yourself hard graft for less money. 

* you not guy

 
Sorry, I just don't see this as a one man job. Slogging your guts out for, in my eyes, a minimum of 10 days isn't viable. My guesstimate is they'll be wanting them done for £50 a unit, assuming the fascias aren't big. As @THL4KELsaid ask him where he thinks it needs to be. 

 
Sorry, I just don't see this as a one man job. Slogging your guts out for, in my eyes, a minimum of 10 days isn't viable. My guesstimate is they'll be wanting them done for £50 a unit, assuming the fascias aren't big. As @THL4KELsaid ask him where he thinks it needs to be. 


If they would put their own guys onto it I wouldn't be surprised if they were looking at a lower rate than that. A couple of hours labour at minimal wage done by some labourers. So I would think they would be looking at £25 a shot which would include cleaning windows to finish off with.

 
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2 words - ‘Walk away’

Everything you said the enquirer mentioned from

“don’t price like mrs Jones “ to

“Bare in mind there’s 65” to 

“maybe more to follow” 

sends up red flags to me..... a bit like when old people say “I’m on a pension you know!” I bet they don’t say that at the Tesco checkout!

if you miss price this it’ll be horrendous. Underpricing a single house is one thing - underpricing 65+ will kill you.

as someone already mentioned, ask what ballpark figure he’s thinking and if he comes back with £25ish then you know the jobs not for you as you will need 4 times that minimum. Thank him for his enquiry and spend your valuable time chasing productive work.

Good luck

 
A guy called me who owned rented flats for a price to paint a 100m fence. Two coats of expensive paint or stain maybe £100 a 5l tin. I was only to paint one side because there was a wall on the other side. He said the Factor had received 3 quotes :- £7k +vat £4k +vat, £3k +vat

It is 6 feet tall. I reckon I could have done it in 2 full days by myself. But here's the thing, you need to be vat registered and be on their official factor list. There was 37 flats paying for it, so they knew they could squeeze £80 each out of the owners and there's nothing the owners can do about it unless they become the factor.

As for the uPvc clean, I would price nothing less than 12 grand and be glad if I never got it. :1f609:

 
Best thing to do is just say in the first instance - where do you expect the price to be or what did the last guy get paid, then either match it or bang on twenty percent if its a viable option.

Saves spending a couple of hours measuring up and then drafting up a quote for someone who's expecting eight quid an hour. I'd rather spend my time dropping leaflets for two hours.. 

Been there too many times.. 

 
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