pricing structures

Hi all...I hope you might help.... Alot of peeps here have a pricing structure like 3 per m2 to clean and then perhaps another 1 per m2 to sand.... Now perhaps you price a job that has say 60cm x 60cm slabs and that's great but how about block paving of standard brick size .... Reason I ask is obviously the gap sizes for the whole job is significantly more so would the resanding quantity ... What do you do re quotation?.... Sorry for the newb question but thats what I am...Cheers Dave

Most people have a minimum charge of say £100. From what i've seen block paving is generally 3 times the price of standard patio paving per square metre and includes resanding.

I get a bag of Kilndried sand for £4 for 20 or 25kg. So you won't go bankrupt, I only charge for PW and resanding, I think it makes a better job, if you leave it to the customer it very rarely gets done so I'm told.

Last year I worked on £3 sqm clean & re-sand (block paving) minimum charge £130

if using hypo £4 per sqm to allow for application & dwell time + the general discomfort of working in all the ppe and associated precautions that come with doing it.

i have found this pricing structure works for me.

I buy 10 bags of sand at the start of the season and actually got quite a few drives out of it. May have had 3 or 4 bags left over from season before also but dont think i had to buy more, as we only do 20-30 pressure washing jobs per season, akd that includes all the main surfaces (concrete, slabs, block paving etc) so don’t do a huge amount of it. If the gaps are significantly deep or far apart be wary of this as your sand will soon start dissapearing. Always bettter to over estimate than under estimate on sand, as if you’re a couple of bags short and you go to the builders suppliers to find they’re out of stock until next week, you’re gonna be kicking yourself especially when its friday afternoon and the customers got a half sanded driveway ?

Never put down that no weed sand, I feel it just makes a mess and turns green.

Did anyone come up with a rough pricing structure for sealing a drive?

I.E labour cost per m2 for putting it down.

Thinking of setting a price then adding whatever the cost of sealer on-top. Can't just offer one brand of sealer as if its already been sealed its best to use whatever the customer used before, but that could be more than one coat? If its not been sealed will just do what ive always done - use Resiblock Trade (one coat application).

I stay away from sealing to be honest. Unless you’ve got guaranteed good weather at the height of summer there’s no point sealing it. The stuff costs a fortune and so does the labour so its often enough to put people off the whole job which isn’t good. Once that stuffs down any odd leaves, twigs etc blow on constantly with the wind, and they then end up sealed in for the next 5 years or so if you miss clearing them away. Then there’s the potential issue of the customer saying “i dont like the colour since the seal has gone on”

i’ve also heard one or two nightmares about sealants peeling off gradually and making it look a right mess.

if the customer is that bothered about sealing id expect they’ll buy the stuff and do it themselves but i generally advise against it.

Yeah mate I can see your point, its just a pain in the backside.. I'm the same to be honest I never push it, when they hear the price of Resiblock it's never what they expect and then you add a labour charge on top of it, it's a no go. 

Had a nightmare job last year removing warped sealer for a client. Someone had sealed it wet a few years back and the whole drive was ruined.. Managed to fix 95 percent of it and I think he decided not to reseal.it. 

Just been getting a lot of enquiries for wash and seal.

THL4KEL said:

Yeah mate I can see your point, its just a pain in the backside.. I'm the same to be honest I never push it, when they hear the price of Resiblock it's never what they expect and then you add a labour charge on top of it, it's a no go. 

Had a nightmare job last year removing warped sealer for a client. Someone had sealed it wet a few years back and the whole drive was ruined.. Managed to fix 95 percent of it and I think he decided not to reseal.it. 

Just been getting a lot of enquiries for wash and seal.

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That’s the thing see dude, let them go through the agro. Also when it next comes to pressure washing time it’s not going to make life easy if its been sealed. If you have a wet or rough summer you could be waiting weeks for the weather to improve and its just inconvenient having that kind of job looming over your head and worrying where you’re going to fit it in to your busy schedule.

also the price of resiblock...if you're doing it on mass all its going to do is push your annual turnover up, without really profiting from it, and if you happen to be near the VAT threshold you dont want that

I would leave sealing driveways to the pros and most of them don't want to do it. I mentioned we could potentially offer to install those hedgehog things in gutters when we clear them and most people thought it was a bad idea, sealing driveways is pretty much the same thing.

I was working on an office block the other week. They were pressure washing the car park (Very kind of them as I turned up to clean the windows) In conversation with the facilities manager he said they were gonna seal the paving. It was permeable paving, sealing it would have rendered it's flood proof properties useless and stopped it ever being re-stoned. He was literally about to head to wicks with the company credit card and and buy sand to re-sand it.... Long story short you can't seal or sand flood proof paving but you won't know the difference between that and normal block paving if you don't know what you're looking for. When it comes to sealing pattern imprinted concrete the stuff can be a nightmare. If done wrong it won't bond to the surface and 6 weeks later it will all be peeling away.

I've realised I'm just ranting about all the potential things that can go wrong. In summary, don't waste your time sealing anything. Have a quick search for what permeable paving is so you can tell the difference. Make some money, go home, don't have to return 5 weeks later because the sealers f**ked ??