Small Jobs Do's And Dont's

hrscammisa

I will not only list what I'm going to do but also what I'm not going to do And check your materails list so you never have to eat extra cost. NEXT

IBUILD

Its easier to add 5 or 10% to a job before you start than to try and collect it later!!

ron schenker

That's gonna be a real big list.

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Don't worry, the baseboard will hide it!

hrscammisa

Well I just hate it when they come up with stuff thats not yours and I can tell them all day long thats not my part but they can get kinda pissy for example on base board and door casing it is the painters job to caulk and fill the nail holes be for he paints in less its in my bid

WNYcarpenter

Protection, we spend more time cleaning it seems than working. Small jobs especially. I always keep a clean pair of sneakers in my truck that I can slip on and off, a sheet, and cleaner with rags.

FINISH TECH

THATS WHAT YOUR CONTRACT IS FOR!
AND EXCLUSIONS
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS TOO MUCH DETAIL IN WRITING...
TAKE AN HOUR IF NEEDED AND WALK THEM THROUGH YOUR PAPER WORK..

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ONE DAY AT A TIME!

IBUILD

Amen to that brother!

wackman

Absolutely! That's one of those things that I easily forget, clean up and protection. I built a speadsheet to help me estimate and put a formula in there that adds a half hour of clean up time for every eight hours input as working time plus I have a catagory that's always there for protection so it can't be forgotten.

hrscammisa

That I wiil start doing that my self you do forget about the clean up every day.And I do clean up every day dont like coming back the next day to a mess

john elliott

Don't think your contract, no matter how water-tight, is going to protect you from bad feelings on the HO's side.
Plus, no HO is going to sit still for an hour and listen to you reading your multi-multi-page contract out loud. Even if they let you do that, they won't actually be listening after the first few minutes.

ALSO, DON'T TYPE WITH THE CAPS LOCK ON

John

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Ed the Roofer said "John too, in his crass and blunt demeanor.............."

Scott Young

one thing i learned was charge for block time of by the day. seems you price the job in the "fair" range, and only get two different jobs done a day' only ti find out you didn't make anything because the time spent doing the job isn't equal to the time the job actually took.

i hope i am making sense. but small jobs cost the customer more the smaller they are for the work they get done.

woodmagman

Small jobs can kill you when it comes to, he said, she said. The written agreement for the $2000.00 job should include things that you know they need to do after or during the work and you are not including.
ie. I am not including in this agreement any electrical, plumbing, or exterior finishes.
This could be items that were brought up in conversation but you are not doing. It is amazing how many home owners think because they asked you about something, that it is going to be included. Sometimes they do not hear you when you say, that is not something that you do.

hrscammisa

THat is so true. Its the old well when we talk ask you about ---- thats why I will always put down what I'm not doing. The deck job I'm doing right now They show up on sat and here we go I thought you might of built a new stair case.It was a tear out and redue exs stairs steel and concret. I shored them up and built new deck put them back on new deck. I said if you read your contract it shows reuse the original ones.Well it would look so nice if we had new ones and you turn them down this way .My reply was yes it could be done Let me get you a new price I will need to get small crain to get them out well that was the end of that I guess they look ok.Ok they are about 3000,00 worth of stairs there.And now about the staining.And I said I can do that to and if you check your contract the price is 500.00 labor and you buy materails I'm real busy so let me know right now.Or your looking at 3 weeks once I pull off. Contract was water tight.All business buy the way do you have a check for me frame draw

FINISH TECH

IM NOT CONCERNED ABOUT BAD FEELINGS, IN BUISNESS THERE WELL ALWAYS BE COMMUNICATION PROBLEMS BUT IF YOU TAKE THE TIME IT DOES HELP.

AND IVE YET TO FIND A CUSTOMER THAT DIDNT WANT ME TO GO OVER THE DETAILS ON A JOB AND HAVE YET TO HAVE A PROBLEM BECAUSE I DO SO!
AND IVE ALSO YET TO HAVE A MULTY-MULTY PAGE CONTRACT SO SETTLE DOWN THERE .
THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE A OPEN FORUM FOR ALL QUESTIONS NOT A PLACE FOR SMART ASSES!
AND ILL KEEP MY CAPS ON AS LONG AS FEEL LIKE IT!

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ONE DAY AT A TIME!

hrscammisa

Hey Matt is that you all fired up. Hey these guys are all good people. And you will learn a lot from them. Not being smart a--- just poking some fun with you. Its all good. Take a deep breth

dougchips

Finish, caps make a post hard to read.

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Patrick

Yup just did a small job of course no contract why bother it was just a single door, customer wanted to keep old hardware and old trim, I even explained they would have to re-paint the trim and touch up the walls. Couple days later get the call "door looks lousey with old hardware why did you tell us to get new hardware", "Why would you resuse the old trim" "I thought if we're getting a new door all the trim would look brand new and painted, and the wall would be touched up" So needless to say we're goin back to install new trim, new hardware, we're even gonna get out the paintbrushes. Better to lose money on this job then on future jobs if he was to bad mouth my reputation to potential future customers. SO lesson learned my policy of only having contracts on jobs over 1,000 has now been dropped to $100

FINISH TECH

are you serious im not fired up!
just dont think there is any reason for for attitude.
no deep breath needed i deal with guys like that all the time.
the ive got 20 years in this **** so ill tell you how it works.
i love it. i think its great!
it aint like it was when you guys were getting started a hand shake means squat its about covering your ass now days gotta have it in writing was all i was saying!
cause if you have h.o still asuming your gonna do certain work
then maybe its time to try something different. i had alot of that at first but taking the time to explain what well and what wont be done
90% of the time will save bad feelings. and have on paper

its o.k little brother im not gonna go postal

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ONE DAY AT A TIME!

hrscammisa

Hey Finish Tech I thought you were my brother in Calif has the same name for his comp.Sorry did not mean any thing bad towards you thought I was giving my bro some sh---

FINISH TECH