New To Stone Work, A Year Into It And Need Advice

emeraldboy1916

Hi, I am new to stone work, I started last year and learned alot, been a motorcycle mechanic most of my life and took to masonary rather quick, but I am an infant with it...My first job on my own is coming up with 3 small retaining walls 4 foot by 18 foot long being the biggest, I am in NewHampshire and I am thinking it's just rumble Pave stones so what would be the right thing to charge a square foot? , the stone is already paid for by the contractor who is subbing the job to me to test me out for further work..., I am just new to pricing the labor...I was getting $25 a hour to do labor for another contractor..I am insured so I am raring to go...how much seems resaonable for this kind of work...thank you all for any responses...
Drew

BreyerConstruct

You're prolly in the right ballpark for price... but you need to sit down and start figuring your costs, so that you can KNOW what you need to charge, and can run off of those numbers.
What I charge here in PA might be different, so you can't take what any of us say, you have to know your business, and run it like one.

Best wishes,
~Matt

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send_it_all

$25 an hour is WAYYYY too low. I don't care where you are. I'm thinking somewhere in the neighborhood of twice that amount is where you should start. Even if you are working alone, you need to cover your desired hourly pay for doing the actual work, + enought to cover all your overhead including gas, phone bill, advertising, insurance, bookkeeping service, office rent....the list goes on and on. You should not be working for a total of $25 an hour if you are licensed and insured, no matter how inexperienced you are.

emeraldboy1916

I agree with what your saying about factoring in my costs to do this on my own are going to be up there, and the Guy who has taught me so far told me I should start @ $50 a square foot, he thinks I am a natural at this and wants to see me do it, I guess showing up to work on time and busting my hump with out taking a lunch and not being a drunk, reading up on what is new for tools and tips on how too create with stone( I love stone ) and keeping my license to drive etc(it's amazing how many people out here in the northeast have lost there licenses and have no respect for there employers ie not showing up for work because they are hung over )

thank you and I look forward to reading about how everyone deals with different dillema's on this chat room...much to learn!

stacker

50 bucks a sq ft for labor
i dont care where a person lives that is outrages.
if a person cant make money at 10-15 dollars a sq ft for natural stone,he needs to find a new job.

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6stringmason

If I said that in my area I would be called a lowballer and run out of town.

The absolute lowest I go for nice easy ledgstone with big jumpers is $18 a sq for labor.

So emeraldboy, you have no experience tending, but somehow you came into stone masonry?

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concretemasonry

emeraldboy -

You said you are doing a retaining wall with "rumbled Pavestones". That leads me to believe it is a mortarless segmental retaining wall with manufactured antiqued concrete block that are not laid on a footings or with mortar. This is very different than real NE stone work.

That type of construction is not like real natural stone that is irregular and requires a different set of skills. Your job (as I understand it), is more of a lanscaping job where you get a compacted level base for the first course and control the backfilling and compaction. If the first course is level, the rest will follow, so it is not like laying stone.

Because of the type of work, any hourly cost comparison will tend to be be too high depending on what the GC is comparing you to. Take a look at the various sites for the SRW block (Allan Block, Keystone, Versalok, etc.) to see what the GC/designer may be expecting. Many of the jobs of your size shown awere done by DIYs. - The SRW market is many, many times larger than the natural stone wall market.

Estimate what you feel your real number and cost of hours will be and a fair amount of overhead and profit. If you feel you need to discount your costs to get your foot in the door, that is up to you.

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1over2

I'm from New England and $50 a SF is an average price for typical New England stone veneer or stone walls. There are some companies that charge a little less and there are some that charge A LOT more. I am not sure what the average price for SRW work is. I wish you the best of luck.

stacker

i can see what you are saying six,but can you tell me with a straight face you couldnt make a decent wage at 10-15 a sq ft?

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6stringmason

I probably could get by at 14-15. But $10 is what I charge for fake stone. Plus I dont want to be a lowballer so I stick right in the middle.

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