Is This Too Expensive?

hammerwhipped

I am a gc in san francisco and I charge 45-70 per running foot of fence which includes removal, all redwood materials, labor, and disposal. The reason for the big price gap is based on the factors:

Style of fence (plain 1x6 to 1x6 wrapped with 1x and lattice on top or other designs)

Ease of work surrondings -lots of plants, no plants, lots of weeds

Accessability- front yard , backyard, trafficthrough house or garage and so on

I also set all of my posts with cb44 and concrete and guarantee my work from rot for 10 years

Please respond try to respond with a price, a certain scenario, and what county you're located in . THANKS

Danno6102

45-70 is exactly the going rate. Good job, sounds like you're right on the money.

DecksEtc

Your pricing sounds WAY too high - I only charge $10 per linear foot, no matter what type of fence the customer wants.

Bone Saw

$10

standing on the beach in jericoacoara getting sandblasted on my shins, adrenaline pumping, good waves, launching our kites and hit the ground running, POW good stuff good stuff

Chester co, pa

hope that helps

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Stewy

cedar panel fence here for 18-25/ ft. supply and install

hammerwhipped

wow $10. There's no way i can do it for that 1x8x6 redwood fence board costs $4.97 where I'm at.

MALCO.New.York

The answer is NO. If you can get the customer to agree to it while smiling!

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DecksEtc

You asked

boman47k

My youngest just got a fence installed. Cypress dogeared 1x6 supplied by the contractor. He said it was around $11 per foot. Two double gates and one single. Glad I saw this as I was wondering about if he did okay on it. It was an easy install, nothing in the way. Set post one day, fence the next.

$4100 total.

hammerwhipped

Wow that's 327 feet of fence and over 40 posts. Is that correct? How many days did it take this contractor?

hammerwhipped

What's your material cost on 30 feet of fence?

Danno6102

$1,000,000.

Oh almost forgot, that's delivered.

BuiltByMAC

We'd have to see pictures of it to see if "he did okay on it."

$11/ft = $88/ 8 ft. section
Materials for an 8' section -
(1) 4x4 @ $10 = $10
(17) fence boards @ $2 = 34
(2) 2x4s @ $3 = $6
(2) bags 'crete @ $4 = $8
screws, hardware, etc = $6

That's $64 in materials, leaving $24 for labor, overhead and profit.
(2) laborers @ $10/ea leave you a whopping $4 for overhead and profit per 8' section.

$4100 / $11 = 372 ft.
372 / 8 = 46.5 sections @$4/section
Contractor made somewhere around $186 total for installing 372 ft. of fence.

wow. wonder if that's the going rate?

What exactly are you looking for, hammerwhipped? You start this thread asking if you're too expensive...why would we know? If you do kick ass work and you're getting high end fence jobs that agree to $5 redwood fence boards and you're making a decent profit after paying your overhead and expenses...I'd say NO, you're not too expensive. On the other hand, if you churn out your standard, boring fence and you're trying to charge those prices and NOBODY'S hiring you...then YES, you are too expensive.

Based on your other posts, you're new to this business of contracting and you're out here shopping for prices.

(and only you can decide whether being young and Asian affects your business. From what I've heard, San Fran and CA in general are fairly ethnically diverse - esp. Asian - so I wouldn't think that would be a negative factor for you)

Mac

boman47k

I do not know how many actual hours was involved. My son said it after the posts were set, the fence went up very fast with them using nail guns. The contractor buys his boards direct from a place about 20 milew away. I also am not sure how deep the posts were set. My son said 2'. He also said they went around with a chainsaw and cut the excess off. Lets see, posts cut about 6" from top of dogear, 8' post? May be why the fence did not seem real sturdy when I pushed on it. I also do not know if cedar was not available or what for some reason they went with the cypress. It was little cheaper, not sure if that had anything to do with it on my son's part.

P.S. Part of the reason for having th efence installed is there is a city ball park next to the property line in the back and they have little ones. Not sure about the rest of the country, but here these places sometimes draw strange characters and the grandparents were somewhat concerned. That includes me.

DecksEtc

$50.

Why, what do you pay?

hammerwhipped

Based on an eight foot section:

2- 4x4 P.T. @ $10.00 ea. = $20.00
2- 2x4 P.T. @ $3.50 ea. = $ 7.00
13 1x8 RWD
Fencing @ $5.00 ea. = $65.00

4 bags concrete @2.50 80# bag = $10.00

That's $84.00 before sales tax Multipled by 4sections = 32ft. $336.00

hammerwhipped

[quote=BuiltByMAC;426973]We'd have to see pictures of it to see if "he did okay on it."

What exactly are you looking for, hammerwhipped? You start this thread asking if you're too expensive...why would we know? If you do kick ass work and you're getting high end fence jobs that agree to $5 redwood fence boards and you're making a decent profit after paying your overhead and expenses...I'd say NO, you're not too expensive. On the other hand, if you churn out your standard, boring fence and you're trying to charge those prices and NOBODY'S hiring you...then YES, you are too expensive.

Based on your other posts, you're new to this business of contracting and you're out here shopping for prices.

(and only you can decide whether being young and Asian affects your business. From what I've heard, San Fran and CA in general are fairly ethnically diverse - esp. Asian - so I wouldn't think that would be a negative factor for you)

Mac[/quote

This post was mostly to see if I get many responses within my reigon but it's amazing to see how it varies from state to state. I get about 2 out of 5 fence jobs priced the way I do and was just wanting to know if it's my sales skills or am I just expensive. Yes I am fairly new I'm 26yrs old I've been on my own for 2 years now but have been in the trade for 8 years now. And regarding the ethnic thing San francisco is too plentiful of asian contractor escpecially the bad ones. So I'm just seeing if it's a factor in other counties and if there's any advice on moving away from that stereotype.

curapa

[quote=hammerwhipped;427342]I will go ahead and fill you in.... Disregard any quotes you have seen in response to your thread, most are a joke. Break down your material costs, labor, overhead and profit. Determine your desired pay and base your cost from these things.

While one persons $75 dollar a foot which is good for them, another persons $35 works for them.

Do some searching on bidding or buy a few basic business books.

If you make your desired money then your good to go, If you feel you are losing potential clients then drop your prices or up your salesmanship. Find out what your competitors are charging.

The search function on this site can be very helpful.

boman47k

After thinking about the price of mat's, I think I will ask my son about that price again. not sur ewhat those mat's cost, but am wondering how the fence can be done for that price with mat's included. I do suspect the posts are not set as deep he thinks.

I remeber once when we were next door to his old place with an 8' ( I think) fence between us and his house when we thought we heard his youngest son crying. My son ran around the fence to get back to his house to check on the baby. I went over the fence. He wondered how I got there so fast. Anyway, I do not remember this fence being as shakey as his new one seems to be.