Deck Staining

bigdawg

First time on, from Virginia.

Looking for help in pricing on deck staining. Deck is made of salt- treated wood. Most are 3 to 15 years old but in good shape.

Example 1. 12 X 12, ground level,with 3 sides of pickets and 2 steps.

Example 2. 12 X 12 deck, 12' off ground,3 sides of pickets, gate. 15 steps. Scaffolding only.

Example 3. 12 X 12 deck, 20 'off ground, 3 sides of pickets, gate. 25 steps. Area is heavly wooded, unable to use lift. Scaffolding only.

Deck will be cleaned and ready for staining. Using top quality stains. BM or Calbot.

zico

We have used Cabot's products last year with great results. However one thing we learned very quickly is that we only got about 130 sq ft of coverage on pressure treated wood and 160 sq ft for cedar decks. The other point is that balusters take time to acheive a drip free finish. I allocate 3 min/ per average sized baluster.

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Halton Peel Painters
GTA Painters
...there's still fight in this dog

farrellpainting

were you refered by a satisfied customer?if so and you know your man hour production rates well i would estimate the job by man hours, and if you exceed give them a change order to cover the extra man hrs. i think its the only way to do a quality job and still get your labor rate.selling man hours requires a good salesman though!some people charge like 1$-1.60 a sqft for strip,clean,brighten, stain and a certain amount for railing length?i would be afraid to lock myself into a set price cause like you said there are trees in the way and some are 20' what would these bidders do know, charge per tree in the way or /ft of elevation?to many variables in this biz to bid like that,i think that peole that bid jobs this way are probably losing $$$ and hair!i know i would be !its all about knowing your man hrs and salesmanship(IMO)!

bigdawg

Their is a lot of business at this location and they want a per sq ft price. The area is very remote and could involve 200 decks. This company is known to have bankrupted several other small companies in the past by tying you to long contracts and unexpected items. Do not know specific items but know the companies that lost their shirts. The key for me would be repeat business if things went well.
Would $3.00 per sq ft cover expenses. I Would charge additional fee to remove furniture and replace if coming back to area.
100 mile round trip up and down mountains
Set of brakes every 6 months
Insurance
Cleaning
manpower
Scaffolding
Stain extra

farrellpainting

no one can tell ya if 3.00/sqft would cover you thats way to broad and we dont know your exact expenses for travel,overhead,production rates/sqft,or your company's desired rate?i think the best way to run a paint company is to have a set labor rate say $20/hr (whatever your area will bare) added to a pro rated overhead # down to the hour to cover the cost of running your business ,how you get this is by adding up all equip that is subject to failure over time/use,like company vehicle,sprayers, lifts etc.. any thing that cost a good chunk of money that will need repairs or will be discarded at the end of its life,you now have to figure in normal maintence/repair cost for each piece of equip life then add it to the purchase price,then divide this # by its excpected lifespan by average # hours used per month,week, or year so that you arent paying to run equip to do work for the customer.then break down legal cost like ins, wc license etc per month then break this #average operating hours per month depends on size of the crew then break it down to the hour.now if you only need your lift on certain occasions charge per day breaking it down by purchase price maitence gas/day and avg lifespan.this is not all that neccesary for sprayers cause theyre calculated overhead# by lifspan per hr arent that much,now any disposable items naps pads sandblocks/discs etc.. should be added in with to your material costs for the job. i would not add this number to your estimated man hrs when submitting your bid, i think a good why to go about working materils needed is kind of like how lawyers work with retainers, etimate high and then have the cutomer give your supplier/dealer that retainer balance,this way they are buying from the supplier not you and if the retainer balance runs out you wont be able to move forward, well give them a heads up when you think your going to run out, if you dont they get refunded the dividend.this is the safest way to do it gives boh you and the custy piece of mind your not losing $$ and they arent getting ripped off!oh yeah with a company vehicle(s) and gas if you have your avg /hr overhead use # worked in to your company's set rate, but you are going to be traveling alot further than it, instead of trying to change your company rate just adjust/calculate the excess use by taking your vehicle overhead #/hr x the excess use for that particular job and simply add what you need for the excess use to the man hrs on your bid,charge drive time to if your goin through 100 miles of mtns,up to you though, you run a higher risk of accident wich could be costly.im still a newbie but i see so many stressed out paint contractor that dont know why they charge what the do,they just charge what the market will bare, this will take a tole on your sanity if your constantly eating materials and man hrs, their charging $$$ but only making dimes, and constantly rushing everything in effort to make more $$$ wich doesnt really work.for a pro painter a job requires the materials it does and it takes the time it does and that is what you should be charging for.for this job dont just throw them a lowball figure just to get your foot in the door,cause they say theres more work thats exactly what they want you to do,its the oldest authoree's trick in the book along with trying to contracting you then asking you to do extra things like there free cause they already signed the tract and your already there, that @#$% is so disrespectful,if you lowball you will be doing 200 decks for your initial lowball price until you try to raise then they will terminate you and find the next lowballing idiot,after you did 200 decks @ like $15/hr.so now that you know your company rate,i assume you know your production rates estimate each deck by man hours with a change order clause in the contract, and come up with the high estimate for the retainer balance,and@#$% them if they still want a sqft# .explain to them that the man hr and change order approach will allow you to figure out what you really need to maintain theyre decks for years to come with quality service,alieviating them of the stress by dealing with multiple contractors year in year out that go under cause they dont understand business !

PressurePros

hmmmm.. There are better products than BM or Cabot's.

I prefer to use an oil based, penetrating, semi-transparent product. Prep is the key. Remove all existing sealer, mold and gray then pH balance wood. NO pressure over 800 psi. But you already mentioned proper prep so you are just looking for a staining price?

Depends on how you measure. When many contractors say s/f they are thinking just the floor. Obviously by your listed examples you understand why you have to measure everything or at the very least, take it into consideration. In a competetive market you are going to see from $.50- $1 per s.f of total wood measurement with percentages added for PITA variables like height. Now this is just to stain. To clean and prep double that.

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Ken Fenner
Pressure Washing PA
Roof Cleaning Services PA

farrellpainting

how do you figure in height on a sqft based estimate???how do you charge for really difficult moves???have you ever ran your #'s to see what you actually make per hour vs. sqft including all overhead and materials???i know guys around here that bring home good money every season but dont know what they earn/hr! thats confusing to me cause then how do you know what to pay workers, do you measure their sqft production every hour???why do you guys lock yourselves into a sqft # i see how you could make out if the jobs a brezze,but how do go about charging more for PITA jobs after youve already started and things arent goin smoothly??do you just tell the HO i need X amount more because it isnt going as usual,in this scenario seems like you lose if your paying employee's /hr?im really interested i just eyeball man hrs and if i exceed change order no stress!

bigdawg

Thanks for the responses. Going to do one bad deck and work out the price and total time/material.

PressurePros

After you have maximized your efficiency with the right tools, chemicals, stains, and employee training its fairly easy to figure out your production rate. I have a set amount that it costs me in direct and indirect expenses to run each crew per hour. I analyze numbers constantly. I do every estimate which is a burden but at this point I can eyeball a jobs factors and determine where I need to add over and above my s/f rate charge. The point you made about the unexpected is valid. It rarely happens and only on large jobs.

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Ken Fenner
Pressure Washing PA
Roof Cleaning Services PA

bigchaz

For height I just charge flat amount for each step and count in the linear foot rate for measurement on the railings

Not to mention its much more difficult to sell a time/materials rate to people (at least my experiance). Get good at estimating and use sf rate. Its very difficult to sell 40-100/hr to someone even if you explain all the ins and outs of overhead, expenses, etc