Average Charge Hourly Rate for Service

36098 Views 18 Replies 10 Participants Last post by Grumpy, Aug 1, 2012

superroofer

Discussion Starter · Mar 25, 2011

I'm just curious what the average hourly rate for Repair work is around the country. In Michigan, I think $60 per hour plus materials is standard. What do you guys see in your market?

-Superroofer
Weather Shield Roofing Systems, Inc

1 - 19 of 19 Posts

Grumpy

· #2 · Mar 25, 2011

$60 per hour for one man and a truck is less than break even if you are doing things legit IMO. Thena gain myabe insurance isn't the same there as it is here.

here is how I look at it.

1 man X 20 an hour.
+ $8.40 for WC
+ $3.8 GL
+ $2 FUDA SUCA FICA
---------------
=34.2 per hour burden break even.
x8 hour day
---------------
$273.60 per day burden break even.
+$150 per day truck operation fees, wear and tear, vehicle insurance, per NRCA guidelines.
+100 per day tools, equipment, ladders, back office support, etc...
---------------
= $523.60
x 20 % sales rep commission and share holder profit
----------------
=628.32
/ 8 hour days
----------------
=78.54 per hour

I rounded up to $80 and charge that, and with today's current gas prices I have added a $5 fee per job for fuel surcharge. I will remove that fee when oil goes down again.

Plumbers and electricians in my area charge $80-95 per hour and their insurance is no where near as high as ours. When someone balks at the price, and there are plenty who do, I explain that aplumber or electricin will cost as much if not more and they aren't dealing with the heights we are.

One other thing to note, I do not charge port to port. I only charge for time spent on site, and I DO mark up my materials at least 20% if not more. I do also charge for the time it takes to pickup the materials if we don't have what we need on the truck.

We also have a minimum of 2 man hours, no matter if it's a 45 minute job.

For service work I am definetly on the upper end of the hourly scale, unless you compare me to a union company who will bill out easy at $120 an hour.

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RooferJim

· #3 · Mar 25, 2011

$115.

FriscoBlue

· #4 · Apr 27, 2011

$95 for Foreman/Journeyman and $80 for Journeyman.

Material are marked up by 20%

jjshaggy

· #5 · Apr 27, 2011

grump, what do you do for port to port then? are the men off the clock? had this situation before and had to eat the time myself. his response was i let you take the truck home, but couldnt take it anywhere but to the job. which wasnt a problem, but was always hassled about gas prices even though most jobs were closer to my house than the shop. also always had to eat time at end of day to drive to shop to empty garbage, and he would bitch about my van being so loaded with material, but shop was closed so couldnt empty extra material out there. when i said every other shop gave me keys to shop he would say i cant do that. this isnt every other shop. then id have to stop at a supply house alot to get material for job next day and hed say why arent you there yet, well cant do job without material. if i could go to shop and have material preordered id p/u night before, if i couldve. i just couldnt win w/ that guy. so he found a way to get rid of me. he gave me an epdm job 80 sq. new const. 9 skylights, 9 curbs, 3 drains, 3 overflows, and a tapered system, and 5-8 ft. walls. he gave me 1 roofer, and 1 laborer with a week experience, and kept asking why so few sq. per day? when i told him needed more roofers he said you can do it what what you got. lol, well he fired me,and sent his other crew of 10 men to finish. also mind you this was early november so daily had to deice and dry roof. one reason i dont think ill ever work for a small company again.

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Grumpy

· #6 · Apr 27, 2011

The service men are always ont he clock for travel. New installs are another thing, and a discussion for another thread. If the job is close, as most usually are, I will absorb it. If it's far away then yes I will charge for travel. Some guys I let take vans home, others not. It depended how much I trusted the person and how they may have abused it. One guy whom I trusted very much, the van got broken into twice. I had to make him come to the shop every morning, which wasn't really a problem for him though.

Sounds like an A hole boss to be honest and shouldn't be reflective of all small business. All my trusted employees had keys to the shop before I closed it. I would bitch alot about people being late but not because of picking up materials. 99% of the time they over slept or stopped off for a big breakfast along the way.

jjshaggy

· #7 · Apr 28, 2011

i'm sorry op for going off topic. i have noticed that most guys here are owners. so i think it may help everyone to remember how it was to be on the other side. i dont see him as an ahole in fact i liked him. the major factor was $ the root of all evil. he was losing $, and i was caught in the middle maybe he bid too low, and if he was here to defend himself he'd tell you about the mistakes i made. not only on this job, but others. i'm not perfect. i'm still learning. i take this experience as a learning experience. both of us will move on for the better.

tinner666

· #8 · Apr 28, 2011

Shaggy, many of us worked for yers before moving up. We already know both sides.

I could tolerate mistakes by employees, but I refused to cover their wages when they made the mistake the second time! They went on their own.
Good employees used that as a learning experience.

I charge port to port, and on long distance jobs, I charge a fee to arrive on top of the hourly fee.

Close in, I charge $250.00 to come out, then $65.00 per hour.

Grumpy

· #9 · Apr 28, 2011

JJ the double edge sword here is that while sometimes we as owners may lose focus of what it's like to be an employee, often times employees don't have a clue what it's like to be an owner and don't have a team mentality about the business. When times are good the owner may seem to be making boat loads of money, but when times are bad the owner might not be drawing a pay check so that the employee can.

Furthermore it is the owner's sole responsibility to look out for the well being of the company. Most employees only care about themselves, few I have hired have ever had the team mentality. I started my business saying I want to be the kind of boss that I would want to work for and it almost ruined me. I came to realize those A hole bosses I had worked for were probably really nice guys when they started their biz and were probably great guys with their family and friends. If I let my employees do what ever they want, it's the monkeys running the zoo and before long they'll be looking for another job because there is no more company.

It is my opinion that neither boss nor employee should think about what's good for themselves. Both should think about what's good for the company and then what good for themselves will follow in spades. That's a strong thing to say because there has to be alot of trust and both the boss and employee must act with honor and integrity to make it work. Just one bad seed can ruint he bunch so anyone without the team mentality must be eliminated immediately. Just my thoughts on the subject, I know I have now pulled it way off topic.

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RoofYourWorld

· #10 · Jul 28, 2011

Here is Eastern TN, $80/hr for a 2 man crew plus material costs.

Larger projects are typically addressed on a 'not to exceed' (NTE) or quoted in a proposal.

RalphTheRoofer

· #11 · Jul 6, 2012

Grumpy said:
$60 per hour for one man and a truck is less than break even if you are doing things legit IMO. Thena gain myabe insurance isn't the same there as it is here.

here is how I look at it.

1 man X 20 an hour.
+ $8.40 for WC
+ $3.8 GL
+ $2 FUDA SUCA FICA
---------------
=34.2 per hour burden break even.
x8 hour day
---------------
$273.60 per day burden break even.
+$150 per day truck operation fees, wear and tear, vehicle insurance, per NRCA guidelines.
+100 per day tools, equipment, ladders, back office support, etc...
---------------
= $523.60
x 20 % sales rep commission and share holder profit
----------------
=628.32
/ 8 hour days
----------------
=78.54 per hour

I rounded up to $80 and charge that, and with today's current gas prices I have added a $5 fee per job for fuel surcharge. I will remove that fee when oil goes down again.

Plumbers and electricians in my area charge $80-95 per hour and their insurance is no where near as high as ours. When someone balks at the price, and there are plenty who do, I explain that aplumber or electricin will cost as much if not more and they aren't dealing with the heights we are.

One other thing to note, I do not charge port to port. I only charge for time spent on site, and I DO mark up my materials at least 20% if not more. I do also charge for the time it takes to pickup the materials if we don't have what we need on the truck.

We also have a minimum of 2 man hours, no matter if it's a 45 minute job.

For service work I am definetly on the upper end of the hourly scale, unless you compare me to a union company who will bill out easy at $120 an hour.

do we work for the same company? this is point on to how we do it.

Grumpy

· #12 · Jul 9, 2012

I don't think so Ralph, LOL I'd never forget that face!

Jared

· #13 · Jul 10, 2012

Plus one on the team mentality. However as an employee it's easy to become jaded when slimy employers take advantage, more often the case than not for the last twenty years in my experience. My first job working for my stepdad I started at $3 an hour tending bricklayers when I was 13. Was making $7.50 at 19 when I quit and found other employment. At that point I was basically labor foreman and could lay brick to the line pretty well. Guess he thought I still owed a lot of dues. Kinda put a chip on my shoulder for life. Even considering all that the team mentality permeates my state of mind. I guess its just the only logical way for me.

Sorry to hijack.

Can't comment on an hourly rate here in the south. Everything I've seen is just straight bidwork and VERY cheap at that. Seen a lot of people lose their asses. Actually, I think the reason people are shy about charging by the hour is because the clients know they might actually have to pay what the job is worth. And if somebody gave a straight bid that was high enough to make a little profit the client would just keep looking for a cutthroat bid.
Why are things so screwed up? You get what you pay for comes to mind.

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Jared

· #14 · Jul 10, 2012

Btw, I believe ralphs pic is one of the baldknobbers, a comedy show out in Branson.
Like grumpy said, you can never forget that face!

Grumpy

· #15 · Jul 10, 2012

LOL I knew it wasn't his pic!

My first job in this industry I had to negotiate my pay check every pay day. So much for making $10 an hour.

Things are screwed up because WE allow them to be screwed up, overcome with the fear of "What if I don't get the job?!" Charging by the hour is only common in service work, and really only common in commercial, though I am getting more residential to come over to my side of thinking. "I can give you a fixed price covering all the variables and what ifs and unknowns but obviously I have to charge for all that, not to mention bundle in a trip charge to come out and estimate. From what you are describing this is a 4 hour repair @80 an hour plus materials, I'll probably have to charge an extra $300 or more if you want a fixed bid just to cover my butt and make sure I am not losing."

When I bid repairs (and get them) I make very good money. Some repairs I have to bid because they are simply too complex or too large to do by the hour. What I like though, is getting paid the hourly wage to do a temp repair and at the same time providing a fixed price for a more permanent repair. Getting paid for estimates is nice.

I won't lie though, still most people here are shy and timid to pay by the hour for roofing because going back to the fear of "what if I don't get the job" we hurt ourselves by giving free estimates for every little thing and the customer won't be conditioned into wanting to pay for estimates until the majority of roofers start charging for them.

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Jared

· #16 · Jul 11, 2012

Amen.

RalphTheRoofer

· #17 · Jul 25, 2012

Shucks - caught me guys. :whistling:

Guttersmiths

· #18 · Aug 1, 2012

I'm at $120 hour. I price myself out of some jobs, but so what? I know what my guys are worth.

Grumpy

· #19 · Aug 1, 2012

$120 per man hour or per crew hour? That's what the unions charge around here per roofing man hour.

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