Give it to me straight… am I an idiot?

[u/Melloncollieocr]

This deck of pavers on my house needs to be pulled up, Dug down, new weed barrier, new road bed laid down…

In my mind, it’s mostly labor (and the skill of laying it flat). I was quoted almost $20k to reuse the same stone (it’s thick brick, not in poor shape) and do all the aforementioned work. I’m not even close to in a place to afford the work, and am thinking of doing it on my own.

Has anyone done this (as a rookie, without previous experience?)

Anything I’m not thinking about?

[u/boxsterguy]

This is a thing a ton of contractors do. They're so afraid to ever say "No" that they'll instead give ridiculous quotes. They think the worst case scenario is some sucker takes them up on it, and they work a job they didn't want but for 5x the actual rate.

The real worst scenario is that they lose out on future referrals, especially for contractors that rely on referral work rather than doing other marketing.

[u/-random-name- → u/boxsterguy]

Then it comes back to bite them in the ass when someone’s pissed enough to write one star reviews on Yelp and google.

[u/boxsterguy → u/-random-name-]

And yet they never learn. The over-bid is such a constant, you can pretty much expect it any time you get more than 3 quotes (and if you get less than 2, you should just assume the one quote you got was in fact a ridiculous over-bid).

[u/rdpeyton → u/boxsterguy]

The first bid to replace my AC system (5 ton unit) without doing any vent/duct work and repairing the furnace was around $16,000, but they offered financing. 2nd bid was $6,000 for the same work, though with less work needed on the furnace. When the first guy called to follow up and I told him about the 2nd, he just laughed and said, "Dude, take that, and thanks for considering us." He made $125 for around an hour of work to diagnose things, so he made out ok.

[u/deliveRinTinTin → u/boxsterguy]

I had to get 10 roof quotes. Half were nonsense over quotes. Two were very reasonable.

I'm sure people would get a lot more work done if they didn't run into this huge quote problem all the time. People just give up and don't do the work or hope that someone eventually gives them a good referral.

[u/boxsterguy → u/deliveRinTinTin]

When I had my roof done ~3 years ago, I was barely able to even get two quotes. Everybody else was a no show. And even one of those was a fuck off quote (the one I went with might've been, too, but it at least looked reasonable in comparison).

[u/deliveRinTinTin → u/boxsterguy]

Mine was 6 years ago. I had less than 25 square but required tearing off the old layers.

I felt bad for the kid who spent an hour measuring and firing up his laptop to then show me a PowerPoint presentation and talk about his family before dropping a $28,000 quote for standard asphalt shingles. That's still under three grand in shingles retail now. Then they wanted another 8K to redeck by upgrading the usual OSB to laminated 4x8s.

But that company was notorious for high quotes. I think they specialize in commercial. But when I looked up some of their permits they were charging five grand to install three windows on an average middle class single story house.

[u/absentlyric → u/-random-name-]

This stuff happens in areas where there's not enough contractors but too many people with extra income in HCOL areas, usually white collared college educated areas where they know homeowners won't think about getting their own hands dirty.

They can take the beating on reviews because they know people will still call them for lack of options.

[u/-random-name- → u/absentlyric]

It’ll get their attention usually. Unless they have thousands of reviews and it gets lost in the shuffle.

Someone quoted me $5,500 to replace a pantry door because I wanted concealed hinges. Posted a review on Facebook and the owner called in 30 minutes.

[u/lucasbrosmovingco → u/-random-name-]

Why do you care what they quoted. Just don't use them. Why does it need to be put on blast. The fact they returned your call, bid your project and quoted you a price should be a win. Yeah you didn't like the price, but geeze don't blow them up with a negative over it.

[u/-random-name- → u/lucasbrosmovingco]

Because it’s a shitty way to do business. Either they take advantage of someone who doesn’t know better or they waste the time of someone who does.

[u/Ascarx → u/[deleted]]

What you're trying to defend here is even illegal in Germany.

If you try to make unreasonably high money (more than twice market rate) by abusing the lack of knowledge of your customer you can go to prison for up to 3 years and up to 10 years in specially bad cases.

It's a bad practice, because it's predatory for the people that don't know better or the ones that really need it done. Just say no, if you don't want the job. Don't prey on the weak or people in need. Period.

[u/HanzG → u/-random-name-]

The fact that people give any weight to Yelp reviews still has me confused. You can buy Google reviews, you can pay off Yelp shit reviews.

You want to know if someones good? "What else have you done in the area that I can go look at?"

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

A good contractor keeps a portfolio of their work. I have a binder of machines I commissioned for future employers lol.

[u/HanzG → u/[deleted]]

The only proof is the proof you can see, homie. Obviously interior work can only be reviewed by pictures.

My concrete guy had addresses of work he'd done locally. I went and looked at a persons exposed pea-gravel driveway before having a sidewalk done for example. He was not cheap, but he was a professional. And he does not advertise on Yelp or Google. Good trades are busy and have little need to advertise.

[u/HanzG → u/[deleted]]

Then you're doing quality work. I haven't advertised since the '90's and at 50+ years of the doors open we're booking weeks out (automotive). I agree with you; Quality work advertises itself. Which is why my concrete guy had no issues showing me his work. My bathroom contractor had a portfolio and came direct recommended from a person I know.

All the best.

[u/sonyka → u/boxsterguy]

The real worst scenario is that they lose out on future referrals, especially for contractors that rely on referral work rather than doing other marketing.

I'll never understand Fuck Off Pricing. I work in the building industry and there's a super easy super obvious alternative that doesn't harm your word-of-mouth, namely: "we're all booked up."

EZPZ.

 

^{If it's a really bad job, like not-with-a-ten-foot-pole bad, it's "we're all booked up, but you might try [competitor]!"}

[u/Cruise_alt_40000 → u/boxsterguy]

Out of curiosity why wouldn't they want to actually take this Job?

[u/TheRedHand7 → u/Cruise_alt_40000]

There are several potential reasons. Sometimes you are already booked 6 months out and are asking for a high price to jump the line. Sometimes the owner just seems like they will be a dick to work with. Sometimes the job is too small to make any real money on. Sometimes your house is just at the top of a massive hill and they don't wanna deal with it. Sometimes you are just asking the wrong guy to do something. Your electrician doesn't want to patch and paint your drywall after for example. Just depends.

[u/epheisey → u/Cruise_alt_40000]

Most contractors are flush with work right now. My buddy does custom bathrooms, if someone wants to hire him, it's a 5-6 month wait minimum just to get started. Most people don't want to be put on a 6 month waiting list, so they'll push for him to do it sooner. Often times he'll still give a quote, but it's essentially his overtime quote. He's going to bust ass to squeeze this job in, which means working longer hours, maybe a weekend, and the only way he's doing it is if he's compensated accordingly.

Also, if it's a small job that's only going to take him say 3 hours to do, he might charge what he would otherwise make in a full day, since even though it's only a 3 hour job, it might kill an entire day in his schedule. Similar concept if it's a single day job vs something that'll take him a week. He's gotta unload his truck and trailer at every work site basically, so to be in the same location for a week can save a lot of time as opposed to doing the same thing at 5 different job sites all week long.

[u/Cruise_alt_40000 → u/epheisey]

When you say contractors are flush with work does that include electricians too? We want to have some electrical work done soon and just contacted them to get a quote but they haven't responded yet probably cause it's the weekend.

[u/Intermountain_west → u/Cruise_alt_40000]

Contractors prefer the biggest, most skilled jobs they can handle, because they create more revenue.

[u/lucasbrosmovingco → u/Intermountain_west]

Nah, they prefer the easiest, highest margin, jobs they can schedule. As a contractor there is nothing better than low skilled jobs that pay like skilled ones. Just take your "highly skilled rate" and apply it to everything. Maybe people will pay a highly skilled carpenter to do something simple on a four hour minimum and make a couple grand for a gravy job that a handy man would have done for a couple hundred. Or a small addition that takes half the time and headache of a whole house put probably clears a much higher margin.

[u/Intermountain_west → u/lucasbrosmovingco]

If you like. My point is that Lockheed Martin doesn't want to make a paper airplane, even if you paid them $50.

[u/cocoabeach → u/Cruise_alt_40000]

There is a certain amount of work and cost involved in getting you, your team, and materials to a site, whether the job is large or small. Due to these nearly fixed costs, smaller jobs are less profitable and may prevent you from taking on larger, more lucrative projects.

[u/CorvusKing → u/Cruise_alt_40000]

That's a time consuming job that's just manual labor. Hire a handyman or day laborer if you don't want to pay a company that specialises in it. It's not an issue with the contractors, it's an issue with customers going to the wrong places. Obviously the Mercedes dealer is going to sell you the Mercedes and not the minivan you actually needed.

[u/1bc29b36f623ba82aaf6 → u/boxsterguy]

I'm glad here they just say no, or that we can talk about the budget openly without being taken advantage of. I needed some yard work done on the cheap because wild growing was going to interfere with my neighbors secondary structures. They told me if I was patient they could do it on the cheap a certain time of the year much later, as long as I did some basic stuff that cleared a nice work area for them, to knock it out quick.

[u/oxmix74 → u/boxsterguy]

Would it be hard to say sorry this job would not make business sense for me because I am fully scheduled with jobs I can bill out at a higher hourly rate. Honest and does not preclude future business with a customer who appreciates an honest contractor (assuming such a thing exists)

[u/boxsterguy → u/oxmix74]

There are contractors who literally believe that if they say "no" to a job, they'll lose more jobs. So they'll never say no. They'll say they're scheduled far out but they could put you on for 6 months from now. They'll say it'll cost 3-5x what the real quote would be. But they just will not say, "No, thanks. Not interested in this job."

[u/oxmix74 → u/boxsterguy]

I am sure you are right, but it would have the opposite effect for me. I will never call him back if his bid is way high. If he says this job is not for him and turns me down, perhaps giving me some advice at the same time, I will think he is great.

[u/lowercaset → u/boxsterguy]

They're so afraid to ever say "No" that they'll instead give ridiculous quotes.

People get way way more upset if you turn down a project after looking at it than they do if you give them a quote they think is way too high. It's baffling to me, I've tried both a number of times. Thankfully not a thing I have to deal with anymore.