About a month ago I got called to a home(manufactured type)owner says power is out in 3 seperate rooms. Upon checking I found that somewhere in the circuit a neutral had been lost. The home was total clutter, wall receptacles unaccessible due to furniture and just about everything else. I'm talking a bed that needed to be dismantled in order to get to the wall outlets, several huge dressers piled high with just about everything, and a family member who wired an addition off this circuit( with several j-boxes) a few years back.
So, I'm guessing there are two reasons your sharing this with us. First, to make it clear that there there was alot of time and effort on your part spent doing non-electrical related work (moving furniture, etc.) before you could begin troubleshooting. Second, a family member is possibly the reason why they are having the problem which you may or may not feel puts you in an uncomfortable position or may be an indication that they don't have any (or little ) money to spend on getting it done right.
You need to get paid for all your time. It's not your fault they have alot stuff that needed to be moved. Why should you be paid less for moving it? Besides, you could have been somewhere else making what your worth doing electrical work. Your time is your time. Get paid for it. Don't assume there's a money problem until there is one. Present the bill for the total amount of time and at the rate you normally get. In the future, you should establish what your rates are and advise the customer of the charges before you start. Using a three Level troublshooting pricing structure is the most fair way to price this work.
Something like this: The dollar amounts are strickly for demonstration purposes. Your charges will be based on your overhead and profit requirements.
Trip Fee: $95 (may or may not cover 1st 15 minutes of troubleshooting; your choice)
Level One Diagnostic: $450 (up to two hours of trouble shooting)
Level Two Diagnostic: $800 (up to four hours of troubleshooting)
Level Three Diagnostic: $1,400 (up to six hours of troubleshooting)
Pick the one that you think is closest to what you think it's going to take, with the caviat that it may go up a level if necessary. Do this before you start the work. Get the customer's approval first. Once you find the problem then present a price to do the work, before you do the work.
FLATRATE Did he say flat rate? Yes, flat rate. The sooner you get to it the sooner you'll start making money. Many will tell you that you can't charge flat rate when troubleshooting; thats because they don't understand how it works therefore they don't know how to do it. They get defensive and start saying things like, "Their sick and tired of hearing about flatrate and you can make a good living doing Time & Material or flatraate isn't the only way to make money in this business". Nonsence, don't listen to them. You can't possibly charge enough hourly to cover all your overhead (which includes your salary) and profit and not have customers freak out and question every second your on the job. Besides, T&M'ers are already flat rating themselves anyway, they just don't know it. Throw the T&M in the junk pile with the typewriter, fax machine, yellowpages, roadmaps, legerbooks, Palm Pilots, dial up, film you have to get processed, movie rental stores, newspaper classified ads, landlines, long distance charges, pay phones, floppyndiscs, record stores and paper. T&M is dead, obsolete; lets give it a proper burial.
To make a long story short, I had 3 seperate trips to the job before I was able to fix the problem.
Just curious, how come it took three separate trips?
In doing so I needed to access a crawl space with @ 2 inches of water in it and deal with moldy insulation on the underside of the frame. Am I wrong to charge my full hourly rate for all the time I had dealing with this mess? (10hrs total).
You might have what is known as price objection. It's ok for your customer to have price objection, you can overcome that with learning how to present value in what you do and charge, but until you feel good about charging the customer for your time at rates that are commensurate with what you are truly worth you will struggle being in this business.
Here's a few reasons to feel good about it:
1. Your an electrician, with a special skill set that only a small percentage of people in this world possess.
2. You deserve to make a good living. You should be paying yourself a decent salary and you should realize at least a 20% EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes; ie, profit at the end of the year)
3. You owe it to youself and your family to have balance an financial security.
4. You owe it to your suppliers so you can pay them as agreed. Not finance your business through them.
5. You owe it to your customers. If you dont' charge properly for your work, you'll go out of business and won't be able to serve your customers. Or worse yet, you won't have enough money to serve them with the level of service they deserve for spending their money with you.
6. You won't have enough money to give back to your community. (charity)
7. You owe it to the industry. Raise the bar and make this industy apealing for future generations to pursue as a career path.
Now go get your money!
Someone please help me off my soapbox.
Cheers!
