Estimating an upgrade of a home from Aluminum to Copper.

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One caveat. People are not stupid. If you install a 39 cent outlet and try to charge them $20 for the part, they will object, and they should.
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That's why I give them a free receptacle with the installation and just charge $20 more in labor. :)

Or if they prefer I'll give them free labor with the purchase of a receptacle but it's going to be one expensive receptacle.

Or they can supply their own receptacle. No warranty though.

In each case the price is the same. :)
 
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petersonra said:
One caveat. People are not stupid. If you install a 39 cent outlet and try to charge them $20 for the part, they will object, and they should.
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If you've managed to charge 20 bucks per resi grade duplex receptacle as a line item, ever, I'd like to shake your hand. :rolleyes:
 
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Yesterday one of my neighbors asked me to stop by a look at a fixture he needs hung, while I was there a plumber came to fix a dripping bath faucet, he was there less then 20 minutes, used two 30 cent washers, presented a bill for $239, He was thanked for his prompt service, and handed a check, after he left, they did nothing but praise him.

What in the world is so stressful, about asking to be paid for your services, if it is that difficult to ask for your worth, working for someone else, may be your best bet.

The average customer is not looking to check your line items, or hold a stopwatch while you work, they called because they need prompt reliable service.

Every once in a while you may get a line item customer, this type of customer would complain, if you did the job for nothing.
 
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how come when a guy works for someone else, he feels he's worth $50/hr in the pocket....but when he goes out on his own, he's afraid to charge enough money to pay himself $50/hr in the pocket?
 
Copalum

Copalum

Here in New Jersey I own one of these beasts that does the terminations. We had many developments wired in the 70's with aluminum branch circuits. Let me say from experiance, its no picinic repairing one of these homes even with the proper equipment.They normally average about 1500 square feet and about a hundred outlets per home. It usually takes us about two days to do one , because we have to deal with furniture and all.My units pneumatic, so you also have to drag hoses and heat guns around all day to finish the splices correctly.Most of these projects i optied for a complete rewire, but for the total cost ,copalum was still cheaper.We averaged about 50-100 dollars an outlet depending on how many splices had to be done
Hope this helped
 
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Sonny Boy said:
If it's gutted.
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I find that even when gutted, it still takes longer to rewire those jobs than if it was brand new and you are installing new wiring for the first time. If required to expound on this, I would guess this has a bit to do with sheetrock dust from the opening up of the walls adding a bit of friction to the new cable getting pulled thru existing holes.
 
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