Is the GC the problem or me lol

A

AC\DC

Senior Member
Location
Florence,Oregon,Lane
Occupation
EC
I have a huge client base of homeowner- number 1 in town with referrals.
The gc are another story- had a couple that we butted heads
Couple other that are so cheap and cut corners I just walked.
Couple other gc use an old school. Electrical guy that is half my rate.

Currently got only 3 I work with I like them they like me.

Should I focus on new homes with the other gc or just stick to homeowner.

I end up working with the gc I hate or they don’t like me half the time just cause the customer request me…

What would you do. I got enough work to keep me and two other guys busy. Currently for 3 weeks.

Gc just seem to be greedy $&@1- I like plumbers lol
 
My 2 cents....if you are younger, deal with the stress and take the extra work. if you are on the older side and see a clear path to retirement or semi-retirement, forget the stress and hard to deal with gc's.
 
ptonsparky said:
We got out of residential and almost never worked with GCs. Mostly service work.
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was it more lucrative or just less stressful. I like not working for the GC and home owner cause the Homeowner does not get slapped with the GC markup and he still has to coordinate with me.
So I get more jobs cause it's not some inflated number. I feel! though a GC throws your name and some owner bite at it cause they like the GC
 
AC\DC said:
was it more lucrative or just less stressful. I like not working for the GC and home owner cause the Homeowner does not get slapped with the GC markup and he still has to coordinate with me.
So I get more jobs cause it's not some inflated number. I feel! though a GC throws your name and some owner bite at it cause they like the GC
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More interesting.
 
Joe.B said:
Maybe become a GC yourself?
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You know I thought about that, but I could barely do my job without being stressed. I wouldn’t claim to be a roofer or framer. I do crap for myself, but I wouldn’t do crap for other people.

I guess a GC doesn’t necessarily have to be the framer. He’s just the coordinator for it all.
 
I don't see how you can make as much hourly when you're competing against typical resi GC subs. The resi GCs pick their subs to be the absolutely cheapest guys around generally, and there's always that bottom 20% of the industry that will take their scraps. The rest of the industry is making good money doing service and commercial.

Locally, I'd have to take a 30% pay cut to work with resi GCs or compete against their subs on additions. No thanks. I'm more than happy to work directly for a HO on an addition, but unless I find a really good GC, I'll stick to direct-to-HO jobs. They're usually a lot nicer too.

If you just want growth for its own sake, you can do it. If you have enough work, which you do, why bother?
 
That is what I would have to do here I would have to take a major pay cut the guy in town that wires homes is 50 bucks less an hour than I am. I’m trying to get in Commerical, but now I’m competing with union shops that know how to manipulate change orders another hurdle to overcome.
 
As far as money, it's supposed to be a wash.

The "reason" service work is more expensive is that everyone who says yes, has to pitch in to pay for all the time you spent with everyone who said no.

I did the math on it once, and a 2000 hour per year. Service man is only going to have about 1,200 hours of billable time. That means you need to make enough in 1,200 hours to pay for the whole 2,000

But in new construction, that 2,000 hour per year man is supposed to be on the job bringing in money for 1,900 of it.

There's a heating and cooling company called 1-hour heating and cooling. I think they charge something like $400-600 per hour because most of the time they're just sitting around waiting for a call. So when somebody does call, they have to pay through the nose for it.

I said this a lot of times, and a lot of people don't want to believe me. Residential new construction is all about speed and efficiency.

The electrician has to be able to move at an outstanding pace. Not running, and not being unsafe, but he's got to move. And his efficiency has to be top notch. He can't go around. Wondering on every job where he's going to start. He's got to have a process that he employs on every job, with very few exceptions

There is no way you're going to get that kind of speed and efficiency if that guy's not doing new construction everyday. You break his stride with some service work and your man hours on the new construction are going to go way up.

And also, the GC has to be efficient. A lot of GCs get a bad rap of only hiring the cheapest guy around. That's not really true. Most of them want to hire somebody who will drop everything at a moment's notice and run to take care of some emergency.

If I were in your shoes again (because I've been there before), I would try to have one guy that does new construction, one guy who does service work, and one guy who is kind of middle of the road and will do both. And send that middle guy to help. Whichever of the other two needs him at the moment.
 
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AC\DC said:
manipulate change orders
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Yeah, common tactic to bid near-cost and then gouge on COs. I think using straight NECA MLU numbers plus hefty material markups is key, but I've not done it personally.

AC\DC said:
50 bucks less an hour than I am
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That might not be bad when you consider job duration.

The way I look at it, with service you have near-100% overhead for every hour worked. Just bill double is what many do. But with additions/remodels/new, that overhead shrinks down to like 20%, and for larger jobs it's more like 10%. So if you're charging $200/hr for service, you can charge $120/hr for a 50-100hr job and it's still basically the same pay per hour effective. [I'm saying what James L said but a bit differently I guess]

That said, I'm seeing local crews charging 30-40% under the 20% figure, so it's just not worth it to me at all. So when I say "I'd be taking a 30% pay cut", I don't mean a 30% pay cut of my billed rate, but a 30% pay cut of my full-hours-worked rate (which is half my billed rate).

James L said:
There's a heating and cooling company called 1-hour heating and cooling. I think they charge something like $400-600 per hour
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HVAC has zero competition from handymen, DIY, and unlicensed because their supply houses won't sell to non-contractors (so I've heard) and basic charging equipment is a $1200+ investment - so their rates are always going to be higher than ours in service work. Imagine if panels and such required a license to buy, and we needed $1000 tools to trim panels...

James L said:
most of the time they're just sitting around waiting for a call
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Someone could achieve scale such that they could keep a guy busy week-round and charge less though. I really think the reason they charge so much is because they have so much less competition. For any trade, most of the work is in new construction for larger jobs, and a given contractor can also give a certain % of their staff/time to basic service. HVAC alone has far far less competition for that %.
 
AC\DC said:
Been thinking of getting into hvac. Seems pretty lucrative
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If you sell the equipment, that's where the money is at. My son does HVAC, working for his mom and her husband. It's almost criminal what they charge, And they're not the most expensive.

I went to Nebraska and wired a two-story cabin for a church camp, and they needed two dual head mini split systems. They had a bid for $25,000 and they couldn't stomach it. So I told them I would get my son to give him a bid.

He came in at $15,000 as a big favor to me.

All the equipment and parts were going to cost about $8,000 in total.

Estimated time on the job was about 6 hours per system, or a total of 12 hours.

So the one guy wanted about $17,000 over the cost of the parts and equipment. I wish I could get that in a day and a half
 
James L said:
There is no way you're going to get that kind of speed and efficiency if that guy's not doing new construction everyday.
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Many states let people sit for their license exam, with proof of work hours from remodeling their own home.

Every year millions of trade licenses may be issued to owner builders that dragged out remodels for 8,000 hours, and GC’s can lay in wait for such desperate subcontractor low-ball bids.

Just like every year millions of high-school students graduate, and the roads must make room for their cars.
 
James L said:
If you sell the equipment, that's where the money is at. My son does HVAC, working for his mom and her husband. It's almost criminal what they charge, And they're not the most expensive.

I went to Nebraska and wired a two-story cabin for a church camp, and they needed two dual head mini split systems. They had a bid for $25,000 and they couldn't stomach it. So I told them I would get my son to give him a bid.

He came in at $15,000 as a big favor to me.

All the equipment and parts were going to cost about $8,000 in total.

Estimated time on the job was about 6 hours per system, or a total of 12 hours.

So the one guy wanted about $17,000 over the cost of the parts and equipment. I wish I could get that in a day and a half
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So, uh, how do I get in on this racket now?
 
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