Strictly speaking I know that this is not a d-i-y question but could do with some advice from you helpful lot here ... I'm now semi retired and thinking of setting up on my own as a painter/decorator. I've been doing up various places of my own for years and gained a lot of experience etc. Problem is I've no idea what the going rate is ...... I live in the south east ( not London ) Obviously being a one man band I could probably charge a bit less to get business. I recently did some work for friends - painting inside of their flats and they paid me £12 ph and they bought the paint. They seemed quite pleased with this. Any help would be most appreciated.
If you're thinking of doing priced work for people, then you must take the travel costs, the tools hire costs, the basic materials costs and your time and labour costs before you can make a stab at the price.
The travel costs are broken down into fuel pricing, vehicle wear and tear and maintenance costs. You'll also have on going cleaning and general up keep costs.
Tool hire costs are made up the tools which you are going to use for the job to be complete. So you have brushes and cleaning fluids. Clothes and cleaning brushes for sweeping up and wiping down and polishing. Tools don't last forever.
Basic materials are things like fillers, basic primer paints, colour tints or what ever. The basic things you'd carry around all the time in your tool box for the little bits and pieces that crop up when you don't expect it.
Your time and labour is left up to you to decide what you think your expertise is worth.
If people start to get willing to wait for you to do their job, then you've got this part of the pricing perfectly fixed. A try every so often at raising this price to test the market place is a good sign that people around you are over pricing things and you might get away with a small increase in your own price without disrupting your business.
Have a word with a small business advisor to see what they say about it. It might be that the only work you'll get in your area is from friends and family, and the market might be flooded with good workman and another one would just break the camels back.
Small adverts in shop windows to begin with might let you know if the market has a gap that you can get in through. From there you have people spreading the word of mouth advertising, if you're any good and worth the money that is.
The costing is the hardest part though. You don't want to be working all day for nothing. Or even making a loss because you forgot to add petrol for the car on to the price. Or you've run out of brushes and the money in the bank doesn't cover new one. No tools means no jobs.
Do a test on the market research with small window ads, this'll tell you if the market is there to begin with.
Don't forget insurance, Public Liabilty at the very least, professional indeminty may also be adviseable. I guess this is not going to be the main money earner for the OP so Permenant Health Insurance isn't required, if you fall of a ladder and can't work you won't starve.
For a car at least 50p/mile but it varies on your mileage, type of car, cost of car etc. The AA website has a running cost calculator.
Very good advice, the local Business Link may well run free courses for those wanting to set up in business. OK the OP might be thinking this as "beer money" but if it's not thought out properly that could
*very* easyly be negative beer money.
Then there is all the legislation involved with a business, what type, sole trader, partnership, Ltd Co, tax and VAT, insurance, record keeping etc etc. Employment rights should you do well and take on "a boy" to help.
As a plasterer said to me recently, "If you can piss, you can paint". I wouldn't work at an hourly rate because customers think the clock starts when you arrive on site, whereas it's all the running about that takes the time. It's certainly the *logical* way to proceed with decorating because you don't know what the job entails till you get started but, unfortunately, people just want it "sorted". TV has taught them to believe in magic, so better keep a wand in your toolbox.
That could be factored into an hourly rate but who is going to a painter =A325/hour to include materials. However the same people would pay =A3200 inc materials for an 8 hr day painting.
Aye, and the TV camera hides a multitude of sins. Provided some thing is the same colour the join will disappear. Most sets are constructed from "flats", sheets of ply supported on 3 x 1 frame work. Where they join on the invision side, the join is simply taped over with masking tap and painted over. Once a set has been in use for a while it'll have great lumps knocked out of it, the worst will simply be painted, not filled and painted mind just painted. They won't show, then there is the grubby finger marks from actors and crew they don't show at all.
So I hate to think what these rush job TV "transformations" really look like in the flesh.
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