Musing ........ rant

Comments inserted.

"The Reverend Natural Light" wrote

Reading over the comments in this thread, I can't help but comment on your silly comments.

I'm not in the construction business, but, even I know there is more to a wall than being straight. Plumb comes to mind.

Not only must a door close, the gap reveal must be symmetrical, and hit symmetrical on the stop. There must be no binding on the hinges when opening or closing.

You sir, are an idiot. You either do not work, or have never held meaningful employment. You entirely miss Kirk's point of being a professional.

I'm not a contractor, but I smell a wannabe.

Or, another way to look at it -- not unreasonable for someone to want to bring home, say, $50k/year. If on a 2-week vacation, 10-holidays,

--

I suspect the OP has realized his comment was absurd, and he will not be back to the discussion.

For the simple reason that they need to make a living. While the amount they charge may seem high, consider that it is their total compensation package: Overhead (truck and tools), bookkeeping, liability insurance, license, worker's comp, medical, vacation, sick pay, etc. A good rule of thumb for a self employed person is that the real take home is about half of the hourly rate--that is, a self employed carpenter that is charging 30 bucks and hour is doing as well as the guy making 15 bucks and hour at a regular job.

On the other had, judging from the tone of your post, they may have smelled that you are a jerk and charged accordingly. That's what I would have done.

How long did the work take you to complete?

How long did he say the work would take to complete? Why are you afraid to answer this simple, yet revealing question, Steve?

There's a big cost if they're not done right.

Steve

I can see you are ignorant of contracting. In a contract, you say, "I will build your spare bedroom for $6,789." Notice the period. There's usually a deadline for completion, but no hourly rate is quoted. A total price for a specified job is a contract. Other than that, it qualifies as hourly handyman rate. Any time either of the two parties is dissatisfied, they can part. In a contract, things are entirely different.

But you knew that, right?

Steve

Exactly. Why pay someone what comes out to over fifty dollars an hour for something so simple as hanging doors, installing baseboard and putting on locks?

Steve

"A professional always does the job correct, regardless the field or nature of the work"?

Boy, you've either been smoking some REALLY GOOD S*IT or you are not from this solar system. Which is it?

Steve

How long do YOU think it would take a person of average intelligence to learn to hang prehung doors, cut baseboard, and install indoor passage locksets? With good tools.

Steve

Funny thing, though. This guy lives two doors down from me. I notice that during the time I'm doing this job, his truck and work trailer are sitting at his house. If he had given me a reasonable price, I'd have had him do the work. I consider over $300 a day for very simple work to be unreasonable. I guess he considers working for less than $300 a day to be unreasonable, so he sits at home and makes zero.

But I get the last laugh when he asks if I'm ready to have that work done and I get to say I did it myself.

Steve

Cheapest Home Depot interior prehung doors with jambs on the planet.

Simplest MDF.

Again, simplest cheapest no key passage knobsets on the planet.

Yeah, a thousand Porter Cable nails are way up to around eleven bucks now. That's more than a penny apiece!

Used two. A six foot Metabo for plumb, and a two foot aluminum for level.

Been there, done that, got the T shirt. Was a steel erection contractor. And no, I wouldn't show up with a truck full of equipment and two men for less than $800 a day. But we were doing REAL work requiring NDT and industrial inspector's approval, and not using very simple hand tools to do a VERY simple job that a teen ager could be taught in a week.

Jerk? Hardly. Just someone who can smell a rat. I'm a jerk for asking him to come into my home, and do work for money? And then I'm a jerk for not paying a lot of money for a little work?

If that's what you would have done, then you would have been sitting there idle while your overhead motor was running ............ intake zero, outgo passing sixty ........... just like he did. He preferred to stay at home instead of work. Living a half assed life in a manufactured home on relative's property, and getting unemployment about three months a year. Driving a piece of s*it truck, and living a underachiever life.

Whatever winds yer clock.

Steve

I can think of three possible reasons:

1. The hirer hasn't a clue as to how to do the work

1. The hirer has no desire to do the work

2. The hirer knows that some things that seem simple aren't. Hanging doors, for example. How many DIY know how to use shims? Know that their purpose is not just to fill space but to tweak jambs perpendicular to the wall and themselves? In the case of baseboards, how many know how to spile? Cope inside corners? Or *why* inside corners should be coped? Hmm?

He's too busy admiring his cheapo HD doors, tinny passage locks and MDF baseboards.

Highly variable. Since our failing public schools no longer teach any manual skills, most of the public has no exposure to actually doing anything physical. Some people would learn and get it right in a couple days, other could keep trying for months and still not get it right.

Hardly a jerk? My mind's made up.

Yeah, I'm an engineer ("I are an engineer") and I do count my time againt what I pay, and it's usually a positive equation.

That said, I'd do my own locks, and doors and baseboards probably would be folded into another bigger project I hire out. The carpentry skills are ones that I just don't have the time or wherewithall to develop. Think, the first time doing the baseboards - I'd be going through some trial and error or at least proceeding very slowly, then never doing that again for a long time.

That said, the OP quote does sound like a lot - presumably he got more quotes. Mebbe the contractor put on a PIA 'combat pay' bonus for himself... ;-)

Banty