Need a bit of advice, we are a small building firm and get quite a lot of skimming jobs, usually small domestic jobs like skimming a living room or kitchen, sometimes an entire house. We are just not sure about our plasterer, his work is usually decent but he just seems unbelievably slow. We pay him £20 an hour and a labourer for him at £15 an hour. We do 10 hr days so he is on £200 a day. We have 2 bedrooms to skim this week about 36m2 each and he says it will take 5 days and wants me to price it for almost £5,000, which for 2 small bedrooms just seems insane.
£5,000 for 2 small bedrooms ?
- Thread starter bekter
- Start date
Cockney
Well-Known Member
Why have you got to price it for £5000?
Do you honestly think it’s fair that you are only paying a skilled tradesman £20 an hour?? Which by the way is £5 more an hour than you are paying for a labourer to scratch his arse and play on his phone.
Up the Plasterers money you tight b*****d!
Sitemonkey
Well-Known Member
I'll do it for a grand cash nice Xmas bonus that . Lol
clone of lurpak
Well-Known Member
fk me you're seriously over-skimming that mess?
no wonder the trades gone to shite with galloping wallopers like you getting involved in it
no wonder the trades gone to shite with galloping wallopers like you getting involved in it
We are in the Scottish Highlands the going rate here for most trades is about £18.50 an hour, usually our guys only work 37 hrs a week which often includes 2 hrs traveling a day but we pay them 50 hrs a week. Our Labourer is a wee grafter probably deserves more than £15 an hour tbh. The Labourer will sheet the fireplace wall and does a pretty decent job prepping all the other walls. The £5000 is based on 5 days, we pay £20 an hour and £15 an hour but charge customer £40 and £30. By the time we add on travel, ferry costs, materials etc it ends up about £1000 a day. We want quality work over quantity, his work is usually good although we have had a couple of really bad jobs that had to be re-done. He is significantly slower than our father who just retired, but then he had been a plasterer for over 50 years so probably an unfair comparison. The walls are bad but the other rooms where no better and came up pretty well. The main reason I am asking on here is that my father keeps telling us to price for say 3 days while our new plasterer will say 5 days. We want to be fair to the new plasterer if 5 days is what it takes to get a decent job done then fair enough. Thanks for all your replies
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Sitemonkey
Well-Known Member
Yes it's needs a fukin hand grenade . WANK
Monkey Boy
Well-Known Member
That fireplace looks like the trash heap from fragile rock
The fireplace wall is getting sheeted and the Labourer does a pretty decent job prepping the other walls. Its our plasterer that decides if walls need sheeted or not, he is the one that has decided to use 2 coats multi-finish.
Ritch
Well-Known Member
Bekter u need to stay away from skimming /plastering jobs full stop. 20 notes a hour for a spread
John j
Mono Don
My mates just started for a firm . Says he takes £550 home. Loves it . Says no rush just turn up. Got van tools fuel card .
Still don't know how he pays his bill like. Rents 700 a month alone
Danny
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I have the odd job I do for a builder (use that term losely) and I just switch off and plod... no care in the world
Scottish Highlands is pretty cheap, rent a 3 bedroom house for less than £400 a month. All our guys have left other firms because we pay higher hourly rates pay them an extra 10 hrs a week that they don't actually have to work in appreciation for doing a good job, provide them all with vans without trackers and fuel cards , pay accommodation and bonuses for staying away from home, Bonuses for completing jobs on time etc, pay for all their tools.Bekter u need to stay away from skimming /plastering jobs full stop. 20 notes a hour for a spread
Stewie03
Well-Known Member
Looks like it all needs taking off laths removed and plasterboarded and skimmed that will be cracking by Sunday
Danny
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When do i start?
ChrispyUK
Well-Known Member
Well that’s your 15 quid earned!
algeeman
It’s A Boy
algeeman
It’s A Boy
algeeman
It’s A Boy
site slags ??
algeeman
It’s A Boy
so it's a grand a day
is there no digs there
I'm going back to the groundworkers forum
not 1 man is sober there
Sorry if I am not explaining myself very well, my dad was our plasterer, he would usually skim a room in a day no problem, he is now 70 and retired, our new plasterer would be lucky to skim a ceiling and 1 wall in the same time. My brothers think we should get rid of him, pack in the plastering side of the business. Its the lease profitable and most hassle. I don't want to do that, we are virtually the only people that employ plasterers in a 60 mile radius and it would mean making 3 decent guys unemployed. The new guys work is usually decent, customers are usually happy with it. But we are struggling with pricing jobs and just looking for some advice as to what people think is reasonable. If it takes him and a labourer 5 days to skim 72m2 that's over £24 a m2, while I have my dad ranting that he used to skim walls by himself for £2 a m2.
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paulf
Well-Known Member
What's the going rate for a hand grenade in Manchester, a tenner.
Cockney
Well-Known Member
essexandy
The Lake Governor
If you didn't employ these spreads they'd then work directly for the clients, they'd make more money, the clients would be paying less money and only you would be worse off.
Stewie03
Well-Known Member
That’s my day rate mate
Your dad is living in the past and as a partner in the firm used to make more than£2/hour. There is no incentive for him to work faster, only your firm benefits. Whilst you possibly overpay on benefits etc why would he work harder/faster? He might also be resentful that your making money on him when he could have priced directly to the customer (and not understand the cost/stress of employing someone)
Give him a price for the job, and let him get on with it. Who are these 3 extra guys that are apparently dependent on him? Make him a subbie and you can still do the proper prep, as you should for this rank room. e.g. don't just throw a board over the fireplace, clean it up, strip the lath, sort the chimney/pot and ventilation. 2nd fix painting etc.
Give him a price for the job, and let him get on with it. Who are these 3 extra guys that are apparently dependent on him? Make him a subbie and you can still do the proper prep, as you should for this rank room. e.g. don't just throw a board over the fireplace, clean it up, strip the lath, sort the chimney/pot and ventilation. 2nd fix painting etc.
paulf
Well-Known Member
Absolutely, that's not a skim job.
I wouldn't be confident of the longevity of just pva and skim on the other walls.
@bekter I get that you look after your guys and where you operate makes it difficult to source plasterers. The way I see it your giving too much leeway. Let's put it this way your guys have already made their money before they've even left the van. Then we get to 10 hour days on day rate which is utter madness.
You also have to factor in the labourer, if he's any good he makes the plasterers job ten times easier because all you have to do is plaster. You would expect the production rate to go up, but instead you've got two guy's pissing about squeezing as mutch as they can out of day rate.
There just no incentive there because you're doing all the heavy lifting.