remodel prices (philly area)

napoleonsays

Hi All,

I grew up an hour or so west of Philadelphia (Lancaster). I Learned drywall from my dad starting at age 8... I recently moved from Lancaster to Philadelphia and the price gap seems to be rather large. We've been doing a lot of remodel the past few yrs (think old city row homes where you've gotta hang over plaster or merge plaster to sheetrock, etc). In Lancaster, we charged about $1.50 a sq ft for those types of jobs (Materials and Labor - both to hang and finish). Now, in Philly, these prices don't seem to fly as it looks as though I'm getting severely underbid on every job. I'm down to bidding at about $1.15 / sq ft and it seems as though I'm still coming in high.

A few months ago I bid on a 65 sheet job (mostly 10 footers since you can't get 12s in the houses here and the supply houses don't even carry 12s). At $1.50 / sq ft (Materials + Hanging + Finishing Labor) the job came out around $3500. The guy who ended up getting the job bid a total of $2000, materials included (which was about $800-1000). If there were two guys on the job, it woulda taken close to 60 hours given the complexity of the work - merging to old plaster, routing out along old windows, crazy angles, tight bathrooms, etc. At that price, the labor works out to somewhere in the $6-8 an hour range. I was shocked.

Anyways, can anyone give advice for a square footage price in the Philly area (particularly the city) for remodels of old row homes? It looks as though if I was to go lower than $1, it wouldn't even be worth the time as my dad and my brother, or even myself, arent' gonna work for $6-8 an hour.

Darren@Partners

Much the same here in KC. Work is going for roughly 1/2-2/3 the price we ought to get. Seems to be shortage of lowballers.

__________________
www.partnersconstruction-drywall.com

napoleonsays

Goodness. Just got underbid again. I looked at a 3-story west Philly rowhouse that worked out to 2,968 sq ft. There were some 10ft ceilings and a TON of patchwork - merging drywall to old plaster, etc. I bid it at just under $1.15 / sq ft for materials, hanging and finishing labor ($3400) and the guy who got the job bid it at $3100 ($1.04 / sq ft) and said he could get the job done in under a week. Given all the patching, I find that hard to believe.

Muddauber

I don't see how anyone can price out a job like that by the sq. ft.

What I do is total up all materials, then estimate how many man hours to hang, finish,& clean up x hourly rate, then plug in overhead & profit.

I doesn't matter if it totals at $1.00 per ft. or $5.00 per ft. It is what it is.


But I feel your pain, it's the same here. We just have to live with the low prices until things pick up.

I survived the early 1980s and I WILL survive this go- round.

napoleonsays

Sometimes, it's really hard to estimate hours if you have a lot of filling in, patching, etc. -- what if you undershoot by 10 hours and you're out a few hundred because of it? Additionally, homeowners or contractors want a concrete price and in my experience, guesstimating hours has been a turn off for them. I know my dad has given estimates that vary several hundred dollars between the high and low guesses on time and materials. We've definitely irritated property owners without a concrete and final number in the past. I look to avoid that now.

$1.50 a sq ft for us usually works out between $25 and $30 an hour (obviously, ,this is pre-recession -- are any hangers or finishers making that now???!!!), though we can be slowed down by excessive use of 20/45/90 minute Easy Sand.

Whitey97

If I can't make $45/hr, I'll sit home and play with my wii

A+ Texture LLC

So your from the Amish country eh? What high school did you go to? I went to Ephrata then Stevens Tech and on to Millersville U. to be a teacher. And here I am doing drywall. Teachers out here in AZ are gettin hosed right now. Glad I changed directions. Then again drywall guys are gettin hosed too.

napoleonsays

oh wow. small world. i went to lancaster christian. my brother's finishing up at Millersville right now and my sister went there and is now teaching at LS.

i heard drywall in the PHX area was booming a few yrs back. there were guys from the east coast going out there 3-4 months at a time and working like crazy and making boatloads of dough.

how bad are things where you are?

A+ Texture LLC

I can stand on my roof and see the border. I also live in the town where the big drywall company got in trouble for hiring illegals, it was headline news. So things here are crappy. I sometimes consider giving up on it and going into border patrol.

napoleonsays

things are bad there cause of all the illegals? economy? both?

what yr did you graduate from Ephrata? we might know some of the same people...

---

just landed a 145 sheet addition for next week. materials are already supplied and i got $15 to hang/finish it per sheet. so that seems alright... any thoughts on that price?

Muddauber

I don't know man.

Is Taco Bell hiring?

A+ Texture LLC

Both, plus AZ was one of the worst states. It could be worse though, I live in a retirement / military town so theres still people that will remodel there houses and a few things on base.
I graduated from Ephrata in '96 but went to Brownstown vo-tech my senior year. I went to a lot of punk and hardcore shows back in the day so I knew a lot of people from Lancaster.
15 a sheet is low in my opinion if rock is supplied. I just bid the finishing and texture for a garage. About 25x25 8' lid, homeowner hung, all stand ups (although for a HO he did an ok job). Told him $1200, he found someone to do it for $600. $800 would have been my real desperate price. The guy that outbid me will be workin for about $13 a sheet. Oh and mud and texture was not included. If you could get it I'd hope for $25-45 a sheet depending on finish.

napoleonsays

geeze. we've never ever gotten more than $8 a sheet to hang or finish. in the past, the best we got for hanging was $7.50 and finishing maybe $8.50. I called a contractor from the Denver PA area today and he said guys are hanging for $5-6 a sheet right now, so $7.50 doesnt sound so bad!

has the central/eastern PA market always been that low comparatively? i've been at this for most of my life (i'm 29) and never heard of anyone getting more than what i described above unless it was crap work - like hanging over plaster or old drywall.

A+ Texture LLC

Couldn't tell you jack about back there, been out here since I got into this trade. And just because thats what I'd like to get it doesn't mean I will or do. I lose jobs on a regular basis because I think my work and work ethics are a lot better than the next numbskull. Take what you can get as long as your making ok money.

d-rock

i heard people around here spent time at punk and hardcore shows..Used to creep around CBGB myself..

A+ Texture LLC

Never made it up to NYC to CBGB but I always wanted to. We used to go to sea sea's, the phoenix in York PA, the Trocedero in Philly and I got the snot beat out of me by a couple skinheads at the electric factory (still missing a tooth). Me don't like skinheads. I definately miss going to shows though. You can't beat hearing the best bands ever and only paying 5 or $10 to see em.

d-rock

been to the TROC and The Electric Factory..What bands did U like?

A+ Texture LLC

NOFX, Bad Religion, Converge, Torn Apart, Fugazi, Earth Crisis, H20, Snapcase, Black Train Jack, Bouncing Souls, Turmoil, Cave In, Vision of Disorder, All else Failed, Hatebreed Sensefield, Modest Mouse, and the list goes on and on. My favorite was converge for a long time. I like unearth and lamb of god, however I've been trying to track down some good christian metal bands and listen to them more.

napoleonsays

i love demon hunter.

d-rock

bouncing souls rock. V.O.D. rocks . I liked Agnostic Front, The Bosstones, Sick of it all, quicksand etc.. Hey, what was that small tiny club in Philly ? it was narrow and long, i think there was a post in the middle of the stage ?