Estimates_Pricing


Estimates, Quotes and Pricing in General: This is a topic most people in the trades like to dance around. We don't really understand why, it just seems to be the way things are. It seems kind of silly, really. Whether you are a doctor, police officer or plumber, and whether you work for someone else or own your own business, we are all in it to make a living. We base the price we give you pretty much the same way everyone else does. You call us about a job and want to know how much of your hard-earned money it will take for us to do what you want done. We base our response on several factors such as how long we estimate it will take us to do the actual work, how much time we will have to spend acquiring the materials for the job and the number of repeat trips to your home we will have to make to get it done. Note please the term “estimate”. It gets used a lot in our line of work, sometimes correctly, sometimes not. There is a difference between “estimate” and “quote”. An estimate is really an informed “guesstimate”, and may change based on anything unknown that may be encountered after the fact. This can just as easily work in the client's favor as it may in the contractor's. A quote is usually a firm, fixed price, unless otherwise pre-negotiated. A quote is usually based upon the variables that may or may not be found once the job has begun. We feel that you, as a client, are better served with an estimate than you are with a quote. Here's an example of why. We had a call from a homeowner who told us they had some dry rot starting in the half-wall on their outside covered porch. They wanted it replaced, so we went and looked at the job. Taken strictly at face value, it was simple and straightforward. Pull off the old material and install the new wood. The homeowners planned to stain and polyurethane it themselves (we have no problem at all with this). Basically, it was five, 60-inch pieces of ship lapped pine. From start to finish, maybe four hours including clean up, not including the time involved in selecting five pieces of siding that matched up well.
The first nail that we pulled offered virtually no resistance, indicating one of two things. It was either not nailed into the inside framework (it happens), or the inside framework had begun to deteriorate. In this case, it was the latter. As soon as we had the siding removed, we found not decay and rot, but where a colony of carpenter ants had made their home and lived quite well for apparently quite a long time. We stopped what we were doing at that point and called the homeowner to discuss what they wanted done.
	We ended up having to add an additional six hours to the original four, because the old material had to be removed to a point where the new material could be securely fastened to the existing sound frame. The porch had been there for about 30 years, and when it had been built, the builder had not used pressure treated material. Pressure treating will not stop ant infestation; carpenter ants will happily live in most any kind of wood with moisture content higher than 15%. We chose, however, to do the repair with pressure treated, as it is moisture-resistant and does seem to deter insects better than untreated wood does.
While we had the wall open, we found that the supporting foundation beam running beneath the wall had deteriorated as well. While the homeowner was not happy to hear it, better they find out now that when the porch begins to sag or collapses outright. This is not usually the type of work we do, but we did help the homeowners to find a local contractor willing to do the work at a reasonable price.
Why don't we do this type of work? 1 st Impressions Sell was conceived first and foremost to work directly with real estate professionals getting their listings ready for the real estate market. This usually means two or three days in and out, done in a very timely manner. No one wants to hear, “sure, we can get to it in three or four weeks”. In the example we list above, there was no emergency; the floor was still very solid. There are a number of qualified, licensed frame and foundation contractors in the area who can schedule this in between some of their larger jobs.
	The other side of this coin, and the point of this page is that had we given a flat-rate quote for the job, it would have been based on replacing not only the siding, but all of the internal framing, just in case. Had we opened the wall and found no damage, the quote would have been the agreed-upon price and all of the returned material would have simply been credited back to our account. We're nice enough guys, but not philanthropists.

We found that the sill, while having some soft spots, was in overall pretty good shape. It had cupped some over the years, and we would have been justified in suggesting replacement to the homeowner. However, doing so would have required further deconstruction of the porch and trim. We simply cut back the soft areas, treated them with a wood hardener and brought the surface back to level with wood filler. This does not lend itself to stain and will need priming and painting, but was considerably less expensive for the homeowner than the alternative.
What is a reasonable price? That depends on several things, but this is one area where the homeowner should know a little about what they are asking to have done. The best advice we can give is to ask questions and continue to do so until you are both satisfied with and understand completely the responses. We can't speak for other contractors, but we are happy to have the homeowner watch us work, and ask questions as we do. It is, after all, your home and your money. A word about estimates. Some contractors do free estimates. We do not. We have structured our pricing at a level that the client is paying only for the work that we actually do. In order to keep our price structure as low as we have it, we do not build time and money spent on traveling to give estimates into our jobs. We will charge you a nominal one-time fee to come and look at your work, currently $25.00 within Plymouth County. If you choose to have us do the work, we will credit the fee back to you on your bill (no, we do not pad the bill in any way to boost revenue).
More questions? Call us at 339-469-1916, or email us

Estimates, Quotes and Pricing in General:

This is a topic most people in the trades like to dance around. We don't really understand why, it just seems to be the way things are. It seems kind of silly, really. Whether you are a doctor, police officer or plumber, and whether you work for someone else or own your own business, we are all in it to make a living.

We base the price we give you pretty much the same way everyone else does. You call us about a job and want to know how much of your hard-earned money it will take for us to do what you want done. We base our response on several factors such as how long we estimate it will take us to do the actual work, how much time we will have to spend acquiring the materials for the job and the number of repeat trips to your home we will have to make to get it done.

Note please the term “estimate”. It gets used a lot in our line of work, sometimes correctly, sometimes not. There is a difference between “estimate” and “quote”. An estimate is really an informed “guesstimate”, and may change based on anything unknown that may be encountered after the fact. This can just as easily work in the client's favor as it may in the contractor's.

A quote is usually a firm, fixed price, unless otherwise pre-negotiated. A quote is usually based upon the variables that may or may not be found once the job has begun. We feel that you, as a client, are better served with an estimate than you are with a quote. Here's an example of why.

We had a call from a homeowner who told us they had some dry rot starting in the half-wall on their outside covered porch. They wanted it replaced, so we went and looked at the job. Taken strictly at face value, it was simple and straightforward. Pull off the old material and install the new wood. The homeowners planned to stain and polyurethane it themselves (we have no problem at all with this). Basically, it was five, 60-inch pieces of ship lapped pine. From start to finish, maybe four hours including clean up, not including the time involved in selecting five pieces of siding that matched up well.

The first nail that we pulled offered virtually no resistance, indicating one of two things. It was either not nailed into the inside framework (it happens), or the inside framework had begun to deteriorate. In this case, it was the latter.

As soon as we had the siding removed, we found not decay and rot, but where a colony of carpenter ants had made their home and lived quite well for apparently quite a long time. We stopped what we were doing at that point and called the homeowner to discuss what they wanted done.

We ended up having to add an additional six hours to the original four, because the old material had to be removed to a point where the new material could be securely fastened to the existing sound frame. The porch had been there for about 30 years, and when it had been built, the builder had not used pressure treated material.

Pressure treating will not stop ant infestation; carpenter ants will happily live in most any kind of wood with moisture content higher than 15%. We chose, however, to do the repair with pressure treated, as it is moisture-resistant and does seem to deter insects better than untreated wood does.

While we had the wall open, we found that the supporting foundation beam running beneath the wall had deteriorated as well. While the homeowner was not happy to hear it, better they find out now that when the porch begins to sag or collapses outright. This is not usually the type of work we do, but we did help the homeowners to find a local contractor willing to do the work at a reasonable price.

Why don't we do this type of work? 1 st Impressions Sell was conceived first and foremost to work directly with real estate professionals getting their listings ready for the real estate market. This usually means two or three days in and out, done in a very timely manner. No one wants to hear, “sure, we can get to it in three or four weeks”. In the example we list above, there was no emergency; the floor was still very solid. There are a number of qualified, licensed frame and foundation contractors in the area who can schedule this in between some of their larger jobs.

The other side of this coin, and the point of this page is that had we given a flat-rate quote for the job, it would have been based on replacing not only the siding, but all of the internal framing, just in case.

Had we opened the wall and found no damage, the quote would have been the agreed-upon price and all of the returned material would have simply been credited back to our account. We're nice enough guys, but not philanthropists.

We found that the sill, while having some soft spots, was in overall pretty good shape. It had cupped some over the years, and we would have been justified in suggesting replacement to the homeowner. However, doing so would have required further deconstruction of the porch and trim. We simply cut back the soft areas, treated them with a wood hardener and brought the surface back to level with wood filler. This does not lend itself to stain and will need priming and painting, but was considerably less expensive for the homeowner than the alternative.

What is a reasonable price? That depends on several things, but this is one area where the homeowner should know a little about what they are asking to have done. The best advice we can give is to ask questions and continue to do so until you are both satisfied with and understand completely the responses. We can't speak for other contractors, but we are happy to have the homeowner watch us work, and ask questions as we do. It is, after all, your home and your money.

A word about estimates. Some contractors do free estimates. We do not. We have structured our pricing at a level that the client is paying only for the work that we actually do. In order to keep our price structure as low as we have it, we do not build time and money spent on traveling to give estimates into our jobs. We will charge you a nominal one-time fee to come and look at your work, currently $25.00 within Plymouth County. If you choose to have us do the work, we will credit the fee back to you on your bill (no, we do not pad the bill in any way to boost revenue).

More questions? Call us at 339-469-1916, or email us