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I finally saw the light on quoting jobs after a bad week in Red Deer
For years I'd just eyeball a job and throw out a round number, thinking I was saving time. Then last fall I had three jobs in Red Deer go sideways in one week because I missed stuff like old asbestos tape on the ducts and a furnace that needed a full new flue. The one that really got me was a $1200 call back because I didn't factor in the extra time for a tight attic crawl. Now I do a full walk through with a checklist and itemize everything. How do you guys make sure your quotes cover the hidden problems?
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hall.charles9d ago
Laura's got a point about clients shopping your list around, that's a real problem. A full walk through for every little job seems like overkill and eats up your day. Sometimes you just have to know your costs and add a good buffer for the weird stuff. Building that fat contingency into your round number is still a form of covering your butt, just a faster one. The trick is making your buffer big enough without pricing yourself out of the work.
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kelly.robin9d ago
That fat contingency is the only way to survive.
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black.laura9d ago
That "full walk through with a checklist" sounds like a ton of extra time on jobs you might not even get. I still ballpark a lot of smaller jobs because clients here will just take the detailed quote and shop it around. I got burned spending an hour on a full write-up for a water heater swap, only to have the homeowner use my list to get a cheaper price from a handyman. Sometimes you just have to build a fat contingency into your round number and move on.
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