Pricing radiant floors

John Barba_6

Well stated, Tim. The other half of the equation is selling even though your prices are higher than your competitors. Go to the following link and buy this guy's books and stuff. He's the best there is!

http://www.pricingexpert.com/catalog/index.php

JMB

Wayco Wayne_2

Please! Do not give prices.

I think I just lost a big radiant floor job because of high price. I want to sharpen my pencil and make sure I'm not over charging and losing opportunities. How much time do you figure per square foot, for; In slab radiant, Plates and pex, and top of floor systems, (ex quik trak). Do you include the manifold? Controls? How do you break it down? I've been told I could cut labor by going Onyx and no plates. How much btu per sq ft can it generate? I'm curious about the new Graphx sub floor material. When will it be available. Will it be less expensive than plates? I'd rather be working, but not for free either.

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Wayco Wayne_2

Bump

If you want you can E-mail me at wacrump@aol.com. Thanks for any help

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

joel_19

cost

Up here in mass i would not even dream about using something with out plates,just asking for trouble. have you counted your cost as recomended by Ellen,Frank Blau and others? If so then you know your labor costs are accurate. Does the other guy? probably not. Even at that there may be ways you can work more efficently to improve things and bring costs down some. How many employees? How many trucks do you run? Ratio of office staff to field people? Ratio of head techs to helpers? % of gross sales to advertising dollars? How many sales leads run per week by your sales force? Closing ratio? These are a few places to start email me if you want to talk specifics jboucher@boucherenergy.com

Supply House Rick

Here's some data

This eye opening information is based on 110'F water temperature. This will help you sell a true energy efficient radiant system...

Rick

Wayco Wayne_2

Thanks for the E-mails guys.

It's all food for thought and it's interesting to dissect what I do after all these years of installing radiant floors. I put my first RF in 18 years ago, using Heatways "Twintran" product. (Ack! where did the time go?) I've been running with a square foot number for years now giving no thought to analyzing why and how. Now customers are more cautious about pricing and I'm not the only one doing RF any more so I have to be more competitive. The material costs are the easy part. Tubing, plates, fasteners, manifolds. The hard part is the labor. Things are so variable. Every job has surprises. Surprises that eat into your projected time. How long to drill holes in all the joists? Is the drill bit sharp or not? How many nails are in the way? What kind of obstacles to your tubing runs exist? Some jobs flow, others go slow. Crystal balls are no where to be found. One rule of thumb given me yesterday was 200 ft of tubing per hour installation time. I'm guessing with plates that is doubled. Is that with 2 men or one? I have been doing a sq ft estimate that includes back to the manifold and pricing the interface with the hot water source seperately since that is WAY variable. Any ways thanks agin and if you have any more input it is welcome. WW

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Wayco Wayne_2

Thanks for the post Rick

I've not installed Raupanel yet but it looks like it takes the worry out of being close. I have exerience with Quik Trak. I like it a lot. Both are kinda pricey though, and if the job has been insulated well you may not need that kind of capacity. Then again, if you have a room with lots of glass that extra capacity would save you needing to add supplemental heat. Then again, you now have ME's magic windows to fill that need. :P WW

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Tim Doran_4

Thoughts

Was your price truely too high or was the winning price unrealistically low? My Dad always told me that it may be better to cry over loosing a job than to cry over getting one. I have a spread sheet that I use to help keep my pricing consistant. It has factors for sqft per hour for all types of applications. My figures are dervived from experience with my crew and my way of doing things and we review/update them a few times per year based on recent projects.

To get it right without being too high or worse yet too low you have to have your cost of doing business to the penny and you have to know how productive your operation is on an application specific basis. No point in practicing work.

Tim D.

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Wayco Wayne_2

Thank you John



To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"