P&M Mag

Bob Bona_4

Look in November's P&M, the first letter pretty much says it all about who gets the shaft doing business with big box or big oil subcontracting.

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DanHolohan

Here's the link:

http://www.pmmag.com/CDA/ArticleInformation/features/BNP__Features__Item/0,2379,86907,00.html

ScottMP

Right from the horses mouth

This is your business.

This is you business being run by some one else.

Any Questions.

Scott

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mp1969

Good job!

PM does a great job for our industry for the most part by providing industry friendly info. Dan H. is one of the finest examples of this!
Beware of those contributors that are almost entirely self serving (some have tremendous negative influence)
For the most part the comments and letters to the editors, sort through all this.
I met Dan @ the ISH NA and his seminars are witty entertaining and well worth anyone's time!!
Keep up the good work Chief Wethead!
This forum is top shelf and a tremendous resource at our finger tips!

MP 1969

Name withheld upon request

Atleast get it straight

For years around here the Gas Company paid 90 dollars to re and re a water heater, then came deregulation.
When you were a water heater contractor water heaters were delivered or picked up in in bulk, when you have a million in houses there are always lots to replace.
The two man crews that replaced the water heaters were paid 30 dollars per heater, and averaged two per hour.
Now you might ask how is this possible, well its called efficiency.
Then along came Home Depot and the contractors fell in line, same price same work right, wrong.
When you have to pickup one job at a time you lose, the same as when you dispose of one job at a time you lose.
It’s obvious that the contractor that wrote the article knew nothing about the world of volume.
Two men average 30 dollars an hour each or the mechanic got 40 and the helper got 20.
The company that held the contract got 60 x2= 120 dollars an hour per crew to live on.
The contractor in your mag did an average of 12 jobs a day for a year; a water heater was 85 dollars yet he only did 100000 worth of work for an average of 32 dollars a job.
Personally I don’t think Name withheld can add, maybe that's why he looses 1 dollar a job.

Dave Yates (PAH)

I'd like

to hire those two miracle workers who can install an average of 1 water heater per each 1/2 hour! At $30 bucks an hour, they're selling themselves short(G). Must be selling swamp land and old bridges too! What you been smokin?

I don't care how you do the math, you will not be profitable when taking on the installations for the Big Box stores. How do I know that to be a fact? Call me curious, but I've made it a habit to chase that rabbitt down the time warp hole (they use to blow sunshine up your skirt) and getting at the truth by sitting down and discussing their program. After signing off to promise no disclosure of actual numbers, they were more than willing to lay their cards on the table. If you take the time to crunch the numbers, and I did, no amount of volume can possibly turn a profit. With two of them, I returned with a counter proposal just for fun. I wish you could have seen the looks on the program manager's faces.

$85.00 to replace a water heater? You might as well write them a check and stay home. You'll be further ahead. Go ahead - sell yourself short. There's an army of idiots waiting to follow in your footsteps. That "name withheld" is continuing to do business at a loss with those two firms affirms that claim. If he's paying the mechanics $20.00, then his overhead will dictate an average bare bones minimum of $50.00 per hour must be charged and most likely an hourly billing rate higher than that is warranted - just to break even. If he's not selling materials with a mark-up to generate profits, then he's spinning his wheels.

10 lashes with an accountant's pencil sharpener's electric cord!

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ScottMP

Glad you spoke Dave

I was trying to figure out that magic act myself.

Even if you could get two guys to acomplish that feat, how long could they keep it up. I know after a week I'd be done. And how about safty standards ? I am sorry , you can't work that fast and not have a slip up, some ones bound to get hurt. If not the installer than worse, a homeowner.

And another thing, are all these house sitting next to each other ? I guess traffic dos'nt come into play here ? What do you do a development a week ?

And these men are payed vacation time, holidays, retirement fund, work clothes, health insurance, covered by a company workmans compensation ?

Puuullleessee

Scott



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joel_14

Name withheld

I'd with hold my name as well if i wrote that. Simply put No way you can do them that fast and even if you could that is not enough money. First it's going to take you more than half an hour just to get a permit for each one. Even if you could do it in that time there is no way those numbers add up enough to cover basic neccesities like health insurance or other over head.

Duncan_2

Made my day.

Dave, I could picture the steam coming out your ears as you wrote that! Kinda like a Dave Yates/Dr. Jeckle and a PAH/Mr. Hyde.

Hope your keyboard's OK.

But how do you REALLY feel, without sugar coating it?

Mark J Strawcutter

I suspect

that "name withheld" operates under the old business model "I loose a little bit on each job but make it up in volume" :-)

Mark

Joe Grosso

Name withheld

Gents,
Please let a fool like this talk.All it does is prove our point.I am a owner of a full service fuel oil company and you can not make it up in volume as this person would like us to believe.I have a family member that has his own fuel business that tries to run his business in this way.Always behind the eight ball,always crying that he never makes a dime.Plus does some really sad installs.Will always have these fools out there screwing it up for us.Just do it with pride and charge for your craftsmanship.Cream always rises to the top.

Dave Yates (PAH)

Duncan, my brother from another mother!

That WAS the sugar coated version. The verbal portion is not fit for repeating and a dark shade of blue! Angry? No, sad that in spite of many efforts to educate contractors by people like Dan, Ellen Rohr, Oz, Frank Blau (and others almost too numerous to mention who have all stressed knowing what the hell it costs to run your business as a professional - and I don't mean for only FR or T&M, but for either style); that there continue to be "businessmen" in these trades that operate completely in the dark! I feel badly that they and their loved ones will never realize their dreams and are relegated to suffer the lot of the damned as they slog through the mire they're creating while remaining deliberately ignorant of the facts.

Yup, cream rises to the top all right, but turds float too!

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