appropriate charges?

Larry (from OSHA)

I know that talk about pricing is politely not spoken about here, and I an not asking about dollar amounts. But, if the installer shows up at the job and needs to go get some black iron 1 1/4 inch tees and elbows and some 6 inch lengths of 1 inch and 1 1/4 inch black pipe along with three 1 inch hydrotrol check valves to be able to do the job because he doesn't have it in the truck, is it reasonable for me to pay the full hourly rate for the 2 hours that he is gone and not actually working on my boiler?

The job entailed changing to pumping away and redoing the piping for the indirect. Yes, the work was done well and the hot water works just fine. I am confident that the space heating zones will be good as well.

As I have not dealt with this type of situation before, I would like to get some perspective as to what is typical and fair. Thanks for your thoughts on this matter.

Larry

Unknown

Was someone there

beforehand to look over the job ? Seems to me that all the parts should have been picked up before the start of work , if it was looked at in advance . Taken to the extreme , what's to stop a contractor from going to and from the supply house for each individual fitting ? Do any T and M guys out there have a maximum amount of travel time that will go on the bill - meaning time to and from for forgotten fittings ? This is one of the reasons we rarely do any type of work on a time and material basis . We like to give one fair price , agreed to in advance .

Dan Peel

half an answer

That's always a tough one. If this was the first time the contractor was able to see the job or it's specific parts requirements then it is well within the scope of the job to require more or different parts than may be on the truck. Often leaving for parts includes some design time. Can you look at the overall cost and see value in the services provided? That will be the true test. Dan

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tim smith

parts pick up w/ travel time

We do tons of this type of work, customer calls in for service call, we find what they need, now we carry lots of fittings and parts, but flow checks and some items not on truck as they are not a normal replacement part needed. Customer wants to get job done, we go get parts and come right back and do it, yes we charge for parts run. Now 2 hrs would seem steep for such parts run in our neck of the woods but yes you would pay for our service time. Tim

Mellow_2

sounds like

this should have been planed out. If you want the serviceman to fix the unit today and not return another day to do the job then I would think he would need something for his time in travel. We always give free est. for jobs that need parts that are not on the vans. This gives us a chance to look at the job and order the parts BUT if it NEEDS to be fixed and can not wait you have to expect it will cost alittle more. This is not a bad thing .........this rarly happends in a well maintained system. hpoe this helps

Ken_8

I agree with all posts

above.

We can and do stock a lot of stuff. We cannot stock everything and since you have a man at X dollars per hour pay, with bennies worth X dollars as well, with a truck worth XX dollars entirely dedicated to the completion of the job - at your home - and at your disposal; it seems only fare that merely because he is not actually installing pipes in your basement - he is nonetheless working on your job exclusively and closer to completion with every moment of his actions.

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Kal Row

half hourly pay, is the common factor, for this type of stuff

EJW

T&M

Ron, T&M is fair also.

Unknown

Sorry

I didn't mean to imply T and M is not fair . What I believe is that T and M , as well as flat rate , can be abused equally by the bad seeds out there .

Ed_13

1/2 hourly pay?

Kal,

I respectfully disagree with ½ rate for parts run. Your cost to operate you business does not go down by ½ when you are running for parts.

You should charge a Fair amount of time for going for the part parts, at your full rate, (no stops at the coffee shop on customer time).
The homeowner needs those parts right now, you don’t.

If the boss asked a tech to accept ½ his normal pay while running for parts, the tech would go insane. He would want full rate

If the tech stopped to gas up the truck, but told the gas station attendant that he only wanted to pay ½ the price for his gas for that trip because he was going for parts, the gas attendant would call the cops. The attendant would want full price for that gas.

If the tech calls the supply house from his cell phone to check for availability of those parts, what do you think the cell phone company would say if he asked to pay ½ price per minute for those calls to get those parts? They would want full price.

I could go on and on, but you see what I mean.

You are a very intelligent person to be doing technical work like this. You deserve to get paid fairly for it. You deserve the same pay whether you are turning a wrench in the homeowner’s basement, or making sure that the supply house guy didn’t give you galvanized for cast in your order.

I (retired) used to offer the customer an option:

1. I will go for the parts right now, and charge them the standard rate for the trip. I will return as quickly as I can and finish the job now. .

2. I will make a parts list, and pick up the parts next time I am at the supply house. I will call and schedule to come back soon, when in the area. I will not charge them for the parts trip, because I am doing it on my time and at my convenience.

Oddly enough, many were willing to wait. Others were happy to pay for the parts run, because it worked better for their schedule and convenience.

The point is that you give them the choice not to pay for a parts run, or to pay for it if they so choose. And you get paid fairly ether way.

Regards,

Ed Carey

Larry (from OSHA)

I appreciate the perspectives

And I might add that whenever the subject of compensation comes up, well lets just say that if we were talking modulating boilers, we're at full fire!

What I've learned here is that both myself and my contractor were not as diligent as we should have been. I spoke to this gentleman on the phone as he was recommended highly. I think I explained as best I could as to what I wanted done and what I had to work with. He said he would send his best tech over to do the job and would probably take half a day. I thought it would take longer, and it did.

Our failings were that the job was not looked at before hand and I should have asked that he look at my system prior to starting the job.

It appears that the check valves and the flange set would not be standard parts on the truck.

So the frustration comes in when a 30 minute trip to the supply house takes an hour and then there still needs to be a trip to home depot to get the stuff that the supply house did not have. So, two trips kill 2 hours instead of some pre-planning. As a homeowner, my fault for lack of due diligence, as a contractor, lack of a good plan for a workday.

So with that, and at the risk of appearing petty, is it is reasonable to ask that one hour of the labor be forgiven as we both share the issues or not?

Again, I do appologize for talking money here, but I want to be fair and be treated fair as well.

Thanks again for all the perspectives.

Larry

joel_19

hmmm

Tough call Larry, from your perspective and not hearing the other side of it I would say you could try, but personally I wouldn't be happy. I'm easier than most with customers and if you where mine I wouldn't like it but I'd probably say fine knowing that if i don't you'll be unhappy and tell LOTS of people . However we also would have never given you a quote without coming to your home looking at your problem, discussing it with you and giving you a written proposal. We don't even call them "estimates" as that's not accurate, that's what you got on the phone. You mentioned that you thought he did a great job. So you have to ask yourself is it worth it to you as well? If you like thier work and want additional things done in the future that company may not be inclined to help you. Then in the future what are you going to do? Try someone else who may not do quality work and that could wind up costing you much more than paying company#1. Which leads us right back to the written proposal.......

joel_19

Ed!!!

You are sooooooooo right couldn't have said it better myself!

Steve Eayrs

Larry

we do a fair amount of our work of this type on a t&m basis. I have found that as long as you have a trust with the customer that you will do the best you can at the best possible price, then they always agree to t&m. It is not always easy to gain trust.

Time is the issue here. I know some like flat rates or bidding everything, but this is not free time. It is included in your bill. If I need to make a trip, just to spend an hour looking at details, then return to the shop, write a proposal up, then deliver it back to you, I have taken a lot of time. Even for those who are set up to bid on site, the labor it takes, IMHO is beter spent on doing the actual work. There are many times, this bsy time of year, I have had to tell people that the only way we could even fit their job in, would be to just be able to show up and do it.

I usually let people know that they cannot have it both ways. If you want a bid, then I can do it and will try to add in my labor time for doing the bid. Or you can just hire us to show up and do the job. We can try to have the parts, but there are many times we need to run for something that we only found out was worn out or defective after tearing things down. Which by the way would not be covered by any bid anyway.

I try to include enough in a bid to include reasonable possible unseen problems. To do otherwise would be to take a loss on about every third job.
In a way you take a gamble with T&M, but if you hire an honest hard working guy, there is a good chance it will cost less than a flat rate or bid would.


Not really a direct answer to your question. We try real hard to keep the trucks stocked good, we do occasionally run low on common parts. These are what I would consider some of the unseen costs as mentioned above. They are also factored in on most bids too, its just you don't directly see them.
Either way we need to get paid for the time spent, or we will not be in this trade very long.


Steve

Larry (from OSHA)

perspectives received

I would like to thank everyone who posted sharing their thoughts on this. I have gained some good insight here. As it stands, as much as I'd feel justified asking for some price relief, I can now certainly see that there are at least as many reasons why it would be improper. I suspect that I am in the minority of people that ask for work to be done when the system actually still works. I just wanted it to be right. I look forward to a system that operates as well as it can.

Here are a few before and after pics.

Larry

Floyd_5

If that was me......

I'd would have been ripping and tearing and starting all over.... would not have even wanted to do just what he did for you... never should have even thought to give you a price "over the phone" for that kind of work.

Still more to be done there......

Floyd

Larry (from OSHA)

Floyd

Could you elaborate a little about ripping and tearing and more to be done? And yes, as I said, there is enough shared blame for the "over the phone" portion.

Larry

Floyd_6

My first impresion....

was that you really only switched the circ. pump and the zone valves around, it still looks cluttered and not very organized.
I would have wanted to get the supply header up, get a Spirovent and expansion tank hooked in there before the pumps. Then clean things up a bit, but that would have been at least another half day and 500 bucks worth of materials. Sounds like you would'nt have sprung for that.
Not that any of that would have made you system work that much better... but it would have been much prettier and would have purged it's self.
While you were at it you could have install P/S piping and then you would have been all ready to install a new Ultra when the old Weilly Mac dies....
That would have been my sales pitch.... bet I could have sold you on it, too :-)
Nothing better than selling UP......

Floyd

Wayne_9

The parts run

As an A/C tech, I cannot keep all of the parts needed on my service truck. What my company is finding out that helps is for the service tech to decide how much work is on the site, and how long until he needs those parts. Then Call in to the supply house, place the order, then call in a mesenger service to deliver the needed parts directly to the job while the tech does other things. It has saved both time and money for the company and the customer. I live in the Orlando Florida area and supply house runs have taken as long as 3 hours to get those parts. The customer see's us working while the parts are in route.

Wayne

Larry (from OSHA)

Floyd

Thanks for your clarification. But, I have a compression tank which works just fine and the boiler has a built in air eliminator in the block (but you already know that). As far as piping it P/S, it was considered but deemed not necessary with consideration to the rest of the system which is three zones of baseboard with no future plans for any low temp radiant. As it has worked fine for the past nearly 20 years piped without P/S, the 2 contractors that looked at it (one came over and looked and then was apparently too busy to provide a bid, so he didn't do the job) and the one that actually did the work also thought that P/S would be overkill. (not a bad thing, but an additional circulator and just not needed all things considered). I thought the end result was considerably less cluttered then when we started, and while not quite in the heating season yet, after running it for both the indirect and checking operation of the 3 zones, it purges itself quite well actually.

Larry

Floyd_5

Hey, If your happy...

That's all that really matters!!!
I just have this habit of selling everything that I possibly can on a job....just the way I'm wired... I guess it shows here also :-)

I'm really glad your happy with the job that you got.


Many a warm night to you!!!!

Floyd

Larry (from OSHA)

If money were no object

I would have replaced the boiler with some high tech whiz bang goodie and would no doubt be camped out in the basement even more than I am now. My wife already thinks I'm crazy and my kids just look at me funny! I thought I was a little extravagent with the purchase of the digital temp gauge that reads both supply and return, but it is both accurate and useful.

Larry

Mad Dog

Can see where you got annoyed

but no one is perfect and in this business some times it is amazing we can even get to alot of jobs on time. We do flat rate, so it is not an issue, but years ago when I did T & M there were a few arguments: " I think you should have had that on your truck....( But ma'am, this comes in 4 different versions!!!!) Did I pay for you while you had lunch????? That type of stuff. To me, flat rate clears the way and puts the onus on us to work efficiently and smart - not the homeowner. Mad Dog

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Mad Dog

You're right

Mad Dog

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Larry (from OSHA)

Mad Dog

Thanks very much for your reply. Like I said, a lot of this is on me and will fall under the heading of "Education"! It's just hard to choke down the bill when you figure that if the guy and I had done our homework, I'd pay about $185.00 less. (I apologize for even bringing up dollars) Ya know, it's just enough to be annoying, but I'm cutting a check tonite for the whole amount. In the scheme of things, it is not enough to screw around with. By the way, I'm glad your mom is doing good and I hope that she will be telling you what to do and give you advice for years to come!!!

The best to you,

Larry