Quote:
Originally Posted by will76
+5 who doesn't understand the cost involved with running a business. How much overhead do you pay, how much do you pay for insurance, workers comp, etc... to do the work yourself.... NOTHING.
There is a reason that the companies were bidding $550 - $750 they have bills to pay. Lets see, you wanted them to tear it down, load it, transport it to the dump, and dump it (was there a charge to dump, most places do) and it was two of you. So they would have had to put two workers on this, which would have likely taken them 4 hours to go there, do all the work, loading, clean up site, go to dump, dump, clean truck, return to office. They spent money on gas, the company had to pay for vehicles, ins for vehicles, and 8 man hours, which might have cost them $150 - $200 by the time they paid they taxes, then there is workers comp tacked on, cost to dump the debris, the companies overhead... Jesus christ, do any of you own your own business are all of you just retarded ?
|
I guess I didn't do a very good job of explaining my situation. The first guy that talked to me tells me that he was out driving around that day looking for work that he was out of work and looking for jobs and that he would cut me a deal. When I asked him how long it would take to tear it down and haul it off he said he would have it torn down and hauled off in one afternoon. He said it might be faster if he has his son came with him otherwise it would just be him. I tell him it sounds like a reasonable time frame and he writes some stuff down and calls me later with the quote. He wanted $750 to do this. So it is just him. He works for himself as a handyman and general contractor and he wants essentially $100+ per hour to tear this thing down. Most of it was made of sheet metal and aluminum. When I hauled it off I took it to a place that buys scrap metal and got about $75 for it. I know he would have done the same.
When I tell him that his price seems pretty high he says that it's not a big deal because my insurance is paying for it. I tell him that the adjuster is so busy that it will be at least 2 weeks until he gets out to my place and then another week or longer until I get a check. I can't wait that long to get the place cleaned up so I would have to pay him out of pocket and then hope the adjuster agreed on that price. When I offered to let him do the job and bill the insurance company he said no. I got two more quotes both around $500. That still seemed high to me, but both of those were actual bigger companies that would send a crew out and have it done in a couple of hours. When I got quotes on rebuilding it both the big companies came in around $5K while that single guy came in at $9K.
I understand overhead and having to pay a crew, taxes, payroll etc.. Hell one of the bigger companies said that they were handling a couple of others on my street that collapsed so if we all got the work done around the same time they could save us a little on shipping. They seemed interested in helping me keep the cost down (and the adjuster came in with a settlement price around $5K so they were right on money). The first guy just seemed like a guy who was trying to scam me. To me it is no wonder he is having trouble getting work, his prices aren't competitive and it really felt like he just wanted me to bilk the insurance company for all I could.