Quote:
Originally Posted by bossku69
My point is there is a job available. Just because I'm a doctor and I charge patients $400/hr doesn't mean I'm going to charge you $400/hr to come to your house to help move your couch.
Regardless, I won't hire anyone to come on my property unless they are insured. I've had people from CL respond to a posting offering to do the job for $100 flat... not taking a chance with some idiot on my roof.
The company I talked to last, who charges $50/hr is insured to be on roofs and does roofing jobs, but this time of year is slow. Before I will even let him take the ladder off his truck, he is signing a contractor agreement with me (liability, etc.,). If he doesn't like it, I'll find someone else.
I'm not putting my well being and life at jeopardy by hiring someone "cheap" but its about hiring someone who wants to do the job and not sit around on their ass and think the world owes them a living so they will complain to me how $170/hr is fair because they WERE ONCE an electrician  |
i agree with what you said above. In the original post you said you were offering $200 to do the job, and sounded mad because people wouldn't do it that cheap. If someone is starving, a small company or one man operation he might do it for food if you find the right person in a bad situation. Then you find some people who don't need the money at the moment and they might quote you a little higher than the norm. But most companies you come across have lot of expenses. The job you trying to hire for involves doing work on a roof, that is the highest bracket for workman's comp. An employer will have to pay up to 50% of what they pay to their employees just to workman's company. Not saying you not going to get someone to give you a low price because they need a little more to cover the rent, etc... just that companies aren't ripping people off because their quotes seem high to some people. And for companies, they can lose money on jobs if bid it too low and have unexpected things happen. God knows I have been in that position a couple times. So it is better in some cases for companies to sit home and not do work if the price isn't right. They would rather make nothing then have work and lose money.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kane
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.
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It sounds like you were dealing with 1 idiot handy man who was bidding too high. Some people are going to be like that. They will shoot high and sooner or later they will be in the right place at the right time (driving around like you said) and someone will hire them on the spot vs shopping it around. And you are right, if you pay too much and try to turn it in the insurance company, they don't have to pay you back 100% if they think you paid too much. Always best get them to agree/sign off on quotes and estimates before you spend a penny.
So you ended up doing the work yourself ? I thought that is what you said in the original post. Which in that one i don't believe there was a mention of insurance just that you didn't want to pay a company to do the work you and a friend could do cheaper. The insurance company isn't going to reimburse you for your time. Why didn't you hire one of the reputable companies and had them do it for $500 if the insurance company was going to sign off on it and pay for it?