ECN Forum
Posted By: Active 1 Labor Rate $25 PER HOUR!!!! - 10/31/04 03:24 PM
Taken from another thread:

[My worst case of T&M (when I had a 1 hour min. at $25/hour...no trip charge) was driving 1.5 hours round trip and doing 1 hour work. I made $10/hour that trip (less gas, insurance, taxes, etc.).

On the other hand, I'll still reset breakers or other short jobs and walk away without charging. It's good for business and you never know when it could bring you a $10,000 job. I consider it an advertising expense since I don't have any advertising expense.]


Please no offence Dave but for the Crystal Lake area $25 an hour sounds extremily low to charge to a customer. I can't hardly get a pizza delivered to my house for $25. Mchenry County is not much of a poor or depresed area. An experianced electrician will get the $20-$30+ /hr range in this area. He normaly gets workers comp, unemployment insur., cell phone, vacation, and maybe a truck with fuel and equipment.

If you charged the customer $50 for the first 1/2 hour and $75 each hour after that you would have $87.50 for that call. I'm not telling you what to charge or to copy the other guys. I am sugusting looking into your overhead costs, hours booked a week, calculating a labor rate, and mark-up. Think about how much you want to make a year and how much your Co. should make a year. There was a link to an excell program for calculating labor rates. Also a great book Mark up and Proffit by Stone.

As far as doing freebe's does your insurance cover work done for free? If I'm resetting a breaker I would rather spend a little time investigating. Open the panel. Fix a small violation. Replace and old $3 breaker to avoid a possable call back. Give the their moneys worth. Put that $50 into advertising. I do also feel some customers think what you are charging relates to your quality and service leval.

I have seen other do things dirt cheap of for free as "advertising". I have found they are advertising to the wrong people. Their clients all want somthing dirt cheap or for nothing.

Sorry for bringing this up except when I see a local business owner chargeing a custor by the hour much less than an electrician emploiee costs I think it is bad for everyone.

Tom
Posted By: hbiss Re: Labor Rate $25 PER HOUR!!!! - 10/31/04 08:11 PM
I think what some people don't realize is that they can have all the work they want if they don't charge for it. Unfortunately though if they want to make money the work may not come that easy.


-Hal
Posted By: Dave55 Re: Labor Rate $25 PER HOUR!!!! - 10/31/04 08:36 PM
Thanks for your concern, guys, but that $25 job was back in the 80s before I had a license. Business isn't my major, but I have learned a little in the past 20 years.


Dave

[This message has been edited by Dave55 (edited 03-01-2005).]
Posted By: Active 1 Re: Labor Rate $25 PER HOUR!!!! - 11/01/04 12:47 AM
Sorry for misunderstanding you Dave. Just drives me a bit crazy if I think an EC is working too cheap.

Tom
Posted By: sparky66wv Re: Labor Rate $25 PER HOUR!!!! - 11/01/04 04:12 PM
$25 is the going rate here...

I've tried $30, and people expect a crew for that rate...

[Linked Image]
Posted By: Tom Re: Labor Rate $25 PER HOUR!!!! - 11/01/04 07:44 PM
Virgil,

You can get by on $25 an hour, you just can't ever plan on retiring At that labor you have to make sure you charge for mileage and every last minute of your time (including all travel), along with an adequate material markup. Tack on an insurance surcharge while you're at it.

Oh, and throw in a micellaneous charge, the place I took my truck for an alignment did that for shop supplies ($8), which I thought was kind of prciey for a litlle gob of hand cleaner and two paper towels that the mechanic used.

Tom
Posted By: Dave55 Re: Labor Rate $25 PER HOUR!!!! - 11/01/04 09:47 PM
The going shop rate around here is probably in the $60-$100 range, sometimes with a $150 diagnostics fee, which I suppose covers a quick check & estimate. Electricians rate for union I believe is somewhere in the $40-$50 area.

It's good to be a yankee!

Dave
Posted By: Tom Re: Labor Rate $25 PER HOUR!!!! - 11/01/04 11:15 PM
Dave,

Do you mean "Yankee" as in blowing a 3-0 lead in the playoffs?

Or do you mean "Yankee" as in the guys that wore Blue uniforms in the war of Northern Aggression?

If the second, remember, West Virginia split from East Virginia & was more or less a Yankee state.

Tom
Posted By: LK Re: Labor Rate $25 PER HOUR!!!! - 11/01/04 11:25 PM
Virgil,
$25 an hour would not begin to pay our hourly expense, not including wages. A handyman in my area gets between $75 and $100 an hour, no truck or old truck, no insurance, little or no tools.
I looked back in the old service order files to see when we charged $25 for a service call, I found some from 1967 $27.50 for service call, trip charge included.
This would mean the average 3 bedroom home is selling for $27,000 and your area weekly income is $200 a week.

[This message has been edited by LK (edited 11-01-2004).]
Posted By: Dave55 Re: Labor Rate $25 PER HOUR!!!! - 11/01/04 11:43 PM
I didn't know what a Yankee was until I was 20 years old in a welding school in Arkansas & a Rebel was sitting on my chest choking the life out of me. I figured then that is wasn't good. As you can tell history is my weak subject. Here we were taught Civil War, but war isn't civil. War is hell.

Sorry to get off the thread, Active 1.

Dave
Posted By: CRW Re: Labor Rate $25 PER HOUR!!!! - 11/01/04 11:59 PM
I lived in North Carolina for the summer when I was a teenager and I had little kids calling me "Yankee" (I was from maine, you can't get much more Yankee than that!) with much contempt.
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