I am in talks with a large Church looking to upgrade their 40+ year old lighting.
The major challenge is that the Sanctuary has a beamed, open ceiling, and the lights are mounted at 40ft.
I was curious how anyone's prices change as the height climbs.
In the past, I have used a flat rate for lights that required assembly, & added 10% per foot over 10ft mounting height. This has served Me well so far, but using this method I would be adding 300% to the price.
How have some of You approached this issue ??

I'd look at the actual costs. The cost of the boom lift (or however you're getting access), assuming you're renting, including a markup of 20-30 percent of that cost.

Then triple the man-hours it'd take you at normal height. It's going to take time to get up to that height, and you'll work less efficiently--wearing a positioning belt and/or fall arrest harness.

I'd say triple the normal cost would be 'bout right.

Cliff

we're doing damn near the exact same thing in about 3 weeks or so. our ceiling is about 35'. we're installing new fixtures and electric lift systems for each of the 3 chandeliers. we're going time material on this job cause there's quite a bit of fishing and stuff in finished walls. i'm not looking forward to climbing the 6+ sections of scaffolding. we have proffit built into our rates. where ya from megawatt?

Located in Beautiful Central Kentucky...
But luckily I'll just be replacing 8 fixtures, no additional wiring is required.

out of curiousity what faith is the church your doing work in? our job is united methodist. its a big church with slanted floor in the (?) almost like a stadium so scissor lifts won't work for us and we can't get a boom lift in. =(

Been down this road before.

Make sure you check the pew spacing to see if your scaffold will fit. We had to unbolt and move pews to make room for the scaffold and then re-set the pews when done.

It added a lot of time to the job.

GJ

[This message has been edited by golf junkie (edited 01-07-2005).]

Megawatt,
I did a similar sort of job, early last year, installing 6 chopper fans in a local Church here.
We used a scissor lift for the job and I must say that the whole job from start to finish was a real PITA.
All of the pews had to be removed, the scissor lift barely fitted through the doors to get into the actual part of the Church where the fans were to be fitted and we had to get large sheets of Plywood to make sure the Lift didn't fall through the timber floor.
It took 4 times longer to do anything in there because the exposed Timber and steel bracing members in the building were always in the way of the scissor lift and the multi-core control cables (thankfully black) had to be clipped out of view.
Safety was a huge thing in the job as well, I didn't like the idea of using a scissor-lift in the beginning, but there wasn't really a lot of slope on the floor after all that and it was well within the Lift Manufacturers specs for topple over.
Personally I hope I never do a job like that again, it actually took us twice to 3 times longer than what we thought it would.

Thanks for all of the feedback Guys, Pretty much what I expected to hear though.
As for the pews, I told them upfront which ones would have to come out before We would start, & They are going to take care of this part.
The floor is flat so I was thinking about using scaffolding...has anyone found that this may be too high of a height for regular scaffolding ?
FYI it is a Baptist Church

Megawatt,
I'm making a wild assumption that the floor is concrete, if so, the only thing that could really limit you is the possiblility of it toppling over.
If the floor is wooden, I'd make sure you had some thick sheets of ply under the wheels to make sure they didn't go through the floor, as I've seen happen on at least one occassion.
What sort of hieght are we talking here?.
Because if it's not that high, a scissor lift could possibly be more economical to use, rather than hiring and setting up, moving and dismantling a standard scaffolding.

The mountong height is appx 35' & it is a concrete floor.
I just don't see an easy way to get a lift into the sanctuary.
There are steps in all directions.

Megawatt. When we have to use scaffiold we always contract it out due to our insurance. Check with your insurance company to see if you would be covered in case of an accident. Second since they know what they are doing an they usually make less per hour than electrians so you'll probably come out better in the end. I do the same thing as the other poster, get the price from the scaffold company and add 10% to 15%.

Thanks to everyone, as usual, You Guys have been a great help !!