ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Business Related Discussion pricing in nc

I am a new member here so i will start with a hello to all.
I am in north carolina, triad area and would like to know the average price for a service call and do you charge more for night and weekend work.
And if it is not to much to ask at one time what is the going price for new house wiring.
Please overlook the spelling and a big thank you to all that reply
.
Wade

Wade, welcome to ECN. I'm in the more western part of the state. I usually try to get
$75.00 for a service call for the first hour, then charge $35/$40-hr. for every hour after,(according whether residential or business, I usually try to give residential customers more of a discount) As far as new houses go, I don't do a lot, and really don't care to, since the competition is so great here, and you have to just about do them for nothing to get one. I was having to do them for $ 1.75/sq. ft. in 2001, finally got to go up to $ 1.85 sq. ft... After going as hard as I could, I managed to make on the average of $25/hr.( not enough to run a business ) That is with Building Contractors. With individual home owners, I have managed to get maybe $ 2.00/sq. ft. on a few. I don't solict many of them anymore, for that reason and also that is a lot of hard work for little pay,( not as young as I once was
Of course, I am a one man shop. Don't know exactly how the bigger ones make it, unless they just pay their experienced help $ 10/12 an hour, their helpers maybe $ 8/hr. and they take the rest of the profit. Still seems to be not enough. I usually like the service changes, small commercial, service calls, etc. better than new houses. Hope this helps and hope the best to you...

Hotwire,
I am in the Charlotte area and I am charging in line with what sparkync is. 75 to 80 per hour on service calls with a one hour minumum including a 15 minute drive time. Any material used is subject to a fair markup as I feel that my time shopping should be compensated. I do not charge more for Saturday and generally do not work on Sunday at all. Have to give these old bones at least one day of rest. I do not bid new home construction with the mid to larger size builders as I ran into the same thing sparkync did. Not enough money for the amount of work and time involved. I too am a one man shop and just can not compete with the larger shops. We have large electrical companies in the area wiring new homes for 1.35 to 1.50 a square foot. Best of luck to you.

Hi Hotwire,
I too am new to this forum, so thanks for allowing me to chime in. My advice is to get out of the construction end and concentrate on the service end. If you do this right you could be charging the equivelant of greater then $150.00/ hour and do it successfully.
We use a menu pricing guide and give the price to the customer before we do any work. The prices are predetermined by our operating costs and profit margin.