fence and deck prices

RightWay

RightWay

New member
hey guys, just gave an estimate for a 280 sqft deck (second story) with 75 ft of railing. I quoted 1300 to strip and seal. this is my first estimate like this (have practiced the stripping/staining techniques) am i off base on the price for this? also did estimate on a new fence $1240 for washing fence and staining/sealing . there was 310 feet of 6 ft high fence. just checking to see if im in the ball park.

I appreciate any input from anyone that does these types of jobs.
Thanks
 
I do not do a lot of wood but your deck price is in the area that I would charge. I think your price for the fence is a little high.
 
If this is for the same person, I would place a call stating that you forgot to mention that if they decide to do both jobs, you will give 50% off the fence job.
Requoting any job at a discount without the customer requesting it can be dangerous. The customer could perceive this as incompetence, which I am sure you are not at all incompetent. But it could still give a bad impression to the customer.
If this is a different customer, I would give it a day or two, not too long, and call to see if they are interested. If they say no, offer a discount at that point. This way, you are standing behind your bid, but you are still willing to work with them to get the business.
You are in Kentucky, and no one from your area answered your question. You could be right on the money for your area. I charge $1.35 a linear foot for 6' stockade. My price will increase next year.
That is just my opinion, you should do what you feel is the right thing for your business.
Good Luck!
 
Strange You Should Mention It...

I almost never get calls for fence restoration, so I have no experience with that kind of price-setting, so I have a question to add to this thread.

Are you pricing for both sides, or doubling linear feet to account for 2 sides?

Also, is that materials included?

My customers usually would spend money on new fence rather than attempt to restore. In fact I think I wrote one bid my first year for one side of a cemetary stockade, and grossly overbid it because I had only a foggy notion of the costs involved.

Now I generally go for lower-hanging fruit, and do very little wood work at all. I'm curious to hear about the results of the RightWay's bid.
 
Thought I'd Add

In Omaha, I try to stay around $4 per square foot of deck, which includes the stripper and brightener, but not the stain/sealer. In my experience, Omahans like to see what goes into your estimate lines. If this is your method, you are in the high-end of my ballpark.

I sometimes include lines for railings and steps, but usually the meat of the estimate is in the floor square footage, so I can afford to discount the rails and steps.

I have found this allows me to haggle over price without dropping my bloomers. For whatever reason, people love to haggle over their wood restoration here. I think they have become used to people moving on price, probably because there are so many guys here that don't have a clue how to set prices, so they start high, and haggle. Often their high is way low for me to be interested.

We have to be careful what we teach our customers to do!;)

This is a good example of why I do less woodwork, but charge more for it each year. I only want customers used to paying more, for better value and service.
 
good point my dollar a foot is one side! but thats just to clean and brighten it up. I let the home owners seal it!
 
DECKS= $3.5-$4.5 / sq leave out the railings and trim whem measuring. That is for the 5 step process
 
I Recommend That You Break Bids Down

When pricing wood restoration, you hear all kinds of numbers that don't seem to jive. Here are some simple guidelines I used to get several hundred jobs each season:

Price the floor by square foot - usually around $1.25 in our area (including materials and labor)

Price the railings by square foot or running foot: usually around $1.25 per square foot or $7.50 per running foot (there are 6 square feet per running foot when you think about both sides).

About $18.75 per step, including the railing on each side of the step).

By pricing this way, you automatically compensate for the differences between bidding large decks vs. small ones. At these bid prices, that deck would have come in closer to $900 to $1000.

For fencing, which is seldom judged as critically as a deck, I tended to stretch the sealer a little and not be quite as fussy on the wash. In addition, since there were no ladders involved in the work and very little protection/prevention steps necessary (and lots of square feet per job) I dropped my prices down for fences to the 60-cent range per square foot. A 310' privacy fence has 3720 sq ft. which I would have bid at $2232.

When trying to figure out your bidding plan, consider this. In the wood restoration business, the products are your key. They determine the speed you can work at and the kind of results that you will get. I used products (sealer, stripper/cleaner, brightener) that end up costing around 24 cents per square foot to buy and use (including an allowance for freight costs). If your materials run 24 cents, and you want to keep your material cost percentage at around the 20% range, then you have to charge around $1.20 per square foot. Remember that you are being paid as much for what you know as what you do in Wood Restoration. Charge accordingly.

When you read numbers like $2 per square foot, these nubers include a factor for the railing along with the floor. The problem with using a number like that is that a 100 sq ft deck (10 x 10) has 30' of railing while a 200 sq ft deck (10 x 20) only has 40' of railing. The ratio of railing to floor changes dramatically from deck to deck. Smaller decks tend to run higher per-sq-ft that larger decks for this reason only. Breaking the bid process into small pieces (floor, rails, steps) gives you better results in bidding.

NOTE: On the fence portion, your materials may only cost you 20 cents per sq ft, but your percentage Cost Of Goods is closer to 33% than 20%. Dangerously high, caused by charging too little. I figured that I saved so much time doing the fence that everything would balance out.

Of course I left out all of the subtle details like PITA factors. I always charged more for height, lousy access, fish ponds nearby, a retired homeowner who would likely be stopping me and asking questions all day, etc.

Good luck in your career!
 
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