Is Anyone Doing New Construction Work?

Paul, than you very much for the information. I will be doing a lot of reading on this subject. Maybe I can get my foot in the door doing smaller new construction clean-up while I am learning about the brick aspect and then offer that as well. Good idea? or do the PW contractors offer the lighter cleaning also as well as the brick clean-up? Just a thought that popped into my head.
Thanks again Paul
 
Mike,
We do alot of construction clean up. Piece of advice. Go to the individual construction sites (you may be already) and chat with the Project Manager or SUperintendant there. Ask to bid. Then, follow up, follow up, follow up. You have to stay on top of them, or at least I find it works well for me. Chances are their current vendor doesn't pay them much attention...

Beth;)
 
Beth said it well.

The only other thing that I would add would be to make sure what you are going after and understand what is required before you bid. There are differences such as:
- Interior conctruction clean up (windows, bathrooms, floors, etc.)
- Construction clean-up that requires hauling away bricks, lumber, garbage, etc.
- Cleaning garage floor, driveway, walkway, patios, stoops, etc.


Regards,
 
what a great thread


a lot of useful advice on a subject i have'nt seen before, from

what has been posted i take it that it would be hard work to do it

on your own as the schedule must call for you to work when

there is only rough ground and the road system is poor.

cheers paul.
 
Paul and Beth both expressed the cleanup issue well. We don't do a lot of this type of cleaning because I am not very good at bidding the work. Builders and construction supers don't seem to use a universal system. Some ask for cost per sq ft of inside surface, some by dumpster load; I don't do enough of this to be able to quickly assess cost using their metric.
 
We have seen a number of scenarios. Basically, we came up with a series of questions we find we have to ask in order to get them to tell us:

How many cleanings... 1 final, 1 initial and 1 final, 1 initial 1 final and 1 touch up... it varies.

Does it involve dumping (we don't dump and no one seems to care...we find most do that themselves or have a dumpster)

Beth
 
Paul and Beth

Thanks for the advice,
I have stopped at some sites but only said hi, who I was and gave a card. No follow ups. Maybe that is why there have been no calls. I will change my approach and see what happens. I agree, this is a very informative thread and hope others have been reading and learning as much as I have.
More questions to follow, and thanks for the great info.
 
Bill,

I don't deal with the Columbus folks. They don't seem to be pro-active in up-front cleaning. Most of the cleaning (that I know of) has been when the homeowner or a friend to the homeowner has noticed the tags and smears. I recall one part of a subdivision of about 60-75 homes that were cleaned almost 1 year after they were occupied.

They are trying to revolutionize the 8+ homes per acre concept. They started in Indiana and are moving rapidly thru Ohio. Some of the lowest cost homes do not have front doors because the house is the width of a two car garage. The entry is from the side, behind the garage. These houses are about 5-7 feet apart. They make larger homes also, but the saltbox type home is their money maker. They were promoting the starting price for the 1400 sq ft for $95 (2 years ago) now the same are being promoted and sold for $118K. They have had to go to court in most counties that I know of to get the zoning changed or obtain a compromise thru arbitration. The county insurance only pays for $4K on lawsuits so they have found a way to fight the communities.

Not a lot of bricks on these home fronts. The larger ones have more bricks, but I don't have the set-up (like you do) to be cost effective. I would have to do at least 2-3 at one time to make it worth my while even with your set-up.

Look for opportunities to renegotiate when you find turbo damage, sand face removed, tags not removed or unclean areas above 10 feet heights. It's all in the timing as you know.

What's sad about this whole thing with the builders is that they are pocketing a bunch (I mean a bunch) of money. All the money goes into their pockets and not much if any into reducing the price to the consumer. I get fired up when they start talking about things not made in America and the lousy economy - I'm very quick to point to the illegal workforce in the housing industry.


Regards,
 
You are right on about the builders. Although my largest account is the production outfit I mentioned above, most accounts are custom builders. These guys are hitting 15-18% margins, less financing costs. Building 10-20 $450,000 homes per year. Don't need to do the math to get the idea. One of my builders recently canned their brick layer over $15/thousand brick layed (average of $300 cost savings per home); now being done by illegals. The crime is that masonry guy he canned was one of the 2 or 3 best in the area.
 
We were able to negotiate up from $325/1000 to $375/1000 over a 2 year period with both of our production builder accounts due to quality issues. Most of their other contracts are still at $325/1000 and from what I've seen, they are contracting even at $275/1000 with a couple of masons.

We do rework for both of these builders that are a result of poor quality masonry work from as many as 7-8 years ago. They put enough money aside from profits to make the rework percentage work in their favor as they still hire by price and not quality. We tore off and re-bricked at least 8 homes with 20K-24K bricks this year.

We are trying to make production work less than 25% of our total business and expand our custom and commercial accounts.


Regards,
 
Are they hiring? What's the temperature in Charlotte this time of year?

I hope that's for modular brick and not for block.

That sounds like total bricks - including what builders call extras (soldiers, sills, vent openings, coining, large ridge, small ridge, fire place, steps, etc.). The extras will drive up the totals quite a bit.

At $375/1000, with extras our totals can run $550 + (depending on the number of extras.


Regards,
 
i dont know if they are hiring or not but i have had two companies that lay commercial jobs give me the same number.

the temp today is about 65 degrees,has been raining quite a bit lately
 
OK. I thought you may have meant production prices. I got a bit excited and started thinking about a working vacation.

Generally, the order of pay scale from low to high is production work, custom work, then commercial. Although commercial can be tight depending on the economy.


Regards,
 
Paul, custom work here pays $300 - $330. The guy I mentioned above lost a major client when he raised his price from $320 to $335. This is base cost - extras are where they make their money.

My delimna is that I am charging $20 per to clean. Usually can't get much more for a crappy ($275) job, because there are guys out there charging $15 to clean. Therefore, the builders don't mind getting a crappy job to save $30 per on the mason, because they can pay me a "premium" of $4 to make the job right.
Have walked away from some marginal accounts because of all this. Delicate balance between building business and maintaining margins - which is always my first goal.

Maybe I need to move too!
 
one company that told me his price does 70,000 brick buildings for LAT PURSER,builds for homebuilders and other G.C.,he told me one job he had to discount at $450/1000 and acted like he was making no money on,

the other guy is a friend of mine who employs 18 guys lays brick foundations for sever mobile home dealers and runs 500k thru payroll alone annually,and tells me his material bills are 21k monthly
 
Tim,
To clarify - the rates I was using did not include any materials - it is labor only. When we supply materials such as brick, anchors, mortar, rebars, etc. that is an additional cost to the $375/1000.
Most large production builders want to supply their own materials because they can get a better discount and some of the small masons don't have the bankroll to provide the materials.

Bill,
That's one of the reasons you find some of the masons breaking bricks and using other methods to shave costs and increase profits. We try real hard to run an honest and high quality business.

I truly understand the challanges you face at $20/1000. This also brings valueable meaning to the words "Location, Timing, Sales and Negotiations". It's a long uphill battle that requires a lot of time spent in the field developing relationships with the customer(s). I do spend a large portion of my time looking at the quality of my competition's work and making a point to continually sell the value of our quality during every (and I mean every) conversation.
When people see me they see quality and safety coming.

Sounds like you are doing all the right things in regards to equipment, chemicals and searching for opportunities. The rest may or may not come with location, timing, sales and negotiations. The other method (which you're doing) is to look at a increased QUANTITY at lower profit level.

At times you do reach a cross-roads for decisions on quality such as: my customer wants to pay for a Pinto but I'm providing them with a Mustang or a Lexus. Customer is really happy with a Pinto quality at a Pinto price ...what do I do? Each person has to make a decision for themselves based on all circumstances surrounding them.
There are some things that are automatic for me (lines that I will not cross) - illegal activities and anything to do with safety. All others I will consider and weigh the short term value for it's long term cost. (I'm still selling high quality ...for now.)

The first year or two in any business (that is looking to survive long term) requires the establishment of quality procedures and and refined operating costs. An owner needs enough funds to sustain a business at (a potential) $0 profits or loss levels during at least the first year (learning curve and foundation establishment).

I got into pressure washing based on $30/1000 (for less I may not have) and as an add-on to the masonry work knowing that I can dump it any time if it is not profitable or even work it at low profit levels. I think that attitude may have helped in the begining with all negotiations and contracts. It has turned into a full time opportunity and the values are constantly changing but having established high quality product(s) from day one have been a tremendous asset.


Regards,
 
After studying this thread, I am curious as to weather or not a one man operation can make any money cleaning brick.

Originally many years ago I cleaned brick on new construction for the Commercial Masonry company I worked for. Hourly rate and I was one of the masons laying the brick I would eventually be cleaning so I would make sure I had a pretty clean wall to start with.

Some of the pictures I have seen in this thread of masonry work would have gotten me fired but that all goes back to going with the lowest bidder. You get what you pay for.

When we would do residential brick hispanic crews would beat us out by as much as $60 to $80/1000. So in turn after we saw the home owner had moved in we would go back to the house and point the walls up. Made pretty good money doing that on Saturdays.

But back to my original ? Can one man be time effective enough to make a profit cleaning new construction?
 
Paul B,
What is all of the other stuff in the picture of your construction clean? Looks like a dolly with a water tank, plastic sheeting and two buckets of some chemicals?
 
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