I am trying to get a handle on costs; I just put in a $800 paper order with Greer Corp. and that did not get me edger paper.
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I am trying to get a handle on costs; I just put in a $800 paper order with Greer Corp. and that did not get me edger paper.
Fuel costs have hurt us, and now it looks like finish will be going up due to raw material. If we try to increase our price, the builders think we are ripping them off and the homeowner is wondering why it's so costly.
So how do we control costs? We plan every job so we do not have to run out for more supplies. Everyone understands the need to cut waste and do the very best we can so we have no callbacks. I look for the best price on supplies, and I do take the extra time to shop the best price with distribution. It is only a call away, and one phone call can save us money. I hate to play one dealer against the other, but I look for any specials they may be offering. In my case, that might be free shipping or, if they have a truck in the area, asking them to bundle our deliveries with other folks. I spoke with Paul today and asked for something they did not have. He called his supplier, and they tried to get it for us. This time it did not work out, but it is nice to try.
I hope that the remodel work keeps coming, because the builder work is not. I was looking at the E-News, and housing is still hurting. So what to do with the biggest cost of any job: labor? I hate to keep guys at home, but we are trying to share the workload and keep it fair. When I can do the work alone, I do, but at the same time, if our production is down, we cannot be ready for the next call. It seems like if you tell folks we are out 3-4 weeks they want to find someone not so busy. We try to get to the next job ASAP and I hate not getting the job because we are not able to get to it. So to my point, I try to keep the crews on top of the game and make sure we get the jobs done as fast as we can with no compromise to the quality.
I will be doing a tearout all day Tuesday while Joey and Ray-Ray will be doing the install I got ready today. We should be ready about the same time so they can move over to the job I am tearing out, then start the install on that one so I can move to the tile job we have set up next. That job needs a new subfloor installed before we can move forward with tile install. So does that make sense? We are down one, for the longest time we had three and me, but Dexter needed to get a job that did not require him driving from job to job.
So it is just the three stooges, LOL. I will say this ... we have fun on the jobs. Cutting up and pulling jokes on each other ... April Fools was fun, Joey had Ray-Ray call and say he was in the jail house (again-so that is why it was almost believable). But I did not fall for it!
So if any of you have ideas to save time and money let me know, I am willing to try new ideas and we all can learn from each other.
