Small Businesses

[Kent]

I can imagine that's quite funny, but I'm not bright enough to get it!

Mate, your only likely to hear of pascal in something that requires a certain wind load rating. In which case you will be informed by the engineer
A few years ago I did a specifiers course on such things and forgot it all 8 wks later, it was that useful to me

 

[IrishDave]

Earlier in this thread people where saying know your worth and things like that. So I got this job priced up which is going to take me 25 hours roughly to make and materials including steel, galvanized and powder coating will cost £450. So I was wondering would you guys charge £250 for time at £10per hour or more?

 

[AndyStobbs]

You clearly don't have many over heads at £10 an hour. Employees get that kind of money to shuffle paper in offices and all they have to do is turn up in the morning. Not involved in fabrication myself but you need to be thinking minimum £20/hour in any line of self employment.

I charge £25 an hour for standard mechanical work (on cars) but that immediately goes up to £40 an hour once I'm into electrical faults that can't be identified with a plug in (which is £25 itself)
£30 / hour on welding jobs (vehicular)

Oh and remember, all your pals who are getting into pension schemes, well as a self employed person you don't get anybody matching your savings for you, you don't even get the tax relief they get on savings.
You'll have to pay an accountant or do it yourself = more time/expense.

You don't need to rip people off but you do need to make money. Self employment has many perks, but good salary is rarely one of them until you become an employer.

 

[brightspark]

and don't forget your wearing your welder and -wearing your kit out and later will have to be replaced. I once worked that out working -nights and weekends and half of it went on keeping me van running with no allowances

 

[IrishDave]

Cheers man I'm in NI its the norm in this country for tradesmen to get paid low wages I'm working for a government body at the moment and they are paying me 8.59 per hour hahaha goes up to 9.58 next year kinda sucks but that's just the way it is over here

 

[AndyStobbs]

Cheers man I'm in NI its the norm in this country for tradesmen to get paid low wages I'm working for a government body at the moment and they are paying me 8.59 per hour hahaha goes up to 9.58 next year kinda sucks but that's just the way it is over here

We're not exactly skipping about between our many houses in England either pal. You've just answered your own question. £8.59/hour now to just turn up and do stuff. You can't run the business for £1.31 an hour more.

 

[F.J.]

Dont forget your mark up on materials and other process you pay for. Weather it be 10, 15, 20% or more, add the same amount to everything apart from labour as that works out at either an hourly rate or day rate. Keep a diary and jot in it every time you do something related to any specific job. That way you can look back once the job is finished and work out just how much you made and see where you can make changes for next time.
I actually fell upon the hourly rate and day rate i charge through talking to a friend who has a steel erecting business. I alsways found it awkward to figure out what to charge but one thing i disnt do was charge an hourly rate that id get if i was employed

 

[AndyStobbs]

For what its worth, I did some jobs insanely cheaply when I started working on cars. You won't be able to win them all. I still have many many disaster jobs, but I try to lose less money nowadays. It takes time to get established and savvy.

 

[steve t]

Im in the south, lads that work and do a nixer in the evenings are charging twenty euro an hour, self employed fabricators about thirty euro and bigger shops over forty, plus vat plus mark up on steel, that's round my area, hope this helps

 

[Tiggy_dorset]

Im sole trader with my own premises, but not very high overheads. Working from my own workshop using my tools and eleccy I would genarally charge around £20 - £25 per hour + materials (including a bit of markup). Working for other companies on their premises as labour I would charge less around £15 per hour. which is probably too low, but I get other perks with it.

If quoting on a job thats will be a ballache, overcharge to not do the job. If they accept it then the pay is worth the hastle. They will have probably accepted it because nobody else wants to do it either

 

[IrishDave]

Cheers for the info lad just don't want to get caught out again haha I made this for a guy another fabricator because he couldn't do it he had the equipment and all. I charged £50 for making it and got laughed at when I told other tradesman

 

[F.J.]

Cheers for the info lad just don't want to get caught out again haha I made this for a guy another fabricator because he couldn't do it he had the equipment and all. I charged £50 for making it and got laughed at when I told other tradesman

If you were self employed then I'd say you are far too cheap. The fact you have a job then any cash in hand work is a bonus although that job warrants quite a bit more than £50. I bet he's charging a lot more than that. If that was given to me to make and all I was supplying was the labour I'd want £120-150

 

[slim_boy_fat]

..... I charged £50 for making it and got laughed at when I told other tradesman

Little wonder, you sold your services [stop sniggering at the back ] waaaay too cheaply. How many hours did it take you to fab the railings?

 

[blenkie1]

Im sole trader with my own premises, but not very high overheads. Working from my own workshop using my tools and eleccy I would genarally charge around £20 - £25 per hour + materials (including a bit of markup). Working for other companies on their premises as labour I would charge less around £15 per hour. which is probably too low, but I get other perks with it.

If quoting on a job thats will be a ballache, overcharge to not do the job. If they accept it then the pay is worth the hastle. They will have probably accepted it because nobody else wants to do it either

For what its worth, I did some jobs insanely cheaply when I started working on cars. You won't be able to win them all. I still have many many disaster jobs, but I try to lose less money nowadays. It takes time to get established and savvy.

Same, really did a lot of jobs where I did them too cheaply but got me known as well, and gradually got better at working times out to do jobs through more experience, and started to push my rates up. One of the main agricultural contractors around here were charging £25 an hour around here so you can only really charge this amount or less. They have a lot more overheads than me and must be making something.

I am the same as you Tiggy, have my own workshop, so my overheads are very little. I usually charge £20-£25 but my main work working for a forestry firm is £15. I usually just put a bill in though and they pay it. Use all their gear, nothing to order, and well looked after. Payed next to nothing in tax last year. Should really look to put them up as well but in reality its one of the easiest jobs I have had.

 

[IrishDave]

Little wonder, you sold your services [stop sniggering at the back ] waaaay too cheaply. How many hours did it take you to fab the railings?

It took me 6 hours to make it the guy probably made quite a bit of it haha

 

[Kent]

Earlier in this thread people where saying know your worth and things like that. So I got this job priced up which is going to take me 25 hours roughly to make and materials including steel, galvanized and powder coating will cost £450. So I was wondering would you guys charge £250 for time at £10per hour or more?

No certainly not. Your loosing some of that ten pounds just buying in for your next job aswell
If your not having a little joke wise up or loose your shirt.
Look
£10 per hour
Less electric
Less gas
Less wire
Less grinding discs
Less depreciation on tools
Less capital expense
Less insurance
Less time not working
Less holiday pay
Less fuel
Less mistakes
Less time quoting stuff
Less accountants bill
Less insurance
Less marketing
Less ppe
Etc
Anything left to build your buisness or pay yourself anything over that £8 you can get

 

[AndyStobbs]

Got two digger buckets here for refurbishment if you want the work IrishDave. Both need new floors welding in, and both have the central support sheared out of the bucket at the top.

Joking aside, I'm getting around to them. Honest.

 

[premmington]

No certainly not. Your loosing some of that ten pounds just buying in for your next job aswell
If your not having a little joke wise up or loose your shirt.
Look
£10 per hour
Less electric
Less gas
Less wire
Less grinding discs
Less depreciation on tools
Less capital expense
Less insurance
Less time not working
Less holiday pay
Less fuel
Less mistakes
Less time quoting stuff
Less accountants bill
Less insurance
Less marketing
Less ppe
Etc
Anything left to build your buisness or pay yourself anything over that £8 you can get

The lads who work for me want (get) more than £10 an hour.

Anything less than £35-40 an hour is not viable business wise if you have overheads.

 

[IrishDave]

I'm getting a lot of this stuff free at the moment so I will have to start taking this seriously your right there are a lot of expenses that come into it. £20ph is fair when you think about having to buy wire and all that

 

[AndyStobbs]

Wire is a material. You can either invoice it as such or factor it in to your hourly rate, if you had a massive job on or it was a speciality wire then you might want to charge it separately, otherwise build it into the price.