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Estimates on weekends

Scovie

Scovie

THIS THREAD WAS BORN BECAUSE WE DE-RAILED ANOTHER THREAD. (sorry Boss). SO IT DOESN'T REALLY HAVE ANY BEGINNING CONTEXT. LOL
 
 
WAAAAAAAAAAAYYY off topic...  :party:
 
I got another one of "those calls" today. 
Her: Hey there, we are looking for some tile work and we'll be there tonight thru Sunday. We bought all of our own tile, can you come up and take a look and give a price?
 
Me: Monday 8:AM is the best I can do.
 
Her: Well, we come over every weekend so we'll try to meet up with you another time.
 
(on a weekend, right?) SMH
 
Who needs Zumba? lolol
 
yea, i agree... 
 
(You are here on the weekend and want me to come look at your job on MY weekend and give you a discounted price because you already bought all the material????  )
 
Yea Scovie, we've had this discussion wayyyy to many times~
 
Scoville DeVille said:
WAAAAAAAAAAAYYY off topic...  :party:
 
I got another one of "those calls" today. 
Her: Hey there, we are looking for some tile work and we'll be there tonight thru Sunday. We bought all of our own tile, can you come up and take a look and give a price?
 
Me: Monday 8:AM is the best I can do.
 
Her: Well, we come over every weekend so we'll try to meet up with you another time.
 
(on a weekend, right?) SMH
 
Who needs Zumba? lolol
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salsalady said:
yea, i agree... 
 
(You are here on the weekend and want me to come look at your job on MY weekend and give you a discounted price because you already bought all the material????  )
 
Yea Scovie, we've had this discussion wayyyy to many times~
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Just curious...because I find myself in this situation many times. Do either of you do estimates during the week in the evenings? I just like you guys, work all week and if I need an estimate it either has to be on the weekend or at night.
 
tctenten said:
Just curious...because I find myself in this situation many times. Do either of you do estimates during the week in the evenings? I just like you guys, work all week and if I need an estimate it either has to be on the weekend or at night.
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I try to keep up with it in the evenings so my weekend is free. Generally. The benefit of doing them in the afternoons is A. the job is usually fresher in your mind (rather than waiting until the weekend) and B. it's more professional to get the client their Proposal (or whatever) sooner. Same with phone calls, I ALWAYS return phone calls/emails within 24 hours. Period.
 
It's kind of hard sometimes with all the communication that needs to get done. My main tool supplier is back east in Connecticut so I can call them at 6:AM which is great. My Tile warehouses are in Seattle and their hours are 7:30 to 4 so it's a PIA to contact them sometimes without taking time to be at home. And believe me when I say, I have a cell phone but I will not answer it while I am in the middle of setting tile in a shower. LOL
 
tctenten said:
Just curious...because I find myself in this situation many times. Do either of you do estimates during the week in the evenings? I just like you guys, work all week and if I need an estimate it either has to be on the weekend or at night.
Click to expand...
 
I do proposals in the evenings and on the weekends.  I take days during the week to make salsa and tend to other business things (we have an electrical contracting business as our main income and salsa/hot sauce/pure evil as secondary income)... 
 
I do billing, proposals, and meet with clients (when it's worth it!!!) on the weekend.  If it's a full on house working with an established building contractor, I'm willing to meet with them and the client for a weekend walk through.  It's a little different if the customer wants us to hang a couple light fixtures and tell them why the bathroom outlet doesn't work...which is usually because they have to press the reset button on the GFCI...and then they get pissed when you want to bill them for a $95 service call.... :banghead: )   
 
Being on the other side of it. Getting that call or email back within 24 hours is huge in my opinion. When I need an estimate, I always leave it up to the contractor/service provider if they rather do it at night or on the weekends.
 
We are in a unique environment where Scovie and I live.  It's kind of a limited pool of contractors/subcontractors.  Contractors dont' expect a 24 hours response to prices and such.  General  questions and specific questions do get the 24 hour response.  But a proposal for a 2500sf house?  not gonna happen in 24 hours.  Usually there are questions that are not  included in the original proposal.  Very rarely!!!! does a blueprint ever come across our desk tt has all the info needed, and when it does, it takes more than 24 hours to go through all the pages. 
 
I've spent more than 40 hours on projects and not had them come through. 
 
I'm chuckling because we're expected to answer contractor calls live, and if not we have a thirty minute c/b time, a half-day window for bidding, a 24 hr window for templating, and we install countertops 48 hrs later on day three (unless they want to review their slabs, in which case they get tops 48 hrs after approval) ...

It's a constant pressure-cooker scenario =(
 
Yeah, SL is right. Especially with what she does. What with all those light fixtures, heat cables, alarms, smoke detectors, and all voodoo that shit. Mine is a little simpler depending. If I am just doing a single shower, I can call and get a price for the tile and send a Proposal off in 10 minutes. But then there's the "whole house" jobs with tub surrounds, steam rooms, heated floors, etc/ etc. etc. A single shower can have several different trims deco strips etc, so it can take awhile just to get the amounts figured out. I really try to get those out within a week. Sometime the client picks tile that won't even be manufactured until it's paid for so it can be 10 weeks out. The quicker I do my stuff, the better!
 
Holy Shit Grant. Our SS guys are 3-6 weeks out right now. Templating only takes about an hour though. The got this fancy laser machine thing that maps out the kitchen counter tops. First time I saw that shit it was a log home and that slab countertop fit perfectly up to the log that had knots and grain. It was amazing.
 
That laser measuring shit is so cool. Bomb for single plane counter tops,but no substitute for onsite craftsmanship.
 
We have lasers, we just still call it templating ...
Scoville DeVille said:
Holy Shit Grant. Our SS guys are 3-6 weeks out right now. Templating only takes about an hour though. The got this fancy laser machine thing that maps out the kitchen counter tops. First time I saw that shit it was a log home and that slab countertop fit perfectly up to the log that had knots and grain. It was amazing.
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Yeah, my buddy in Michigan says the leadtime there is six weeks, and the push jobs back ...
 
We do 95% of our work in 3-5 days from conception to sign-off ...
 
That's why I work at night and on the weekends, the timeline is breakneck ...
 
hogleg said:
blah, blah, blah...EAt two TaCos and call me In thE MorNinG!!!
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The only post in here that THP LIKED.  :rofl:  :rofl:  :rofl:  :rofl:

salsalady said:
That laser measuring shit is so cool. Bomb for single plane counter tops,but no substitute for onsite craftsmanship.
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 SL said SHIT!!!!!! quoted and recorded! BOOM! hahahaha No DPSE hahahah
 
Onsite craftsmanship? Who does Solid Surface C-Tops on site?
 
You loco chica. :crazy: :rofl:
 
Just saying that a laser print won't work on a straw bale hobbit house. But what do I know? I just chase stray electrons....
 
I've seen those jobs, they are the one's with twice the number of seams so the installer who was moonlighting could fab a kitchen onsite using material he stole from his place of employment, ferrying it in small sections using his pick-up =)
 
salsalady said:
Just saying that a laser print won't work on a straw bale hobbit house. But what do I know? I just chase stray electrons....
Click to expand...
 
The laser is for measuring or "mapping" the shape of the desired slab down to 1/16" in lieu of the old "templating" they used to do with strips of cardboard.
 
Moar wine! --->  :beer:
 
I have actually done a couple of those jobs for friends. I had a rack to haul that shit even. There used to be a place in Seattle that sold 5 colors of granite in two sizes of slabs. 25" X 97" (bullnose on 3 sides) and 37" X 43" (bullnose on 4 sides for islands). It  wasn't bad to work with and doing the seems but it's a lot fukking heavier than tile, that's for damm sure. Polishing the cutouts for the under-mount sinks is where the time is at, even with my Alpha polisher.
 
Awwww....pffft...I'm going back to door bells...

You guys got too much technology for me.
 
Scoville DeVille said:
 
The laser is for measuring or "mapping" the shape of the desired slab down to 1/16" in lieu of the old "templating" they used to do with strips of cardboard.
 
Moar wine! --->  :beer:
 
I have actually done a couple of those jobs for friends. I had a rack to haul that shit even. There used to be a place in Seattle that sold 5 colors of granite in two sizes of slabs. 25" X 97" (bullnose on 3 sides) and 37" X 43" (bullnose on 4 sides for islands). It  wasn't bad to work with and doing the seems but it's a lot fukking heavier than tile, that's for damm sure. Polishing the cutouts for the under-mount sinks is where the time is at, even with my Alpha polisher.
Click to expand...
 
I  like when job supers order tops from us for their own houses, and want to avoid paying for installation and think that because they've seen installations in the houses they supervise, that they can caulk in their own vanity at home ... and then they come to pick-up the top, cash and carry, and we load it into their pick-up truck for them and off they go ...
 
Invariably they go home and call their buddy over, and break the top before getting it inside because they didn't notice that we carried it vertically, and they tried to walk with the countertop with it horizontal ...
 
Oops. That's a free opportunity to do them the favor of recutting it without charging them ... and it's always good to have a favor out there, LOLOL ...
 
If you want to see some cool tech, check out SlabSmith : http://www.slabsmith.com/ ...
 
That's how cladded walls are bookmatched and how the full height splash is lined up slab to slab ...
 
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