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How much to make these ?

RogerS

RogerS

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Really aimed at the professionals on here. I have asked for a quote for five doors to be made - same style but slightly different dimensions. I will be supplying some double-faced Melamine chipboard for the panels. Softwood.

What sort of price would you charge (excluding door furniture and fitting) ?

thewoodhaven2.co.uk

Door top rail width

I'm mulling over making some internal doors. CDA (Chief Design Authority) would like this design. I will be using off-the-shelf PAR. The two outer stiles will be 121mm, centre stile 95mm, bottom rail 146mm. I can't decide on the width for the top rail. What do you guys think ? 95mm or...
thewoodhaven2.co.uk thewoodhaven2.co.uk
 
Just interested…..
Can’t you find off the shelf ones.
I assume not as you tend to know what you are doing.
 
Problem with offering prices is it depends on your overheads, in a well equipped workshop I’d have thought a couple of days would see them made, now what you’d need to charge down sarf for a bloke & his workshop I’ve no idea.

Also what I’m seeing more & more is jobs being priced on there perceived value which has very little to do with time & overheads. To give an idea of what I mean I priced a job last year but couldn’t do it for 3 months, the lady was desperate to get it done so got 2 other quotes, the first was double my quote the second 2 & 1/2 times my quote.

Now you could say I was too cheap but I made good money on that job, I don’t know if it’s because quality labour is getting scarce & folks are charging what they think they can get away with but some of the prices I hear about bear no resemblance to the work & materials they involve.
 
That has been a trend in retail for a long time. Cost based priced is a thing of the past, now it is market led. How much can I sell this for? Not how much does to cost to make plus a profit margin.
 
This true Andy, a chap I used to do work for often said retail prices are purely based on what the seller thinks the market can stand.
If an item doesn’t sell at the desired price it can always be discounted.
 
I always used to cost my work properly and fairly but ensuring decent margins and if anyone was determined to get a job on the cheap I suggested they look elsewhere. There was one which still makes me chuckle however.
Virtually all my work came via recommendation and I got a call one day from a local main Subaru car dealer asking for a quote to clad a vehicle prep room with polypropylene sheet, similar to the pub I'd done just up the road from him so I duly obliged and from memory it came out at around £1600.
The owner rang me and said "that's great but how much discount do I get?" Wouldn't accept my reply so eventually I agreed to re quote, added on £200 then knocked it off again shown as discount. He rang me back asking when I could start and when I laughed and asked if he realised what I'd done his reply was, "doesn't matter as long as I got a discount". :oops:

Car salesman attitude or what? :ROFLMAO: but I got another three jobs out of that one via word of mouth.
 
RogerS said:
What sort of price would you charge (excluding door furniture and fitting) ?
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I ran this through my joinery pricing calculator, bear in mind this is set just to calculate purley time per function, with no allowance for preperation, picking your nose, going shopping, or non productive elements and on the basis of the process being mechanised:

For making 1 door, 1900 X 800 with a central mullion, 2 flat board panels, and butt joints:

3.18 hours with all stock pre prepared and domino jointed.
5.33 hours with machining sawn stock to size and domino jointed.

3.88 hours with all stock pre prepared and and M&T joints.
6.03 hours with machining sawn stock to size and M&T joints.

These numbers include an element of machine set up time, were not doing anything using hand tools here, so making more than 1 door will be on a reducing basis.

Then add your own rates and costs.
 
I’m surprised there’s not more time difference between Domino and M&t

Curious why there is a difference between the two in stock preparation as well
 
We have a barn, about double-garage-sized, with a very poorly roof. There are gaping holes in it and bits fall off it at regular intervals. I wouldn't dare keep my car in there.

There is a very good roofer in the next village who was recommended to us, so we got a quote. 13K plus a bit. Hmm. Do I really want to spend 13K+ on this? No, not really.

Our English friends who live round the corner had a roof leak and found someone on a local FB page. They came, fixed the leak and the clients are very happy. So I asked them (two English guys, proper Siret and everything) for a quote. Lots of teeth-sucking and umming and ahing. Promised a quote the following week. Well that week came a went, but a couple of weeks aftert that they sent a quote. €3600 inc labour and materials.

I'd have been skeptical had Bob and Ruth not sung their praises, and when we discussed the job, they made it clear what they would do. Strip the tiles, replace the rotten timbers (most, but not all are sound) install membrane and put the tiles back.

Result. They start on Monday.

PS The point of the above is to show that the price of a job can vary a LOT. Both quotes were for doing the same job. The costs cannot be so very different, yet the price was.
 
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RogerS said:
I’m surprised there’s not more time difference between Domino and M&t

Curious why there is a difference between the two in stock preparation as well
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Yes the m&t v domino prices made me wonder too. Never tried a Domino mc but I’m sure it’s like lightning compared to marking out digging holes even with a Morticing mc, cutting the tenons and fitting.
Also seems quite a lot of time to put 5 bits of wood over a planer then thickness them.
 
Steve Maskery said:
We have a barn, about double-garage-sized, with a very poorly roof. There are gaping holes in it and bits fall off it at regular intervals. I wouldn't dare keep my car in there.

There is a very good roofer in the next village who was recommended to us, so we got a quote. 13K plus a bit. Hmm. Do I really want to spend 13K+ on this? No, not really.

Our English friends who live round the corner had a roof leak and found someone on a local FB page. They came, fixed the leak and the clients are very happy. So I asked them (two English guys, proper Siret and everything) for a quote. Lots of teeth-sucking and umming and ahing. Promised a quote the following week. Well that week came a went, but a couple of weeks aftert that they sent a quote. €3600 inc labour and materials.

I'd have been skeptical had Bob and Ruth not sung their praises, and when we discussed the job, they made it clear what they would do. Strip the tiles, replace the rotten timbers (most, but not all are sound) install membrane and put the tiles back.

Result. They start on Monday.

PS The point of the above is to show that the price of a job can vary a LOT. Both quotes were for doing the same job. The costs cannot be so very different, yet the price was.
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Yup. A lot of people fly a kite and which is why I rely on other proven tradesmen to recommend someone in another trade. At our last place I got a guy in to quote for felling a couple of trees. £2500! I said too high and he instantly offered to do it for £1000. “Shut the gate on your way out”.
 
My pricing system isnt going to work for everone, but it produces a base line time related output, it is only to guide me in considering the result, there are still a lot of variables to account for.

I do apply a rounding up function to the time, so if its mariginally less than 1/2 a day per unit I would round it up to a 1/2 day, and the same would apply if it were more than a 1/2 day but marginally less than a full day.

RogerS said:
I’m surprised there’s not more time difference between Domino and M&t
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In my operation the production of M & T joints is very efficient, more so with the machines and tools I have invested in to produce them, for instance, one of these:

Sedgwick-Tesh-3-Head-Tenoner.jpg

With the example I posted with the Domino jointing time, I also allowed for the time needed to make the Domino's, as they would be a non standard option, and dont forget it all still needs marking out as well.

RogerS said:
Curious why there is a difference between the two in stock preparation as well
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Cabinetman said:
Also seems quite a lot of time to put 5 bits of wood over a planer then thickness them.
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In my calculations I allow for timber selection, so, going through the pile to pick it out, check it over for flaws, cut to length, cut to width, surface plane, thickness and so on, the time soon adds up, especially, as in my situation you start with a pile like this:

Oak.jpg

Rather than it landing at my door all nicely squared up and ready for use.
 
HOJ said:
My pricing system isnt going to work for everone, but it produces a base line time related output, it is only to guide me in considering the result, there are still a lot of variables to account for.

I do apply a rounding up function to the time, so if its mariginally less than 1/2 a day per unit I would round it up to a 1/2 day, and the same would apply if it were more than a 1/2 day but marginally less than a full day.


In my operation the production of M & T joints is very efficient, more so with the machines and tools I have invested in to produce them, for instance, one of these:

View attachment 37380

With the example I posted with the Domino jointing time, I also allowed for the time needed to make the Domino's, as they would be a non standard option, and dont forget it all still needs marking out as well.



In my calculations I allow for timber selection, so, going through the pile to pick it out, check it over for flaws, cut to length, cut to width, surface plane, thickness and so on, the time soon adds up, especially, as in my situation you start with a pile like this:

View attachment 37381

Rather than it landing at my door all nicely squared up and ready for use.
Click to expand...
I see what you mean, particularly if selection of timber is included, one thing that’s easily overlooked is the half a day going to the timber yard, loading and unloading cutting off the waste/ sapwood etc.
 
So somewhere between 1/2 a week and a week of labour for 5 doors? But what’s the actual price?

Assuming someone wants to take home £60K and accounts based on 46 productive weeks and is conservative in time estimating and says it’ll take a week, they might calculate based on £1300 quid for labor plus another £500 for fixed costs, plus ££ for materials. But if they think it’ll only take half the time, it could only be half the cost.

EDIT: By “take home”, I don’t mean the money available to the guy after paying income tax. I mean the money that the guy would withdraw from the business to pay tax and live on, a gross salary equivalent.

If any of the assumptions change, it’ll affect the price in a way that can’t be guessed by the client. There’s really no way of knowing what the price will be without asking is there?

I’m going to guess you’ll get a price of £2450 for 5 doors assuming the guy is at least 40 and drives a nice van.

I hope you’ll let us know the number when you get it.
 
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That's an interesting calculation, Windows.
I'm retired now, but in my working life I never came close to earning 60K, let alone taking it home.
When I did my MBA, we were taught to base costings and earnings on 1000 billable hours a year. BILLABLE hours. You may well work double that, but a lot of what self-employed people do is not billable. Preparing estimates that do not result in work. Doing accounts. Going to the bank. Getting the van serviced., etc. None of that can be billed to anyone.
By your calculation, a bespoke woodworker needs to charge £60 per hour, plus income tax, plus NI, plus overheads, plus VAT. I don't think I know anyone who can do that. If they can, more power to their elbow. I obviously went very, very wrong.
S
 
I find it’s easy to lose track of inflation when not working. Costs have increased 56% since 2010 based on an avg inflation rate of only 2.9% per year. To put things in perspective £60K today is £38K in 2010. Maybe £60K is too much though. I don’t know. I’m assuming they’re going to be high end.

Just had a plumber come and fix something. £90 for the first hour. £80 an hour after that. Is that a lot? A little? Par for the course?

Also I misspoke when I wrote “take home”, I meant “earn before tax”, an equivalent of gross salary.
 
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Steve Maskery said:
When I did my MBA, we were taught to base costings and earnings on 1000 billable hours a year. BILLABLE hours. You may well work double that, but a lot of what self-employed people do is not billable. Preparing estimates that do not result in work. Doing accounts. Going to the bank. Getting the van serviced., etc. None of that can be billed to anyone.
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Not sure where you did your MBA Steve but you should be asking for a refund. Those are real costs and need to be reflected in the pricing of any business. Competitive advantage comes from being able to marginally price once those costs are covered. Many business failures though stem from management not understanding their full cost base and making poor pricing decisions.
 
I think those inflation calcs are quite conservative, resently looked at upgrading my 2019 vw transporter, today price is up approx 60%……butter must be up 200%
Windows said:
I find it’s easy to lose track of inflation when not working. Costs have increased 56% since 2010 based on an avg inflation rate of only 2.9% per year.
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Legitimate down time and costs should definitely be accounted for in a business plan IMO and included in the calculations. If you take 6 weeks holiday a year it's a given that your van will be off the road at least a couple of days for servicing, repairs MOT etc. Add in an estimation of time lost collecting materials and how much time on the 'phone ordering and sorting out problems during the working day so in my case I gestimated a couple of weeks wasted. Unexpected cost such as vehicle hire can happen and there should be a cost included for tool and equipment wear and replacement.
I added these to my annual plan but other unexpected costs due to customer change of plan etc were charged separately. That's another story. It would be far easier with no customers hanging over you with the inevitable "just while you're here" or "I've been thinking". I had one regular who would leave the house keys under a bucket and several post it notes on the walls for me to find. Inevitable cost in time and altered plans, I hated it.

I also flatly refused to work with materials supplied or ordered by customers as I had my fingers burned several times so I fitted only what I supplied and had full control of. It helps of course to be in high demand and have the luxury of picking and choosing jobs.
 
Adding to what Lons has said regarding changes and while you are there moments.
All clients new and existing are aware that any additional work is an extra cost and unforeseens, ie., problems hidden behind walls floors etc. are extra to repair.
With my regular clients minor stuff I will cover.
 
Windows said:
I find it’s easy to lose track of inflation when not working. Costs have increased 56% since 2010 based on an avg inflation rate of only 2.9% per year. To put things in perspective £60K today is £38K in 2010. Maybe £60K is too much though. I don’t know. I’m assuming they’re going to be high end.

Just had a plumber come and fix something. £90 for the first hour. £80 an hour after that. Is that a lot? A little? Par for the course?

Also I misspoke when I wrote “take home”, I meant “earn before tax”, an equivalent of gross salary.
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Tell me about it!

Hoodie in Tenby £50😳
 
My tame plumber told me when he quoted for a certain type of customer he added tw@t tax mainly to try to make them go away.
As said earlier it helps to be in demand and be able to pick and choose.
 
Blackswanwood said:
Not sure where you did your MBA Steve but you should be asking for a refund. Those are real costs and need to be reflected in the pricing of any business. Competitive advantage comes from being able to marginally price once those costs are covered. Many business failures though stem from management not understanding their full cost base and making poor pricing decisions.
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I'm not sure what point you are making BSW, because I think we are singing from the same hymnsheet here. They are indeed real cost and do have to be included. My point was that the figure for an hourly rate in order to take home 60K a year is so high that I wonder how many people can command that in the open marketplace. I suspect that it varies significantly by region, SW will be higher than, for example, the East Midlands.
BTW, it was Nottingham Business School, and was regularly ranked in the top 10 in the country. But that was over 20 years ago, no idea where it ranks now.
S
PS I wsa offered the chance to do a PhD and turned it down because I needed to start earning again. The trouble was that I soon realised that a lot of people considered me to be "over-qualified" to have a job. Oh the irony! So I spent the next 15 years scratching around and trying not to think it would be a good idea just to switch the lights off.
PPS Life is MUCH better now, but the lights have gone off twice today already. I must ring EDF...
 
To add to the debate about income expectations, and even profitability, it would be nice to able sit back and just assume work will roll in, and achieve the target of income/turnover you set for yourself in your business plan projections.

The reality of being self-employed, in a maker's market, is, it's feast and famine, with a high level of uncertainty, I see it more so in recent times, with people being hesitant to entertain projects generally and definitely any of financial significance.

Ikea just opened a branch in Norwich, they make my pricing look extortionate, I lost out on making a fitted wardrobe job, as I couldn’t even buy the raw materials at their prices (but I did get to make the doors, so a semi win)

I also have to consider my existing commitments, timescales and lead times, I had a couple of recent enquiries for work that they wanted done by Xmas, why do people wait all year and contact me in November! thank you, but I just can’t physically do it in the time, so no was the simple answer, I lose out again.

Furthermore, I also recently, priced up 4 joinery projects, from £5 to £12K, I have converted one, one is waiting for planning permission, so may or may not happen, the other two I’ve not heard back from, which is no surprise as people don’t bother to tell you they’ve either gone elsewhere or not going to proceed, I will caveat that with the fact, as I outlined before, I am truthful about delivery schedules, so that can put them off, but I do outline that before I offer to quote, but it would be good to get some feedback.

Something else that has an impact on my earnings, is, I don’t charge anything for providing quotes or drafting project proposals, I can easily spend a day or so, and in some cases a lot more, per quote, but if you don’t offer a quote, you won’t be in with a chance to get the work, you can factor the cost of it in the quote to some extent, but that may well price you out of the job, so it becomes a bit of a vicious circle, and my hoped for, projected annualised earnings, are pressurised before I even start.

In conclusion, my work, consequentially, is more of a life style, rather than a business in that sense, I do make money, enough to live on, but not to the extent I can afford many luxuries, I had toyed with replacing my 18 year old van, but as it is currently, I'm not going to, unless it fails catastrophically and I'm forced to, in which case I will probably have a complete review of the way or If I continue to work as well.

So, therefore, on the basis of expected earnings in a year to be £60K, thankyou @Windows, the people I’ll be working for on Monday are going to get a big surprise when they get their bill. :giggle:
 
HOJ said:
To add to the debate about income expectations, and even profitability, it would be nice to able sit back and just assume work will roll in, and achieve the target of income/turnover you set for yourself in your business plan projections.

The reality of being self-employed, in a maker's market, is, it's feast and famine, with a high level of uncertainty, I see it more so in recent times, with people being hesitant to entertain projects generally and definitely any of financial significance.

Ikea just opened a branch in Norwich, they make my pricing look extortionate, I lost out on making a fitted wardrobe job, as I couldn’t even buy the raw materials at their prices (but I did get to make the doors, so a semi win)

I also have to consider my existing commitments, timescales and lead times, I had a couple of recent enquiries for work that they wanted done by Xmas, why do people wait all year and contact me in November! thank you, but I just can’t physically do it in the time, so no was the simple answer, I lose out again.

Furthermore, I also recently, priced up 4 joinery projects, from £5 to £12K, I have converted one, one is waiting for planning permission, so may or may not happen, the other two I’ve not heard back from, which is no surprise as people don’t bother to tell you they’ve either gone elsewhere or not going to proceed, I will caveat that with the fact, as I outlined before, I am truthful about delivery schedules, so that can put them off, but I do outline that before I offer to quote, but it would be good to get some feedback.

Something else that has an impact on my earnings, is, I don’t charge anything for providing quotes or drafting project proposals, I can easily spend a day or so, and in some cases a lot more, per quote, but if you don’t offer a quote, you won’t be in with a chance to get the work, you can factor the cost of it in the quote to some extent, but that may well price you out of the job, so it becomes a bit of a vicious circle, and my hoped for, projected annualised earnings, are pressurised before I even start.

In conclusion, my work, consequentially, is more of a life style, rather than a business in that sense, I do make money, enough to live on, but not to the extent I can afford many luxuries, I had toyed with replacing my 18 year old van, but as it is currently, I'm not going to, unless it fails catastrophically and I'm forced to, in which case I will probably have a complete review of the way or If I continue to work as well.

So, therefore, on the basis of expected earnings in a year to be £60K, thankyou @Windows, the people I’ll be working for on Monday are going to get a big surprise when they get their bill. :giggle:
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And that’s about the truth of it!
“Life style” is a fairly accurate description of making things in wood, know exactly what you mean by it.
 
Fascinating thread and confirms I did the right thing in doing a 9-5 office job for 30 years, never managed 60k a year though but weekends off, 6 weeks holiday and paid sick leave has it’s advantages and had I turned a hobby into a career* what would I have done for a hobby?


*not that my skills were ever good enough.
 
Running a business and setting prices is hard and so many possible variations on business models. But every decision is a gamble with your livelihood. Really hard. Good job making it work @HOJ and others.

Turns out checkatrade have an interesting page:

Curiously and entirely coincidentally their “sole trader” and “business owner” numbers sit either side of my entirely made up £60K.
Wonder if this is an AI generated page?
 
I should add that I hope people don’t think that I think joiners either do earn £60K routinely or should earn £60K. This was an example number. The point was more that if you want to work out what is a “fair price” as a customer, you’ve got to create some kind of model of the business providing the service. To do that, you’ve got to feed in some assumptions and there is huge uncertainty in those assumptions. Does the work take 1/2 a week or a whole week? 100% uncertainty. Does the guy want to earn £30k pa or £60k pa? 100% uncertainty. Considering only those two assumptions, we’ve got a 4x difference in our low and high estimates of the price.

The thing is the service provider has to make similar assumptions. I think back to Roger’s example of the tree guy going from £2500 to £1000. Was he having a laugh or did he convince himself to ditch his conservative assumptions and replace them with optimistic ones?
 
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Windows said:
The thing is the service provider has to make similar assumptions. I think back to Roger’s example of the tree guy going from £2500 to £1000. Was he having a laugh or did he convince himself to ditch his conservative assumptions and replace them with optimistic ones?
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No he was simply trying it on.
 
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