Quote:
Originally Posted by vermontpainter
Can someone please cut and paste Harry Carters explanation of what is ridiculous about floor sf estimating?
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Everything is worth something...
When someone is in business for awhile they can pretty much feel the rooms out.
If they fail on judgement with time for a certain item like prep, they usually won't repeat the same mistake twice...and as long as some reasonable labor and material was carried for every item, the job usually goes ok.
What I was taught by my family is that missing items is the recipe for disaster, not for being off a bit on the measurements. Nobody wants to miss 25 doors but if they carried a common sense number for those doors, they'd fare ok.
Now, I'm not talking about figuring 4 hours for a 20 hour job, that would prove that the estimator/painter DOESN'T have common sense or enough experience.
So why would a guy who gives at least a common sense number to all items be ok usually?
Because what gets measured gets done (Richard Kaller said that and a lot more of what you are reading here on these boards).
What does this mean in terms of your help? It means that if you give them 6 days to paint a 5 day job, they'll usually take the 6 days. But if you give them 5 days to paint a 5 day job, they'll do it in 5 days. And if you give them 4.5 days to finish a 5 day job they can probably do that too, depending on how reasonable the estimator was in terms of reality.
The human factor accounts for soooo much and THAT is one of the biggest killers of paint companies...lousy job costing.
If you want to try to understand (or be blown away by it) this phenomenon of time, here's a good one for you.
Drywallers typically hang by the sheet (piecework) and these guys can hang x amount of sheets per day.
Now, if Joe has been hanging 40 sheets of 4x10's per day for 6 months then is switched to hanging 4x8's or 4x12's, he'll eventually hang 40 sheets of all three sizes because Joe thinks in sheets, not footages.
But take a look at that...
30 sheets of 4x8's equals 960 sf per day.
30 sheets of 4x10's equals 1200 sf per day.
30 sheets of 4x12's equals 1440 sf per day.
Same guy can either get used to hanging 960 sf per day or 1440 sf per day!
What does that do to our production rate theory? Kinda screws it up huh?
Same goes for rooms...if an experienced man says in the morning that he's going to paint 3 rooms, he will. If he says that he will paint 4 rooms, he probably will or come damn close to it.
But those are the facts and it shows that production rates aren't the maker/breaker of the game, it's getting er done and not missing items that are the deciders really.
If you use any of the info above simply give me credit...
Thanks,
Harry Carter
Try selling with my looks and social graces. V DAWG
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