OK, I'm pretty good at bidding & I've got a pretty good closing ratio, but pretty much all we do are residential repaints, some small condo projects, and only basic commercial stuff; ie the easy ones. I've just completed a Credit Union exterior for my wife's employer; it was mostly just a big house & fairly straight forward. I'm now their go to guy for painting services as their a loyal company who prefers to work with the same guys over & over once things are done right. My problem is they want me to give them a number to re-stripe their parking lot. I've got access to the sprayer, my sales rep's got me a price on materials, I've got guys who work for me who've done it before, but I don't have a clue as to how to bid it. I'm not looking to max it out, but I don't want to low ball it either, I just want to land somewhere in the upper third & the job's mine to lose. Any advice out there on how you calc it out, other than the obvious T&M?
HELP??? Bidding question
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Talk to the guys who have done it. Identify all of the steps involved, from prep to clean up. Try to figure out how long each step takes. I would start with everything involved in a single stripe and figure out how long that would take.
Then I'd see if that time would apply to 10 or 15 stripes. What other issues would come into play? For example, will you have to block off the lot, when will you be doing this, etc. Once you've identified everything that will be an issue, and identified how much time that will take, you can calculate a reasonable price.
In short, break the job down into all of its components and focus on them instead of just looking at the entire job.
Having said that, while I will bid some unusual jobs, I get real nervous doing so because I don't have solid numbers to go on.
Brian Phillips
Then I'd see if that time would apply to 10 or 15 stripes. What other issues would come into play? For example, will you have to block off the lot, when will you be doing this, etc. Once you've identified everything that will be an issue, and identified how much time that will take, you can calculate a reasonable price.
In short, break the job down into all of its components and focus on them instead of just looking at the entire job.
Having said that, while I will bid some unusual jobs, I get real nervous doing so because I don't have solid numbers to go on.
Brian Phillips
Parking lot line striping is a specialized thing. What I'm saying is a company that has a line striping crew will pull in that parking lot at six a.m. And leave there at seven thirty. They'll stripe five more lots that day. They have the equipment, manpower,experience. They're buying their material and sundries in bulk. They can do that job cheaper than you would even think about doing it. Let them.
Thanks Oden,
I agree completely, and truthfully I tried to ignore this & hope it would go away. But since I've done they're exterior work, and since my wife works there, I'm kinda stuck in that they really want us to do the job. I don't really have to beat anyone's price, and I've got a couple guys on one of my crews who've done it, I'm just not sure how to bid it other than breaking it down to it's component parts like Brian mentioned. I was only trying to find out if there was something like a square foot/linear price per foot that's a quasi norm. Thanks again.
I agree completely, and truthfully I tried to ignore this & hope it would go away. But since I've done they're exterior work, and since my wife works there, I'm kinda stuck in that they really want us to do the job. I don't really have to beat anyone's price, and I've got a couple guys on one of my crews who've done it, I'm just not sure how to bid it other than breaking it down to it's component parts like Brian mentioned. I was only trying to find out if there was something like a square foot/linear price per foot that's a quasi norm. Thanks again.
Since they seem intent on using you, you have some guys who have experience in this area, and so your main issue is bidding it, just explain that going T&M would likely be the fairest way to go both to them and to yourself.
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Hard to get the magic number around here as it may not relate or translate for your lack of experience in this matter. Are you following the old lines or was the surface redone and you have to mark them out? If the later it is obviously more time consuming and you will have to check your local laws as handicaps have space requirements.
I've done a little. Figure high. If your going over the old stripes, its a piece of cake. If your coming in after a seal coat, its a different story. With the exception of the actual stripping, it goes slow for someone who doesnt do it everyday. Sounds like a plus that some of your guys have some experience.
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I don't know if the information I got it's right but once talking to a buddy of mine that does it for living. I've hear from him that he charges $5 per line, plus $3 for stencil letter, $10 Handicap, and one more dollar for other colours than yellow and white.
Plus he charges for pressure washing extra too.
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That seems to cheap to be right...
That has to be going over existing lines and still seems ridiculously low.
If your labor rate is $50.00 a hour and you work in two man crews, could your guys (with experience) do 20 stripes a hour? Without a lot of lay out I would think so. But don't forget the rest of the job. ( clean up, clearing the parking lot, color changes ect. Also how big is the lot? What about more that lines? Some estimating guides say between 150 to 200 ln ft per man hour. Just my two cents.
I bet he's close to right.
High volume, specialist.
Yep.
there'll be a minimum but a conventional painting contractor competing? Not.
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I have no experience with this and I have no idea how much they charge for an actual job, this are just number my buddy told me.
I just remember they re-did a parking lot of 100 stalls in less than 8 hrs including all stencil numbers. Once you get the machine going I know it takes like 30 seconds to do one line then move to the next one and so on.
I know for fact they charge extra just to design a new lay out, other than that I have no clue, I think it's fairly quick when you know what you are doing, and that's all this company do for living.
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You would sound more professional if you told them that you are a painter, not a line painter. Tell them that you can call around for them, get a bid, add a % to it and submit it.
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