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What do most shops that sell stone charge for the higher priced stones? Not actuall amounts, just ranges or forumula.
Say you have a slab that costs under $15.00 per foot, and add a labor charge per foot. Next customer goes with a slab that cost $40 per foot, and you add labor charges(including overhead and profit of course) without regard to difficulties or risks for using higher cost material. Fine if you don’t break something, but if you do, you lose big time on the job.
What do you guys do?
Shouldn’t premium products carry a premium price? I am asking because we had a customer get another quote that was very cheap considering the price of the raw material.
Al, Not sure if I understand what your asking but I will give you my best answer.
We price almost all stone in groups. Same as solid surface. Group 1-4
Now sometimes you think one stone is in a certain group so you quote it and then you go looking for slabs and … oh no… this slab is way more than you think. Well this has happened to us.
Dont worry, you competition has probably considered this a group 1-2 and not realized that the price of that color has went up or they simply switched the color and your not bidding apples to apples.
The other alternative is the other guy just doesnt know what the hell is going on and just needs the work.
Hey we are not doing this for the practice, make money or walk away.
Travis, I think what Al is asking is, do you charge for expensive slabs, above and beyond the the cost of the slab.
If you would be asking this about solid surface, let’s say you base your price on a solid color, you have the material cost, material mark up, and the fabrication cost calculated. Now you move up to lets say Staron Tempest series, do you continue with the same mark up, and fabrication costs and simply add the higher material cost to your bid.
The point being is that if something goes wrong with the more expensive material, you may not break even, where if the material wasn’t so expensive, you might do ok, or at least not lose money.
Al,
We only template and install. The shops that we deal with do not normally charge us a premium to fabricate a higher priced slab. They do have 4 different groups that they charge us for. If a customer picks an exotic normally charge in the 4th level. These are big production shops with all the Big Toys. Oh, and one more thing were in FL the w****’s market for stone, just check out the SFA to confirm that.
Mike, I didn’t know you don’t fab your own solid surface. Both Gene and I are in your backyard, throw us bone sometime.
My bad, I read that wrong. I have however hooked up with granite fabbers to do solid surface for them when they have a spec for it, on a multiple top job.
Norm,
Nope I just own the shop! I’se gots fabricators back there to fab Really, I do fab. Why do you think I’m here on Saturday running job on the CNC for Next week? Because I Love it!
What we do is break our stone into 4 categories: A-D and specialty
Each color is placed into a category based on its price, ease of fabrication, strength, and consistency (ie veining, etc). A cheap color may not be in the level A or B category due to its highly fragile nature or difficulty to polish.
For the A-D stones we use a set sq.ft. pricing, with upgrades on cutouts, profiles, bump-outs, etc with a minumum order for non-stock colors. For the specialty colors we check the market price for the stone and adjust our price for each job. For each and every estimate we calculate a thru-put dollar amount on actual cost of material, template, and install to make sure we won’t take a loss.
I don’t want to give any numbers in a public forum, but for an average stone job the material cost for us is about 1/3 of the final price. The tooling, labor, and overhead involved consumes the rest.
Travis, Mike, and Markum, that helps. We figure by percentage as well, and a third is what we shoot for, with a third for labor and the finial third for overhead and what profit we can wring out. Luckily the customer thinks that the price they were quoted is too cheap, and there is something wrong with the bid, or it is a low ball. I don’t want to drop the prices in my area out of ignorance, thus asking the pricing question. Thanks for the help. And thanks to Norm for explaining it better.
SInce I have two expert stone guys present, I have a couple of questions to ask.
Do you rodd all cutouts? My reading of the MIA’s technical bulletin is that they recomend rodding all cutouts and putting mesh on the back. There seems to be a lot of controversy about rodding, and some claim that MIA says it isn’t needed if the top gets installed without breakage. And does anyone use mesh, which I assume is basic fiberglass mesh or netting?
A local supplier is advocating wax for edges that don’t polish right. I see that as a way to get paid, but shoddy work. Am I wrong?
1) we rod all granite cutouts with 1/4″ x 1/2″ flat bar. We are going to switch to the integra rodding glue as soon as our other supply runs out. I also like to use 1/4″ all thread bars when I can get them cheap from a local salvage yard. I understand they have better strength bc the glue can bond to it better. We don’t always rod ES cutouts: cooktops = yes, small sinks = no, large sinks on long runs = yes
2) wax is for hacks. I don’t even keep it in the shop. I won’t let the guys cheat. The wax will only look good for a while, then wear away leaving a dull finish.
About the mesh:
I have not used any mesh for our rods and have no problems. As long as the material is handled properly and there is adequate support from the cabinets you should have no problems.
I suggest that all granite be rodded for one simple reason: insurance.
For those who do not rod I say this: What happens “if” the top breaks when your carring it into someones house. What will happen? The top will be in pieces on/in the customes floor, cabinets, appliances, etc. As long as its rodded it won’t separate if it breaks, just show a crack. In worst case, you’ll at least have time to set it down safely without damaging anything or anyone. Rodding does stengthen the cutouts and add safety to the install and handeling.
You said it!
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