Smalltime independent contractors are greedy. I had my first experience with one yesterday. He refused to work hourly and quoted me 700 dollars on a relatively small framing job, which I agreed to. I knew it was high, but I couldn't find anyone else and truly needed it done to get the job jumpstarted. Towards the end of the job we ran into a small hitch and he fixed it in about 20 minutes. He then said that he hadn't planned on that in his quote and asked me if there was any more money involved because of that, and I said no. He finished the job with a helper in 5 hours, so they made 140 dollars an hour, and he still asked for more. He didn't even do that great of a job (there are things that need to be fixed) and he still charged like he was the premier home builder in the city.

>>2925401 (OP)
>framing
i have absolutely zero comprehension why anyone, let alone a /diy/ poster, would pay for framing work.
the wood is already dimensioned for you. its already straight. all you have to do is cut it, and nail it. you can put up a stud wall in a few hours including shopping. you said yourself 5 hours.
why the fuck did you waste 700$ on one of the easiest and least skill required jobs going. utterly mental.

>>2925401 (OP)
>He refused to work hourly
If you get them to work hourly, they will intentionally work slow. There's no winning with shitters.

*-+982
3>>2925403
I could do it but it wouldn't be as good as a professional could do it. I mean the guy made mistakes but he did better than I could have done. I'd rather have shit right and pay for it than be regretting shit being off for years to come. I'd be happy if the job had cost 400 bucks.
>>2925410
I wouldn't expect anyone to race, but I'd expect consistent work going on. I think that if he had agreed to work hourly I would have offered him 55 dollars an hour, which is more than enough for nailing boards together like the above poster said.

>>2925403
You don't even need to nail it anymore with GRK construction screws being a thing. Yes, a whole house would cost far less with a framing nailgun vs. screws, but if it's just a wall or two, and you already have a drill/impact driver, the screws option is easier and cheaper.

>>2925401 (OP)
when I was doing small time Contracting mostly RE sale related temite/dryrot in 1990-93, I figured I needed to make about $100/hr of actual work on the job to "make it" because if you are doing small jobs there will be lots of down-time, going to store, bidding, advertising, answering dumb questions, waiting for RE agent to show up with keys, bill collecting, roll out, roll up, cleaning, etc.

I got out of the biz because while as a tradesman I was pretty good at training newbies and apprentices on my own jobs I'd become nearly insane if I had to supervise someone else's less than perfect work.

Plus as a sole operator I was wearing too many hats.

Pros dont do good work, pros do work fast enough to make money.

If you took as much time to frame your wall as its gonna take for you to earn the 700 you paid him, you dont think you coulda done a better job?
Cuz like, pretty much most people can. As anon pointed out, framing is probably on par with a medium coloring book as far as difficulty goes.

>>2925403
Framing often is low skill. That doesn't mean aspects of low skilled framers won't surface later.

>reasons not to do your own framing
staircase, rafters, specific detail installs coming in like tile, leveling old floors without purchasing a ton of leveling concrete, adjusting bearing walls

>>2925445
bingo. It's all the nonbillable hours that add up. I'm not billing clients for bids, client phone Q&A, planning, organizing and loading all my different sets of tools, commute, insurance, clean up and load out. If I only earn the same money contracting 8 hours as I would clocking in 8 hours, that's unsustainable.

>>2925496
Framing can either just be pretty much laboring or it can be probably one of the most technical trades there is. Framing a whole, high end house is incredibly difficult because you have to think so far ahead. People who think it's easy are just handyman types who never do anything complicated anyway. They don't know what they don't know.

>>2925417
>I could do it but it wouldn't be as good as a professional could do it.
practice, bro. you gotta start somewhere.

>>2925401 (OP)
$700 seems like a reasonable price for what is more or less a day's work for a licensed contractor and one employee.

Most helpers in construction get paid at least $25 an hour so that's $200 right there, not accounting for payroll taxes and workers comp which might make the actual cost of employing someone significantly higher, AND most contractors usually want to make a profit off of their employee's labor which is fair enough considering you invest time and money into training them, so the assumption that he's only costing $25 an hour to the contractor is very, very conservative.

So that leaves $500 for the contractor. Framing materials usually aren't very expensive but it depends on the job, which you haven't given us any information on. Let's assume he's just putting up a single wall in a house and the materials were around $50.

$450 left for the contractor. He had to use gas to get to and from your house and probably to and from the lumber yard/box store. $20.

$430 left for the contractor. That's $86 an hour. And he still has to pay for the upkeep of his tools, truck, he has to pay taxes, maybe has to pay an accountant, has to pay to keep his license current... Underpaid if you ask me.

And this is all assuming that it was actually only 5 hours. Maybe that's all you saw. Did he come out to look at the job before he did it? Did he go to the lumber yard before hand and that actually took up an hour of time? Could have actually been more like 6-7 hours.

Should have just done it yourself. It's just framing right, how hard can it be? Every cunt's got an excuse. Kys.

>>2925403
> its already straight
Please tell me where you by lumber. All I ever find is crooked shit.

>>2925540
>by lumber

>>2925401 (OP)
Imagine paying someone to do basic unskilled labor and then complaining about the cost and quality of work on an image board litterally called do it yourself lol

>>2925540
Nta, but obviously go to the family run *lumber yard* before your typical big box store and sort through the lumber. Bring a razor knife to cut straps and gloves if you have pussy hands (you'll get some splinters if you do). Look down each board making note of changes in each dimension, look at the end grain, look at the knots and make a note of the moisture content (how dry does it feel). It's quite involved, feel free to read up on it. Might take awhile, but if the stack is big enough, you'll save time and frustration in the long run. I wouldn't bat an eye at taking an hour to pick out the best boards for a big project.

>>2925403
I do my own stuff because I've got nothing else going on in life but if you're some social fag I can see why you'd pay someone.

>>2925440
Screws are objectively better fasteners than nails. But that’s the reason we don’t use them for large frame jobs. If you fuck up nailing wood you can just use a hammer to put it in place. You hammer something you screwed together it’s gonna split before you get it to move.

If you know what you’re doing screws are the best fastener but nails are cheaper and user friendly.

I think it's easy to overlook things like framing, but it's a pretty damn important part of the house. There is a lot to building code and it's easy to fuck it up. I would say it's unlikely a recently self taught newbie can jump into a big project a nail it without supervision, if you know what I mean. The catch is that professionals are never a guarantee, so you need to know what they're supposed to be doing anyway and if you already know it and can do it, you might as well DIY. If it takes you longer, two times, three times or even four times longer than it "should" it's still worth it if you did it right and it was done how you wanted. Tjat shit's priceless.

>>2925401 (OP)
Customers never understand you need to pay your insurance, fuel, damages etc from that money. Also save for your retirement, pay staff.

>>2925440
>>2925677
Holy shit Americans are still using nails in anno domini MMXXV. Do you do anything construction and technically related in a modern way? Do you still use lead and iron for plumbing?

>>2925693
wtf do you know about nails, you still build your houses from rocks

>>2925401 (OP)
bro this is /diy/ not /contractors/
frame it yourself or piss off

>>2925693
You're clearly just a retard if you think they don't use nails in Europe. I see videos of guys using Paslode nailguns all the time. Nails are good enough for 99% of framing applications anyway. You're relying on physics for the strength of framing, not nails.

>>2925677
>>2925693
Nails don't break like screws. They bend. That's a pretty important quality in construction because houses settle over time. Personally, I'm more impressed by construction methods that are tried and true, aka have a history of use that stretches back to centuries ago than flavor of the month, high speed low drag bullshit you see today. You naysayers think what you want. Nails are fuckin' great.

>>2925677
Ring shanks are the worst-case scenario when people fuck up a big project.

>>2925401 (OP)
>He then said that he hadn't planned on that in his quote and asked me if there was any more money involved because of that,
Fuck that guy. If he gave you the wrong price that's his problem not yours.

>>2925401 (OP)
contractors are always financially fucked weirdos
i have yet to meet a contractor that wasn't going through a messy divorce with 3 kids on the line all of which are heading to college at the same time
tack on some financially draining hobby like raising exotic lizards and of course they're gonna gouge anyone they can

>>2925401 (OP)

$700 for 2 men for 6 hours is fair. Figure it out yourself if you are so capable

>>2925451
Its easy, but it seems like when people pay to have work done they forget that they essentially paid their way out of a huge 2-3 day pain in the ass. It was done FOR them. top to bottom, they only had to go to the bank. Magic really.

>>2925401 (OP)
I can get behind charging for a day of work if you're already committed to like 6 or 7 hours and just rounding up but then if you cry that it's 6.5 or 7 when you thought it was gonna be 6 is shit.