Contractor Pricing - How much should I be paying per Hour?

[Nick Rutkowski]

Hey BP!

I’m looking to get a list of contractor labor prices in NY. Looking for general ranges because each area is different. Here is what I got so far:

Labor Rates:

Electrician - $70-90/hr

Plumber - $75-$150/hr

Carpenter - $35-$50/hr

HVAC - I need a range

Roofer - $50/hr? (Haven’t checked but this is what my last guy charged me)

Concrete/Masonry - $250-$350/hr

If I’m missing anything, feel free to add it in. Thanks for helping out!

[Matt M.]

I agree with @George W.

I need a tree trimmed at one of my properties, my tree guy quoted me $400. Fair price, I don’t care if it takes him 10 mins or 10 hours.

FYI- when I do work hourly, I will charge drive time from my shop to the job and back. A 3 hour job with 1.5 hours driving doesn’t make sense to charge for 3 hours only.

And if you try and figure how long it takes to do things, you’ll always be wrong. Could be a simple job of changing out outlets, 5 mins each... come to find out (old houses), a lot of times they would wire the outlets and pull excess into the basement or into first floor. So now you’ve got an outlet with zero extra wire. PITA to get old outlets out, now you’ve got to run pigtails to wire new outlet. 5 mins can turn into 15+quickly.

When I quote a job, unless I run into something major, my clients pay what I quoted, no matter how many hours. You are better off knowing up front what you’re looking at rather than trying to guesstimate how many hours.