Maintenance man charging percentage of tool set value?
Member since 2019 · 7 posts · 0 votes
My fiancée and I just bought our first duplex that is already occupied. We hired a friend who does maintenance for a large real estate management company. He has recently started doing personal jobs on the side but is new to the business part of it.
He went to a unit and replaced an outdated thermostat, fixed a light fixture that was hanging, and sprayed WD-40 into the units entrance lock because it was giving the tenants some trouble.
When we got the invoice, he charged for 45 minutes of labor but also charged an extra $30 for additional fees and had no further description. When politely asked to breakdown what made up the additional fees he said it covers mileage, any supplies he has to use and 2% of his tool set value.
I am wondering if that makes sense. Especially paying for his tool set value. I do not see anything more than a drill being needed. Shouldn’t the expense of needing to periodically replace tools be put into their hourly cost? What are others experiences with hiring out maintenance? Thanks!
@Jourdain Francine
Who cares what the breakdown on his end is, was the total reasonable? I don’t care if they charge me a “work-boot fee” “tire wear fee” and “good looking assistant” fee as long as it’s fixed correctly the first time at an appropriate total.
I think I it’s half a dozen of one or six of the other. Everyone is saying he should include that in his hourly rate and that would be fine and they are upset that he broke it out. In my opinion I find myself thinking invoices are to vague most times. Whether he breaks it out like he did or he lumps it all together you still end up paying it so I would take the opposite approach and thank the man for being honest and breaking it out and making it visible to you. At least he wasn’t hiding any of that. I believe it could have been worded a little better as well but that’s beside the point.
Thanks for the reply, Luke. A handful of people have said this not and I think it is a good way to look at it. We will look at the overall cost and decide whether it makes sense for us or not.
My fiancée and I just bought our first duplex that is already occupied. We hired a friend who does maintenance for a large real estate management company. He has recently started doing personal jobs on the side but is new to the business part of it.
He went to a unit and replaced an outdated thermostat, fixed a light fixture that was hanging, and sprayed WD-40 into the units entrance lock because it was giving the tenants some trouble.
When we got the invoice, he charged for 45 minutes of labor but also charged an extra $30 for additional fees and had no further description. When politely asked to breakdown what made up the additional fees he said it covers mileage, any supplies he has to use and 2% of his tool set value.
I am wondering if that makes sense. Especially paying for his tool set value. I do not see anything more than a drill being needed. Shouldn’t the expense of needing to periodically replace tools be put into their hourly cost? What are others experiences with hiring out maintenance? Thanks!
That's a tough question as I ran into these dilemma's myself all these years.
I used to work for a non-profit and were getting unaffordable quotes for a simple audit, about $5,000 to conduct an annual one. I know my CPA has low overhead, can do it cheaper, and he was hired at a $2,500 quote. It helps the non-profit as funding was hard to come by.
Fast forward 8 years, my CPA is getting close to retirement, and this is about the only audit account left. He said his problem was he had about half a dozen clients he does audits for back then, and he has to subscribe to certain services, a few hundred a year, maybe a thousand. It makes sense when the cost is spread over 6 clients, but when you only have one client needing it, it doesn't pay, and he's considering dropping the non profit as a client. Since I know him and the director of the agency well, I said "why don't you charge your audit fee, and add in the added fees you have to spend?" So he shook his head and said it doesn't look right like it's almost like your charging for your tools doing the job.
But I know the director of the agency, and she'll go crazy if the fees went up $1,000 even though it's still cheaper by comparison. All my CPA has to do is say the fee is year is $1,000 more. But if the CPA is honest, really he's actually keeping his fees the same, but adding in the costs of services he had to get by doing the audit. He rather drop the client as a result because the resultant billing sounds like a scam.
The way I look at it, the more complicated you make the billing to make it clear, the more upset some clients get sometimes, like in your case. So the non profit loses out because an honest bill is too hard to explain. I thought it's pretty sad.
The way I look at it, a bill is a bill, if the total is comparable to what you pay someone else, it's a good job, just pay it.
@Jourdain Francine
I started out as a commercial/industrial electrician and understand how electrical contractors bid their jobs. What he did is no different than what any other contractor would have done to operate their business cost effective.
Let's say you want me to do a job that will require me to use a man lift to reach high up on a building to install some conduit and some lights. I don't have a man lift so I have two choices if I want to be able to do the job 1) go buy a man lift which I will pass the charge on to you as the customer or 2) go rent a man lift which I will pass the charge on to you as the customer. If I will never need the man lift again I'll just rent it but if I am bidding a lot of jobs that require it I'll buy it. You award me the bid and have essentially bought me a man lift. The next job I bid needs a man lift also and I have one but if I didn't I'd have to rent one. Any future customer that gets that bid will have the cost of me having to rent one in their bid. Most of the contractors I've worked for have a company or branch that they set up and own which charges them to rent tools that they already own to themselves. Thats how they do it on hard bid jobs.
On service call jobs that fee is hidden. You call me and need me to come out and find out why your exterior lights aren't working. I charge $100 per man per hour and tell you there is a 2 hour minimum even though it may be 10mins of work and flipping your circuit breaker back on. My employee doesn't get paid $100 per hour but you are paying his wages, insurance, benifits, travel, vehicle cost if it's a company truck and cost of any company tools he needs for the job.
So like otgers have said it's a cost of business. If his price was reasonable and he did the job right it's fine.
@Jourdain Francine
Every cost that Starbucks has, every customer pays for it. Delivering coffee nationwide, renting the building, utilities, employees wages, a d coffee makers. All of those costs are factored into the price you pay for your coffee.
If he charged $50 for 45mins + $30 in additional fees(itemized) it equals the same thing as if he told you $80(overhead not itemized) for 45mins.
@Account Closed you might try Taskrabbit. These are folks that do small jobs and it can be a better way to do the type of job you described
Thank you so oooooo much! I had never heard of this. I just checked out the website. This is super helpful!