Labor vs Material cost

[Christine Edwards]

I had a contractor give me an estimate for some work that needs to be done on my house.

Material cost  $15,345

From what I have read online, it says that labor should be roughly around 40 - 50% of the total project cost.  Is this true?  

If so,  could I double the materials to come up with a rough estimate of what labor should be?

If not, is there a way to estimate the total project cost based on materials.  I understand it wouldn't be exact, but I got an estimate where labor costs ended up being about 71% of total cost.  Which is crazy high to me.

Any advice/experience would be great.

Thank You

Christine

[Bruce Woodruff]

It depends on the trade involved. For instance, framing....that used to turn out to be about 50/50 labor and materials. But other trades are more labor heavy  (or materials heavy).

There is really no way to know for sure, not to even come close. But I'm not sure why you think you need to know the breakdown....get 3 bids and if they are close to each other then you're in the ballpark, and just pick the guys with the best 'feeling' and best reviews/references....

Most Contractors are not going to share the split between labor and materials with you. It's not your business how they choose to work out their bids, right?