Quoted 6 800 for a limestone bench. Sat down after and it was 4 100 in the hole.
Quoted 6 800 for a carved limestone bench last spring. Two and a half tons of Indiana limestone, delivered. I had it in my head as three weeks of work.
It was nine. Not because I got slow. Because the first block had a seam running through it that only showed up after I'd already cut the seat profile, so I ate that stone and started over on a second block at my own cost. New block was 1 400. Trucking on the replacement was another 300.
Add the diamond blades I burned through and the fact that I underpriced the install because I'd guessed two guys for a day and it was three guys for two.
Came out around 4 100 under. I never went back to the client and I still don't know if I should have. He was happy with it. That's the part that eats at me, actually. He'd have paid it. I just didn't ask.
The real problem is I priced the bench I could see in my head, not the bench that was in the ground.
2
2commentsSaveFollow threadShare
The seam is the killer here. You can't quote for a stone you haven't met yet and that's the whole trouble with pricing stone, the block keeps its secrets till you're halfway in. I've had it with lino too, not the same money obviously, but you cut a big reduction and find a fault in the sheet and suddenly you're carving the whole thing again and pretending to yourself that you planned it that way.
The bit I'd push back on is eating the second block yourself. I get it, you'd given a price and you honour it, that's a decent way to be. But a hidden seam isn't you getting slow or you being wrong, it's the stone lying to you. Some of that 1 400 wants to be a conversation with the client, not a hole in your own pocket.
Did you go back to them at all, or was it a case of swallowing it and keeping the head down? I'd have been the same to be fair. The install one is the one that gets me though, guessing two lads for a day when it's three for two is how you lose a fortnight's margin without noticing.
Fair play on finishing it proper either way. Limestone's unforgiving stuff.
Lino, that's a fair comparison. Different money but the same knife. You cut a reduction and the fault opens up under your hand and now you're doing it twice on one price.
You're right about the seam not being my fault. I know it. But the block came in on my truck and I picked it out of the yard, so in my head it's mine. The client bought a bench, not a stone lottery. Doesn't make it good business, just makes it how I sleep.
What I'd do different is the quote itself. Should've said 6 800 for the stone as delivered and X per day over three weeks, seam or no seam. Word it so the ground is shared before it opens up. I've eaten two blocks in thirty years and both times it was a quote written like a promise instead of a price.