Hello have bid to do on a 3 part deck wraps around two side of brick house. deck floor averages a total of 699 square feet. the railings and spindles avereage 108 linear feet. charging $1.50 per square foot on deck = $1048.50
rails and spindles at 108 linear feet at $2.50 per foot = $270.00

no stripping involved deck is older never been sealed in good shape except grey looking from wethering and one part of deck only 2 years old not weathered but need cleaned. all of deck needs cleaned and sealed. has minor mold growth on some railing and floorboards. some nails need sunk back in and some rust on wood around where nailed down at. this job is in northern part of ohio in rural country area. my question is that i dont wanna lowball myself on estimate and wanted some feeback on what others would charge for such a job. have two more questions. is there a formula anyone uses for rail and spindel work or do most of you charge by linear foot? second question is what is good cleaner to get rust spots off around nails? i know bleach and detergent mix has done well with cleaning weathered decks in past and also opens pores up on wood so that sealer can get in and seal good. any feed back greatly appreciated have to get back with them by sunday. thanks

D. Koosky
North East Ohio

If you've not done much wood work, I would not suggest using bleach, only because so much damage can occur if you're not familiar with the ratios, etc... A better choice, and more environmentally friendly and newbie friendly one is a sodium percarbonate cleaner. It will kill the mold/mildew and clean the deck just as well as bleach but not as aggressively The key to getting the deck brightened while doing away with your pesky little rusty spots is to use oxalic acid. While a sodium percarbonate is pretty much neutral and the oxalic is not necessary for a neutralizer, it is good to brighten your wood and this chemical will accomplish this - right before your eyes! Rinse it well, go home and wait for the wood to dry


Hope some of this was helpful - good luck on the bid and don't forget to take pictures!

Celeste

Carolina ProWash

Good luck on that deck friend. I break it down to .70 square foot for cleaning and .90 square foot for staining or sealing. If both need to be done it goes for 1.40 a square foot for me and pretty much do the same as celeste says about the railings or post. Just dont forget the underside of your rails and all 4 corners of your post. Mainly just for your product that your going to use to seal or stain. I have made that mistake and ran out of product. Have not made that mistake again just because I usually just get a few extra gallons and then return it if I dont use it.

I like using a brightener for wood, everyone has there picks but I like just using a brightener by wolman or stripper if needed. Sounds like your in the good ball park range for your priceing though but every coustomer is different, some get the square footage thing and some don't. One example I had an estimate a few days back, Once I was dont everything came to 1607 square feet plus a fence that was 55 linear feet. Grand total for job 1897.00 dollars. The ladys eyes almost popped out of her head. I told here I would do it for 1.10 square foot instead of 1.40 and she just did not get it, plus it is all cedar. Spent 1 1/2 hours getting all the measure ments right then she says "I got a estimate for 900.00 to clean and stain, I said call that gentlemen and good luck with your cedar siding and decks. I just hope she doesnt get ripped off. Well enough of the endless talking, good luck with your wood cleaning and sealing job.

James D. Martin
J & M Pressure Washing
Virginia Beach VA
Email: j.m.pressurewashing@cox.net
www.jmpressurewash.com

Hey James,

Wouldn't it be easier to come up with another method of estimating your jobs? 90 minutes to estimate restoring a deck. I know a lot of people are really detailed when estimating like this but I tend to keep it simpler and measure the length times width, then figure in the rails, lattice and the pita factor. I would have estimated it in about 10 minutes. True, I may have shorted myself on an extra gallon of sealer ($15 tops) but I saved over an hour of my time. We all shoot for a minimum of $100 an hour when doing decks but that 90 minutes is wasted time when you don't get the job. I'd rather eat the $15 in sealer instead of losing 90 minutes of my time. With a couple estimates like that, I could have cleaned a deck.

Henry Bockman
cell 240 274 0300
Email
Pressure washing services in Maryland, Virginia and DC

Easy Henry, lots of us are still on a learning curve here....we're enormously detailed in our measurements and complete inspection of the wood condition, etc. 99% of our customers will call us, even though we are usually several hundred dollars higher because of the time we spend with the customers during the estimate. If we've sold the job because we did the romancing the customer routine, we make up for the additional time because we're charging more

Celeste

Carolina ProWash

I'm not saying he's wrong to take so much time to estimate it or talk with the client, I'm just trying to save him some time.
We used to spend quite a bit of time estimating jobs also but after a while we figured out a system to do them faster. I'd try to explain it but it would probably take 90 minutes to do so..lol

But, Now that he's taken that time to measure every square foot of lumber on this job he may be able to use that information to come up with a faster method. In this case he came up with:

floor averages a total of 699 square feet. the railings and spindles avereage 108 linear feet. charging $1.50 per square foot on deck = $1048.50
rails and spindles at 108 linear feet at $2.50 per foot = $270.00

Now using a sliding scale formula and taking those figures and his pricing scale, I would have bid it around $1,398.00 Keep in mind though I can't take the PITA factor into effect from his description and I don't know the elevation of the deck, how dry it is, if it will need extra sealer, plants around it or any lattice either so the price could vary by as much as $200 up or down.. If it was easy access with no lattice or ponds/pools nearby that would probably be close to what others would charge.

Henry Bockman
cell 240 274 0300
Email
Pressure washing services in Maryland, Virginia and DC

Gotcha Speeding up that learning curve - that's why we're all here

Celeste

Carolina ProWash

Go back and look at your proposals. What I have found is that the majority of decks with rails on three sides and a few steps end up just about double your floor measurement. I have simplified my measuring to doubling the floor squares and using $1.10/s.f. Planter boxes, benches and trellises are additional.

One final comment..I think $2.50 a linear foot of rail is too cheap. Rails are a royal PIA. If you can wash, brighten and seal all sides of 40 feet of railing in an hour's time, you are a better man than I. I think Henry's number is right there. I'd get a little more but $1400 seems a fair price.

Ken Fenner
PressurePros, Inc
Havertown, PA
www.pressure-pros.com
pressure washers in PA

Thanks Ken,

I just decided a long time ago that I was spending too much time estimating the jobs instead of talking to the client, estimating other jobs or just doing the work. It's pretty easy to come up with a formula to use after you have estimated a few jobs. Just estimate three decks the normal way and keep track of the square footage of the deck itself. Then do something like this.

floor averages a total of 700 square feet.
charging $1.50 per square foot on deck = $1048.50

the railings and spindles avereage 108 linear feet.
rails and spindles at 108 linear feet at $2.50 per foot = $270.00

The square foot price for this job would be 1.88 a square foot (deck floor measurement), this would include the rails and floors.


I priced it with what I believe is close to the industry standard pricing of $2 a square foot. That's how I came up with $1400

As I said before, if there was lattice, pond/pool, lots of plants, steps or high elevation I would charge additional (PITA) factor.
The PITA pricing factor is something everyone has to figure out for themselves. Some of you might not mind lattice as much as I do..lol.

Some guys will price the labor out then add extra for the sealer, chems ect but it usually works out about the same in the long run. Now it's true that a lot of guys will charge less or more than this base price but it's something that you can use to figure out estimates faster.

Some people may think I'm crazy for not measuring every single peice of wood but that's okay, I think it's too time consuming. I want to concentrate on service and results more than my estimates. I may get $20 less than someone else or use a gallon more sealer than I though but to me, it's worth it in the long run. A $20 profit loss isn't going to hurt me if I can increase my speed and get to estimates faster.

I wonder what home owners think when someone is out there measuring every side and piece of wood or spending so much time to do it.
If I was them, I would be thinking MAN, this is gonna be expensive..lol
Or, doesn't this guy know what he's doing? Why is it taking him so long to estimate this job if he knows what he's doing?

When I'm hiring someone to work on my home I want someone that's quick, decisive and knows what they are doing. If they spend a lot of time figuring out the price I'm going to wonder, how often do they do this?

Please take this as help, not critisizm. If what your doing works for you and you get the job that's great! I'm just trying to offer some help to save you some time and tell you what works for us.

Henry Bockman
cell 240 274 0300
Email
Pressure washing services in Maryland, Virginia and DC

I see what your saying henry, I have gotten a projectcalc plus from homedepot that helps with the square footage for the railings, and post. It helped me with some of my time plus from what I have found from coustomer so far is they like the detailed measureing for square footage or linear footage.

I am getting quicker though. I just like to be exact when I tell someone something. But I do hear ya though henry, thanks for the help.

James D. Martin
J & M Pressure Washing
Virginia Beach VA
Email: j.m.pressurewashing@cox.net
www.jmpressurewash.com