Thon,

Thanks for your reply, I really just want to find out if im slow, fast, or
average on my install times. Its important to know if your competitive!

RHT,

I suspect that most of us here, certainly me, assumed you were a customer that had received a quote and were trying to ask if it was reasonable. In such a situation you are going to find that most of us refuse to answer because we have no intention of giving wild guesses when whoever visitied the job has an entire boatload of info to base their bid on that we don't. That would begrossly unfari to that installer.

I suspect if it had been your customer posting you would have been very glad we said we vould not answer based on those limited facts. That's not to say that I would have attempted to answer even if we knew you were an installer because I still don't think the question could be answered.

But I just wanted you to know what was going through our minds.

I stil lthink he's a client. Give me a break...if he is doing this as a business, how can he not know if his times are reasonable. I also believe he would have explained whether it was a retrofit or prewire and how extensive the job was if he was looking at getting a more accurate comparison. If you are a client, I just want to say this. If you think your installer is screwing you, then you should get a second quote (or third). Not one person here will give you a quote, because we know how it feels when some jackass says "I heard from other people that it should only take 'X' amount of hours", when that jackass that wrote that had no clue of obsticles or any other strange construction in the house.

His email gives the impression that he is indeed a dealer. Looks like a reletively new one as his website isnt actually up yet... Just a splash page.

not a new dealer, however webpage is new, changed company names, and have been dragging my feet on getting the new page up. I think not clarifying that I am a dealer was my mistake.

RHT,

you can find "standard" labor hours everywhere. ie 1 hr for speakers, 1/2 hr for vol control etc. just remember that there is no such thing as "standard" in our business and you should always do a complete site survey before you agree to anything.

I quote every job right down to the tee. I have been in this business for 3 years, and a Superintendent building Hi-Rises for 5 years before this. I'm no stranger to contracting. I was just curious to see if my install times were faster, slower, ect.

You could NEVER do that job for a customer in 24 billable hours. It would take several hours of walk thru/design. And an additional 6 hours for initial oriantation and a few follow up trainings. 24 hours for the RAW install is decent though. I've done jobs were the equipment is installed in half my alloted time and still had labor overruns with defects, setup, training, et cetera.

The Guy that says Never, is the same guy who watches the next guy in line do what he just said could not be done.

That being said:
Day 1 8hrs (Customer Supplied Equiptment)
Layout / Install Plasma Brackets
Cut holes for power, low voltage
Pull rgbrw along with ir up wall behind center plasma and drop behind each tv
run romex up wall, junction in attic, and drop at each tv.
Pull 3 sat lines, 1 hd ant line from on-q Box and 1 phone, drop down wall.
pull 5 coax to outside eve from on-q for sat and HD
Trim electrical, and low voltage.

Day 2, 8 hrs
Install Satellite dish and Hd antenna
trim all rgbrw, tone, and Set Plasma displays. install 3 hd boxes, 1 tivo, and 1 dvd
install 1 hd, 1 tivo, 1 dvd into prewire living room sony lcd tv.
install " " into mast bedroom closet located directly behind tv w/ zantec IR control and trim.

Day 3, 8 hrs
program mx-800 and educate customer


I know its possible, because I did it. Id be happy to send some pictures before you say "well you must not have done a nice job then"

You're an electrician too...

Sucks that you didn't get to sell any of the product. Hope that you got enough money for your labor to make up for it.

John

GC, with C-7, Most jobs we sell all the product, this customers mom works for a Hi-end electonics store in Chicago, so he got his equiptment at cost. 85/hr plus materials and some upgrades, I usally make out pretty good. Like the rest ofthe guys in here, people pay to be taken care of.

I don't happen to use them, but can't MX-800s be set up to use IR or RF, making it a perfectly valid question to ask which method you intended to use?




I personally do not understand how you could do this job, alone, in 24 hours...your later post detailing the time does not mention that anybody helped. I don't like hanging plasmas all by myself. Anything above, well, actually, even a 42 is just a bit more than I want to handle, from the front, snagging onto a mount by myself. Are you sure maybe you didn't leave out a detail, as you did in your initial description of the job?

You are installing at the right pace if you continue to sell jobs quoted at prices based on your pace. Also, if your pace needs to be slowed to avoid mistakes, it is too fast.

I looked back at the responses to your post, and I do not see anyone tooting their own horns. I see people who are looking realistically at the small amount of information that you provided, who are not willing to guess at what you did not include. Remember, when you make this list, that you have a mental picture of the entire job and the site, so your undetailed list means way more to you than it does to any of us.

For instance, here in Southern California, we have houses with crawl spaces below them and nice roomy attics. We also have houses on slabs with flat roofs where ceiling/roof joists (sometimes they ARE the same!) have to be drilled through, successively, to run wires...after you have gone up the wall, through the top plate and snagged yourself into the joist space. This one variable would drastically change the wiring cost. What were the details you included in your description of the site to show how we could estimate what we would be up against?

According to my customers about a day with one installer.

Now THAT is funny!

I usually can do about 3 of these jobs a day... when our good buddy Tim is helping of course!