Soooo... I get a couple "labor reports" from the owner today... A couple of jobs I've recently sold came in with actual labor about 2 to 3 times over what it should have been. Instead of my 45 hour estimate... the one job came in at 115 hours!
I'm basically out of the loop, in terms of daily tracking their time.
My installers - two guys, always manage to work together doing the work of one guy it seems... one very slow guy.
The hardware was all priced properly.
But... who catches hell for the massive labor overruns? Me of course! The same two guys I've been trying to tell them to replace now for 6 months. So instead of a labor charge of $3,600.00 --- the boss informs me we (I), need to contact the client, and attempt to get at least another $4000 or so... to cover costs.
The second job... well, I don't even want to think about it...
Sure jobs can run over, and do run over... I'm just up against the wall... My bid of $3,600.00 labor on the one job was still a bit higher than the other bids for very comparable work. Just a little frustrated ya know!? Especially when I'm the one who ends up going out at the last minute and fixing things on the jobs!

What was the job? Details? An over run like that is waaaay out there.

Seems like daily time sheets are needed to keep track of the actual work being done each visit.

...Plus, an occasional surprise visit to see how things are progressing.

3 rooms background music w/ v-controls / pr. ceiling speakers per room
2 basic surround areas 5.1 (family room) & (bonus room) in wall & in ceiling speakers free standing subs
basic security 4 doors 8 windows 2 k-pads 2 motions
hung 2 plasmas (had smurfs to the gear for HDMI cables)
5 cable drops
only 3 phone drops (long story)

Pre-Wire ran 30 hours new construction.
Trim & final... 85 hours!
2700 sq. ft. tract home.

Man I'm bummed...

We do daily time sheets, only we don't back every night... usually once a week.|


Oh yeah, I do that when I can, plus call them each day once or twice.

Sounds like 45 hours of work and 75 hours of smoke breaks.

Thats insane. The only time I ever expect returns like is the day after an installers birthday, when they are allowed to sleep in the bathroom as long as they want too. And thats only cause the birthday employee gets 100$ Jager bonus and the best meal availible.

If you pre-wired and 85 for the trim out, that’s criminal. That was at most, 2 full days with problems. They need to be replaced..

Mr. Stanley,

That is asinine. As an employer, I am constantly trying to gauge various tasks and their difficulty/time requirement. That pre-wire should have been about 15 hours, tops. There was very little to do. The trim is unbelievable considering it was the same two jokers who wired the place.


"Rant ON"
This is why I am constantly still installing. The work ethic of todays work force is pathetic. I'm actually thinking about starting to hire Mexicans because many (not all, but more than americans!) understand the concept of hard work. I am really getting tired of the yahoos that come through my door looking for a job, and once they get it, think it is a perpetual B.S. session.
"Rant OFF"

Let me start with the pre-wire. This was new construction right? 30 hours!?! You have got to be kidding me. How big was the house? You know that doesn't matter. We just finished a house not to long ago that was 7,500 sf. We did a central vac, 12 phone, 30 TV (satellite), 8 data, a Greyfox/OnQ intercom, security, 4 cameras, 2 surround areas, and 3 indoor audio zones, and 2 outdoor audio zones, and had to pull wire to the pool house. Rough took 3 guys 2 days (24 hours +-). Around here I barely get a day, since this was the builders own house, we were given a little longer. 30 hours for what you described is borderline criminal.

Now on to the finish. We trimmed this off and on for a few weeks, but once I added up the time it was a total of 30 hours, and that included hanging 2 plasmas. In fact the phone/TV/security/intercom was trimmed in 6 hours, the vac took 4 including cutting the cabinet for the vacpan, and the audio took about 4 including installing speakers. The enclosure is what took the time and that was 1 man stuck in a closet for 6 hours. The rest of the time was positioning the cameras and installing the plasmas.

Stan, I would seriously think about getting new installers. I understand it is not your call to make, but I would sit down with the owner and let her know this is way beyond the norm. I think these guys are sucking everything they can out of the company and are probably stealing material for side jobs.

while this sounds f'ed up i could see having some issues.

we are working on an 11k greystone in chicago. just finished the prewire for the phone ,data, and cable. it took 6 days longer to prewire than i thought.

granted we have over 40 runs of each and over 6k feet of each cable. it shocked the shit out of me. it was the hardest prewire i have ever done.

now we have to prewire for the whole house sound and all 18 plasma/lcd locations. cant wait to see how wrong i was on that!

good thing i covered my ass on labor and material or i'd be screwed

signed

confused for life

You are talikng man hours right? So two guys equals 16 hours per day.

My crew does this kind of pre-wire as a twosome in one 8 hour shift with smoke breaks.

The trim you describe for the average 2700 Sq Ft tract Home might go on my bid at two full days with a possible half for calibration and finish so approxiamtely 40 man hours. total of 56.

I get T&M so if it takes longer it takes longer but experience would definitely tell me you got some milkers here. Its a tough one because they need to get paid and if you lower the rate to compensate, the company and you take it in the shorts. Surely its time for a pow-wow to ask WTF?

Yeah Roland... The frustrating thing is origionally, I had no interest in bringing on these guys, even though one is a sort of old friend-associate. I told the owners they were paying both of these guys waaaay too much $$$, and that they both were totally lacking in the skill sets and experience we need.
I wish I'd kept all of my emails I've sent them reminding them of this issue.
I feel guilty as I should have been reviewing their daily hours reports, but it's not really my job, but since it is impacting me now --- so I am going to be Mr. Time-Nazi Micro-Manager Mo-Fo'!
The other thing is, the company I'm with (we're just a wart on their backside) does huge freeway & city lighting jobs, traffic signal systems, traffic cam systems for the state... (they've never lost money on a job)... but those jobs are a lot more lucrative, and I'm sure the companies bidding those bid them very high...
Public residential job bidding is a different animal, especially as you know up here - where everybody and their brother are in the business.
With shrinking video margins, and all it is really a different deal.
The last bid I went up against had standard 6.5 inch 2-way ceiling speakers bid-out @$160 per pair -INStALLED... that is pre-wired and trimmed!!!
I generally charge more than that to Pre-Wire alone for 2 spkrs & a VC & cat 5 to the VC location! These guys were also including a cat 5 to the VC location!!!
And they aren't trunk slammers... they are a large company down south of Seattle that do a LOT of the new developments.
The last few jobs I've got, my labor was higher than the other guys... and I cannot lower it, especially with our current effeciency. I'm not trying to be the lowest priced guys by any means, we're trying to position ourselves as the Lexus (not the Ferraris) vs. the Chevy Celebrity guys. The company has the means $$$ to be top-notch all around... I don't really want to do business with price-only clients... but it is a changing market up here.
I guess for now, all I can do is work with the guys I have, and clue them in on time deadlines, track them daily, or twice a day...(check in at 12 & at end of the day), and let my clients know clearly that there could be over-runs & that I can only give them industry averages and averages based upon past - similar sized jobs... but that when it looks like we'll be running over time wise, I'll alert them at the first inkling...
Anyway, I gotta get back to work! Thanks for listening to my whining!

At first I was thinking you were describing a retofit, and as I read I was like..I know a guy that could help me and we might be a little over on time, but not at 115. Then I saw it was a pre-wire/trim job. OMG.. That is mind boggling. I did a home by myself that I retro'd 3 rooms of audio with VC's (one had a Elan S6kp just doing IR through a zantech block for basic DA component control), a full home theater with the rears run through a VC..( homeowner like to play PS2, and listed to tunes at the same time). Wiring for digital, analog, composite, and S-video from his computer location. I wired for a plasma, and then installed it, along with a Marantz Reciever, Denon Reciever(running DA totally seperately), VCR, DVD, and Cable Box. Then I reconfigured his existing TSU3000 to operate the new equipment, with the configuration changes made from his original install..13 hours....once again, by myself....no smoke breaks though..

Mr. Stanley.

I'm as slow as it gets. I mean snail slow, and often end up with some hours unpaid because I bid labor based on what I know it should take compared to what I know is more realistic with my snails pace.

Yet I find myself thinking that I could have done that job by myself in under 45 hours. With a seasoned partner there is NO WAY the job couldn't have been completed in the 45 hours you charged for.

I've worked on projects that simple distributed rooms were prewired and trimmed in roughly one hour per room. It seems this crew was about three or four times that number. So unless they were dealing with lots of changes, dead gear, wrong gear and other assorted issues beyond their control I'd have to assume they where at the bar many of those hours.

Your boss needs to call the client himself and explain why his company is so poorly run that two guys were allowed to take over a hundred hours to complete a simple project.

Frankly, I hope you made the whole thing up, because this is just ludicrous.