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What do you charge to travel/ installation ?
This thread has 6 replies. Displaying all posts.
Post 1 made on Thursday October 3, 2024 at 11:13
PSS
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I have a client that has three houses about 7 hours drive away from L.A.
She's asking us fly out and get a "bid going" then most likely drive van out for the work. She has a guest house to stay in.
I haven't gone farther than a hour or so from our city.
How would you charge to fly out for a day?
Charge for driving, gas, etc. if doing the job?
Post 2 made on Thursday October 3, 2024 at 13:53
tomciara
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I used to do that but do not consider it anymore. Ignoring the logistics problems, and needing one more thingamabob when you're seven hours from home, I won't do that for people because systems nowadays need attention. Many years ago you could set it up and forget it. Now you will need to be on site for power cycling, firmware updates, a myriad of Internet and control issues. JMHO
Post 3 made on Thursday October 3, 2024 at 19:47
BobL
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Our travel rate is 75% of our regular rate per person. Whether that is sitting in an airport, flight time or driving down the road. We don't usually charge for fuel but that depends on the situation. I know we did when we did a theater in Wisconsin and drove our truck out there with our utility trailer for tools from Massachusetts and back. Lodging but not meals we pass on to the customer. One could certainly charge more, and I don't remember how we came up with these rules.
Post 4 made on Friday October 4, 2024 at 09:49
highfigh
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On October 3, 2024 at 19:47, BobL said...
Our travel rate is 75% of our regular rate per person. Whether that is sitting in an airport, flight time or driving down the road. We don't usually charge for fuel but that depends on the situation. I know we did when we did a theater in Wisconsin and drove our truck out there with our utility trailer for tools from Massachusetts and back. Lodging but not meals we pass on to the customer. One could certainly charge more, and I don't remember how we came up with these rules.

What happens if you need additional parts/equipment/supplies? Is that place remote, or near suppliers?

As an employer, do you not pay a per diem for the employees? Why should the client not pay for all costs associated with the project? Ask a large landscaping, plumbing, electrical or other contractor/builder how they charge and I doubt they foot the bill for any expense.

Where in Wisconsin and what year?

I worked on a second home in Door County, WI and the deal was:

Normal charges for the work/equipment/parts & supplies plus $200 for each round trip which totaled about 5 hours. Any incidental driving for the job was billed and food & lodging was paid by the client but after the first time, I stayed at the family's guest house or his mother's house, not far away.
My mechanic told me, "I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder."
Post 5 made on Friday October 4, 2024 at 14:52
SWOInstaller
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1,613
No way I would be travelling that far just for a bid unless it was a guaranteed project. If a guaranteed project I would be adding that expense into the final total, if not would be charging as a project deposit before providing them with the bid.

I used to travel about once a year for about 10 days at a time from 2012-2020 for 3 different projects that were 3 days driving (4hr flights). All bidding/quoting was done from our office based on drawings, emails, phone calls.

The first time I was onsite was during prewire and we had all materials shipped to site, personal hand tools traveled with me, larger/specialty tools (saws, special drills, etc.) were either shipped, bought out there, or arranged with the contractor to use theirs.

For prewire materials, we charged for the entire box/roll of the wire whether we needed 50' or 5000' and always ordered 2-3 additional. More specialty materials like speaker brackets, LV boxes etc. we just ordered what was needed as per the drawings and accounted for requiring a few more LV brackets as things always change. We also setup accounts with the local electrical suppliers to get the random stuff that you may need quickly (staples, cable ties, box of Cat, etc.)

For finish, majority or hardware was shipped to site outside of items that required setup and testing before hand (processors, touch panels, etc.) which were shipped to our office for commissioning then shipped to site. When I got to site the first day an inventory was done to ensure everything was delivered and we weren't missing anything. if items were missing it provided enough time to get it ordered and shipped before needing to leave. The smaller items (patch cables, keystones, etc. we ensured we ordered more than needed.

All travel/tech costs incurred for that project were billed to the customer (flights, baggage, hotels, car rentals, labour (@75%), travel to/from airport, etc.).

If proceeding with the project you have to have a remote connection to the system. We install computers with Teamviewer as that gives us ultimate access to the system and don't need to worry about VPN's, port forwarding, etc. Make friends with the Electrician onsite (assuming they are local) and see if they will be willing to be a set of hands to plug/unplug, check voltages, replace hardware, etc. for the minor service call stuff that can be troubleshot over the phone to save you the day+ trip for something simple.

The hardest part (which Tom also mentioned) is the service. You need a way to quickly be able to get someone onsite to deal with the service call. We lost 2 of our 3 remote customers during Covid because I couldn't get to them fast enough (they were neighbours and had a power surge which fried their amps in April 2020 and I couldn't fly out to service them). The third was also affected but was a lot more understanding and waited almost 4 months until I could get out there.
You can't fix stupid
Post 6 made on Friday October 11, 2024 at 21:11
gerard143
Advanced Member
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May 2012
958
I am in NY. Have traveled as far as Virginia. BobL's 75% rate charge is on par with what I have done. Charge for travel there and back. If I stay at clients home or guest home it would be a min of 8 hours per day labor charge at full rate.
Post 7 made on Monday October 14, 2024 at 11:51
Trunk-Slammer -Supreme
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November 2003
7,493
FWIW:

You SHOULD charge your normal hourly rate since you could be doing some actual work instead of traveling.

Why wouldn't you charge the full rate?

After all, you are also facing additional costs to do a distant job.


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