Paying Help for garage Construction

[racerboy832]

I have a few good guys that I know that are hurting for work. I am building a 24 X 32 garage this summer. One guy told me his labor will be around $3000. and his helpers are $25Hr and $15hr. He said he would have the shell up and weather tight 5 days Max. This is all I want for now. In this economy is it fair to be paying $3000 for one guy for 5 days work? I know he is very good and everyone that has used him had not a bad word about his work. Permits are in My name so I assume he isn't paying workers comp for the other guys. He's not a company but a really good framer with 2 other friends doing nothing.

It's always killed me when you know a buddy is being payed say $20 an hour by his boss and quotes you 300 for a 1/2 day job. I pay in cash too. I've even had it when I spend 6 hours working on a guys motorcycle and ask him for 1-2 hour help on my roof. He says well i'll gotta make something cause I would of charge you this $.

 

[tfi racing]

So basically he wants $4600 to frame your building?Sound's like full bore retail to me,for 3K cash money he should be paying his helpers out of that!

 

[GeorgiaHybrid]

That might be the going price in some areas but down here in rural Georgia, that price is outrageous for framing a simple garage. Three guys and 5 days for it roofed, doors and windows in, siding complete and weather tight is about right but is should run more like $2,000 to $2,500 max for all of them together. If I hire them myself, 1 guy at $15 and 2 of them at $12 for $39.00 per hour for 40 hours work for a total of $1,600.

 

[racerboy832]

The other one that kills me is the surveryor. I have 3.5 acres. I'm building directly behind my house. I'm 200 foot from the land behind me (Which is 1200 acres of state forest), 400 foot from road and 100 foot on each side of the property line. Min fee for the surveryor is $2500. I need nothing other then his stamp. He did the land in 1996. The town won't even talk to you unless you have a current A2 survey.

 

[Keith1954]

I had 3 guys that helped me build a garage. Beer and a cook out took care of the labor

 

[mebedave]

" shell up and weather tight 5 days"for that price I hope weather tight means windows and doors installed trim siding and roof completed.

 

[brokenknee]

Labour rates are regional, you do not have your location in your profile. Some areas as stated you can get it done for 12 to15 bucks an hour; other locations a guy will not even get out of the truck for that.

Unless the guy is substantially less than a licensed contractor I would not even look at him. By pulling the permits yourself you are taking responsibility if someone were to get hurt on the job site.

I would get at least three quotes from three licensed contractors and see how they compare. Also never ever make the finial payment until you have all lien releases in hand.

 

[mebedave]

I had a qoute for a 30x50 pole barn from a local contractor I found on craigslist.com the kit package delivered $5400 and I install it,or for another $2800 he and his crew would do the install. thats 10' walls 10x10(made by hand) sliding door one man door and one window. I don't think I'll be going this route but $2800 labor you get my point

 

[jmh21586]

5 days for that shed????????????????????????????????????????????

My dad, for something to do, framed up the walls for my 32x54' garage in 2 days. I don't even think he had to bust his **** to do it either. Then I paid a guy to come in and stand the walls up, put the truss's on and sheat the roof, and they did that in a day.


So even if he does take 5 days at 8 hours a day that means he's going to make $600 a day?? $75 an hour?? Plus what you'll pay his help?? Another possible $1600??


Does this include shingling the roof?? Should at that price.

My roof cost me $750 in labor. (32'x54' garage) One guy, one day.




What gets me about this price is it seems he's charging you what a contractor would charge. A contractor that pays taxes, insurance, unemployment, social security, etc.

I'm guessing this guy won't be doing any of that.


Tell him you'll give him $30 an hour. If he and the others are hard up for work their prices should reflect it. Thats how it works. Supply and demand.

 

[racerboy832]

This is the info that i'm tryin to find out. Some guys tels me oh, I had my garage built and it was 20X40 and I paid 10g for labor then other say they did it in a week for $500 each man. Heck my neighbor bought a new shed for $4300 it was 8X12. Another Friend did 12X16 for $3500. I almost puked when I see people paying that kinda dough. I'm just kinda getting an idea of what is fair.

 

[greg]

I built a 24x36 last year and acted as my own GC . I subbed out the framing for $2600 which was right at $3sf . The framing took them about a week and this covered three guys . This was for the shell Tyvek'ed and tar paper on the roof . I paid another $800 to have it shingled and it is a 7/12 pitch . With everything said and done including drywall , electrical insulation I ended up at about $28 a sf .

 

[ripsnortMN]

Most of my buddies will come over and build my garage for free. No joke. Just as long as I keep the grill going all day and the beer cold. LOL!

 

[knucklebusted]

I have a few good guys that I know that are hurting for work. I am building a 24 X 32 garage this summer. One guy told me his labor will be around $3000. and his helpers are $25Hr and $15hr. He said he would have the shell up and weather tight 5 days Max. This is all I want for now. In this economy is it fair to be paying $3000 for one guy for 5 days work? I know he is very good and everyone that has used him had not a bad word about his work. Permits are in My name so I assume he isn't paying workers comp for the other guys. He's not a company but a really good framer with 2 other friends doing nothing.

Now, if they are friends and you don't mind throwing them the work to help them out, that's fine. However, I would hate to see you abused in this economic climate if your money is tight, too! I think most of my friends would help for less than market price since I expect them to receive the same treatment on anything I can do for them. I can't tell you how many computers I've spent a whole day working on and only charge $20 if they didn't bring pizza!

I had my 24'x32' with 12'8" ceiling, steep roofed garage go from concrete foundation one day to framed/walled building that afternoon, the roof was on by noon the next day for $2,500 a few years ago. The shingles were on by the third and it was another $500. With this economy, I'd think you aren't getting that great of a deal, especially for cash. I got a 10% discount for cash when they would take it over a check.

My GC hired a three or four man Mennonite crew and it was done in a no time. Those fellows have a real work ethic. That did not include garage doors or siding though.

The siding was another $1,000 labor. So, I had $4,000 in getting it weather tight without the doors. They didn't break the doors down into materials and labor but the materials were the biggest part I'm guessing.

In the end, if they are friends, you owe it to yourself to get at least another quote to make yourself feel like you did due diligence.

 

[willymakeit]

It is nice to help someone out. However be careful, if someone gets hurt You will be liable if they dont have workcomp ect. This is a sad fact. I would get a straight bid in writing with a max price.

 

[mebedave]

racerboy832 just wondering .... where do you live ?

 

[racerboy832]

Connecticut. Everything is still verbal at this point. I asked for a rough idea on a price. First I was told, just pay me by the hour then it's ended up at a Job price. I get this all the time with stuff. Good friends will say throw me a $100 and i'll do this or that, next time it's I get $30 an hour and just pay me for my time. I understand things can go wrong, But with your guys help i'm just trying to pin down which is a better route to go. Another thing, Can I buy temporary insurance just for this build? I have homeowners but didn't know if I need something more.

 

[35mastr]

Call a contractor and get a quote. Then you will know exactly what it will cost.

 

[Falcon67]

For $3000 - I'd take a week off and pay myself for the vacation time. And own a brand new framing nailer to boot. Took me maybe a weekend to raise and brace the walls on my 20x24 by myself, the next weekend to build the rafters/joists from scratch then the next Saturday to deck the thing, including falling off the decking once. Paid the roofer people renting the house behind us $100 and some adult beverages to paper, flash and shingle.

 

[brownbagg]

what bad is, you ask somebody, "hey come help me saturday, I give you $100, for saturday work" no, we do the whole job for $3000, but then they dont complain on regular 40 workweek at $10. the 100 dollar is tax free.

 

[1991Syclone]

Ask to see liability insurance and workmans compensation insurance before you do anything with them. Friends or not, lawsuits aren't cheap.

 

[Stuart in MN]

Connecticut. Everything is still verbal at this point. I asked for a rough idea on a price. First I was told, just pay me by the hour then it's ended up at a Job price. I get this all the time with stuff. Good friends will say throw me a $100 and i'll do this or that, next time it's I get $30 an hour and just pay me for my time. I understand things can go wrong, But with your guys help i'm just trying to pin down which is a better route to go. Another thing, Can I buy temporary insurance just for this build? I have homeowners but didn't know if I need something more.

Looking at it from the other side, it's possible your friends are pricing themselves high enough to discourage you from asking them to help you out...maybe they have other things they want to do in their spare time, maybe they want to avoid any hassles that can come up when working for a friend, maybe they don't want to work off the books in case their boss finds out. Could be any number of things.

An important thing someone else mentioned is that by doing it this way you won't have any liability protection in case someone gets hurt during construction (one of the guys working on it, you, or just someone walking by who gets hit in the head with a dropped hammer), plus you won't have any warrantee protection either in the event the building tips over 6 months after it's built.

 

[dipper]

I framed my whole garage. The town was only worried about any contractors working on it, they had to show liability and comp insurance; i hired a guy to do the concrete so he had to show proof of insurance to the town.
other than that, I framed the walls of my 20x22 garage on my own over the course of a few days; had my 2 brothers help a day and we finished the wall framing and layed in the ceiling rafters. I had another friend help out with the OSB sheeting, that was another day. I had my brothers, dad and a friend come out and we had the roof framed and decked in a day.

Bottom line is it's not too bad to do work yourself (if your willing and capable). If you've got good friends/family that will help you too. Also depends on what your timeline is for getting this garage built.

My garage sat for a whole winter in tyvek cause the helper i was supposed to get to help me with the siding wasn't going to work out. I had pretty much all the materials in the garage at that point too, just needed to get the vinyl siding installed. I got to the point that i just wanted it done and made a few phone calls to some local contractors to install the siding......ha ha they wanted 3k or more and a few days to do it. Needless to say I wasn't going to pay that much (might have spent 750 or 1000 but not 3000)!! It took me the better part of 3 days to side my garage and it turned out just as good as a pro. I remember saying, "this is pretty fun" while hanging the siding.

 

[oscar78]

anytime you are hiring a non-contractor to do labor pay them by the day 10hr per day its between 120-150$ per day per person. depends on how
hard they work.

 

[Sureshot]

Around here the general rule of thumb is the labour will be about the same as the material cost for a contractor when all is said and done. So I would look at paying them somewhere between 50 and 75% of that.

I did a 26x26x10 myself. Framed and sheeted the walls myself in a stack on the ground. Got some guys to help me stand them on the grade beam and throw up the rafters. Had it sheeted that same day and shingled the next.

 

[NXGTS]

I had a friend help me that needed a job for the summer. He went back to school and needed something to tide him over. I paid him $100/day most were 10-12hr. days. I bought lunch almost everyday as well. I probably paid him around $1800 to get it dried in. That's for a 30x48. I guess we work slow compared to some on this board.

 

[stafford]

I've framed a lot. Always by the sq. ft. 3.00 would be a big price for your job. Which comes out to 2304.00. The helpers get paid out of that. Your guy is trying to clean your clock. If you have a home on the property, your homeowners will cover the workers.. If you really wanna set you satchel down for labor just hire yourself a bonded insured workers comp covered contractor to do it. It'll cost the hell out of ya and the work won't be any better. For the price I told you, the outside should be finished, except for nailing the shingles on.

 

[Kevin54]

HEY GUYS....THIS THREAD IS 1 3/4 YEARS OLD. Oops, sorry for shouting. Cap locks was on.

 

[Steevo]

The best comparison would be to call a construction contractor from an ad, maybe Craigslist?, and get an estimate for the same work.
If the out-of-work crew is at or near the retail cost quoted by a second guy, then it is no bargain. You might even find a guy who is a little hungrier than your guy is.