Please give me your approx. number.

[Joe Appleby]

I searched for a thread, but didn't come up with what I wanted.

I'm currently bidding 80,000 sf at a county facility in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The bid asks for pre-conditioning followed with hot water extraction by a truck-mounted unit.

Two other cleaners are stating that they will "vacuum, pre-spot, pre-condition and hot-water extract for .04 per sf.

In my professional opinion, to give the county what they are asking for without vacuuming first and depending on degree of soil, you can properly clean 800-1200 sf per hr per crew.

I'd like to share this thread with the county purchaser. Please be respectful.

 

[hogjowl]

There is absolutely no way anyone can possibly do a three step cleaning at 4 cents per s.f. On commercial cleaning, when I use Hot Water Extraction, I normally don't prevacuum (unless it is horribly soiled). Even using only a two step method, I can't clean more than 800 s.f. per hour/man.

Somebody is either a rookie who doesn't understand his ability, or a bait-n-switch artist to offer a price that low.

Or ... another possibility ... the guy is saying he's going to hwe for that price, but plans on encaping it instead.

 

[Lee Stockwell]

I did a 50,000sf project like that for 4 cents a sf once...

...in 1979.

 

[hogjowl]

And a day later, he fell off his lawn mower and about killed himself.

 

[Jeremy]

Low moisture could go as low as $.05 but for extraction you couldn't possibly do properly at $.04 a sq ft. Even with portables & minimum wage labor I'd lose money a that price. Seems like the competition has some illegal labor or has lost their calculator...

Have you considered OP or Rotary Shampoo cleaning? You could bid competitively & maintain at least some margin with the higher production rates and lower material costs. Personally, I like Judson Labs & Vacaway.

 

[dealtimeman]

at .04 a sqft you will be donating to the county. maybe you can use a tax write off.

 

[ACE]

That’s the way most of the bidding goes for government accounts. They go for the lowest bid and turn a Blind eye to low quality work. I would see if you can take the purchasing agent out to lunch. Explain the logistics of this bid. You won’t get this one, but there is often work under a certain dollar amount that does not have to be opened to bidding.

 

[John Olson]

I cannot see how they can clean for .04 unless they are using portables and minimum wage employees. Even then their cost will be much higher then .04

Lets take your high estimate and break it down
1200ft@.04=$48 per hour

Fuel
$3-$5 per hour
Labor
$12-$15 per man assuming 2 man crew $24-30 plus payroll taxes,workers comp etc adds another $10 per hour
Buisness cost per day per truck
75-150 average for maintenance, insurance,advertising,phone etc so your $3-7 per hour

Chemicals will run about $3 per 1200 sqft give or take a buck

Just a very quit run down on the low end and we are at $43 per hour up to 55 just in cost and this was just me pulling very basic numbers not hard numbers for a buisness in California which I would bet are 10-$20 higher then these.

Whoever qouted .04 per hour is losing money ALOT of money.

Playing devils advocate someone will say well they are doing the work themselves not using a helper. Well one person will not average 1200sft per hour. Won't happen. To much set up/break down time on 80k and I am assuming there are cubilces which makes pulling hoses a huge pain.

I doubt you will win this Joe but less then .18 is just ridicules for commercial. One thing I'd like to know is what sort of bond those other companies are carrying. I would assume in California they would need at least 10mil. How could they afford the bond let alone the insurance charging .04?

 

[rick imby]

Great numbers....

 

[royalkid]

well, there's some info that would help this thread make more sense.

How long are they given you to complete the work?
How soiled is the carpet?

If they're flexible with the timeline to get done, then this (.04) guy can do it by himself...over many nights (in sections)...and if it's only lightly soiled...he can work faster than 1,200 sq ft per hr. So, let's say the guy can do 2,000 sq ft(fast-but do-able according to some) of lightly soiled carpet per hr...8 hrs...16,000 per day...5 days: job completed and he makes $3,200.00 for 40 hours of work. I'm assuming some things in the above, but so are others. I personally think .04 is way low....but if certain factors are met, someone can make money with this job. We average .15-.20 per sq ft on commercial carpet...but a job that size, I'd go down to .08-.12 depending on soil level.

 

[Ken Snow]

Welcome to the new economy folks- yes there are still many companies and homeowners willing to spend a higher price, but this price is getting more and more common, not less so. While I understand John's logic and his math may be correct at the costs he mentions, however if the volume per hour is doubled or tripled (without sacrificing quality) by being efficient then there is profit to be made at that price point.

 

[The Great Oz]

Typically, the way a bid is priced to come up with an extremely low number is to factor in all of the cleanings over the period of the contract. The first cleaning would include all of the carpet, the next several cleanings might be only 20% of the carpeting, whether the bidder promises to do it all each time or not.

The low bidder then spends the remainder of the contract doing spotting where there are complaints, and ignoring any area that gets no complaints. They know the typical bid-based commercial job will have no loyalty to the contractor that does better work, so they'll be just as likely to get the bid on any number of other jobs when this contract is up.

What you need to do is write a bid that specifies exactly what you'll do and how that differs from the four-cent guys. Many buyers WILL take the time to compare apples with oranges, but they need some kind of reason to justify going with a higher bidder.

Good luck!

PS: I cleaned a lot of very big commercial jobs when I was younger. If you know how to set up and clean efficiently, the bigger the job, the more carpet you can do per hour. Obviously every job is different, but 1,200 sf per hour on an 80,000 sf job would be pretty reasonable to assume.

 

[TimP]

No way I'd touch nothing at .04 cents for HWE. I wouldn't worry about it, if the guy doing it is really doing it for 4 cents and he can be profitable he's welcome to it I say. I'd encap for that much but that's it. He/she is probably looking at the total figure (3200) in the end and not considering what subtractions he will have to make.


3200 for the cleaning bill
330 in fuel for me at 1200' an hour
150 in chems at least
1.6 weeks of time 2720 bucks -2-300 for tm payment in that time period. Insurance also. Taxes etc.

I'd let it pass. I can do a couple days of work and make more profit and sit at home the other 4-5 days.

I figure it at $326 a day before TM, insurance and taxes etc. If you can do it with 1 man and skip out on the vacuuming or pay someone about a day to vacuum and do it with one man. 1 wet pass no dry passes.

Now if you have a dual wand machine and hire someone cheap you might can do OK. You can cut your fuel down some and get it done quickly enough to make a good profit. It is possible just not gonna make out that well on it. But if you're sitting at home doing nothing might as well make something than nothing.

 

[Jimmy L]

.

 

[Chris A]

Damn, so that's like $.02/SF in Ohio dollars...

 

[Bob Savage]

The bid asks for pre-conditioning followed with hot water extraction by a truck-mounted unit.

So, NO portables, and NO encapping, and pre-condition only the noticeably soiled areas.

John Olson" data-source="" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch">

I doubt you will win this Joe but less then .18 is just ridicules for commercial.

We HWE TM (dual wands) commercial for .10 to .12 a foot (depending on the square footage - at least 3000+ square feet), and earn over $200 per hour cleaning it, but .04 is just too low of a price for your time and trouble IMO.

 

[Jim Nelson]

What if you have to go back an redo it cheap customer r rarely happy.

 

[Johnny]

Did you see a valid bid of .04? County dude could be bluffing.

 

[Mikey P]

Coit has been cleaning for .04 or less for years.

 

[John Olson]

Welcome to the new economy folks- yes there are still many companies and homeowners willing to spend a higher price, but this price is getting more and more common, not less so. While I understand John's logic and his math may be correct at the costs he mentions, however if the volume per hour is doubled or tripled (without sacrificing quality) by being efficient then there is profit to be made at that price point.

The fault with that logic is your double or triple your costs as well. I would love to see someone break it down that would make sound financial sense but the math won't work no matter how you try to twist it unless you cheat.

P.S. My Numbers where off the top of my head but I am confident they are pretty damn close. They are LOW if anything.

 

[diamond brian]

Assuming that this job is predominantly wide-open space:

Man Hours: 80 @ $15 = $1,200

Gasoline: 40 hours @ $2.25 + trips to and fro = $120

8 Gallons Purple Power @ $6.00 = $52

$1,382 is your job cost. You will receive $3,200, leaving you $1,818 to contribute toward advertising, rent, TM, utilities, owner compensation, etc.

Naturally, if you do not have a TM and staff available to do this work without incurring opportunity cost, then your job cost will increase.

So, yes, this job can be successfully bid and completed at $.04.

*****Advertising, rent, TM payment, utilities, etc, should only be factored into job cost if your company is producing at full capacity*****.

Would I be interested? No. This would be a good job to bid for someone who regularly subs out everything to O/O's at very low rates.

 

[Ken Snow]

2500 effect yield cleaning per hour = 32 hours machine time

1.5 gallons gas per hour = 124.80 in gas plus call it 150 with travel to and from job each day
Pay for staf assuming after hours work (less if daytime) 1375.00 plus 25% taxes and benefits = 1734.38
commission for salesperson @ 10%= 320
cleaning solutions etc 300
200 wear & tear on machine/van (high estimate imo)
pretty much all other costs are absorbed in ongoing business whether this job is done or bot.

2705 total costs, profit 495 all done after hours. If done during hours profit goes up as labor cost goes down.
This is not a great job but it can be profitable. If the price can be gotten up to 6 cents it would be much better. No way it would go for more than that in Detroit imo.

 

[John Olson]

Ken are you duel wanding with 2 2man crews? I am assuming so by the numbers. The numbers you gave work (as long as you work for peanuts) but leave no margin for error. I stand by what I said. Only way to make money is to cheat.

 

[Ron Werner]

besides, how can you wand a carpet at 2000sf/hr and actually clean anything.
And if you're going to prevac, that means going over the 80000sf twice, once with the vac, once with a wand.

Work at it backwards and figure out what you need to charge to be profitable.
How long will it take you to clean 80000sf at a decent pace, without killing yourself?
How much will it cost you?
How much profit do you need?
add it up and divide.
Or bid it on an hourly rate.

Whoever is bidding at 4cents is NOT going to do a good job, They WILL get what they pay for.
I clean a house carpet at 55cents. I've done commercial at 40 cents. Somehow I don't think 40 cents would fit into their budget. :roll:

Sounds like a job for Cptn Encap!

 

[Ken Snow]

he is not prevac'g- read the frickin post! prevac'g changes everything. The margin is actually quite good on that job for most businesses~ my gosh gas stations work on less than 3% groccery stores less than 5% and our car manufacurers in thier heyday were at about 8%. It does come down to volume and size of company (or wages perhaps if owner operator). An assumption also made is that the majority of the carpet is not really dirty.

People- for any of us to really evaluate and make judgements would require us to see the conditions (soil, distance for hose runs, amount of furniture covering carpet etc). I was just trying to point out how it could certainly be possible to do the job profitably, have people employed with benefits and satisfy a customers needs. We have done lots of jobs like these described over the years, fortunately usually for 6 cents but have done them at 4 and would do so again if needed.

I try not to tell other people something can't be done, because sure as shit I'll be proven wrong. This is one of those situations~ it can and is being done.

Ken

 

[TimP]

he is not prevac'g- read the frickin post! prevac'g changes everything. The margin is actually quite good on that job for most businesses~ my gosh gas stations work on less than 3% groccery stores less than 5% and our car manufacurers in thier heyday were at about 8%. It does come down to volume and size of company (or wages perhaps if owner operator). An assumption also made is that the majority of the carpet is not really dirty.

People- for any of us to really evaluate and make judgements would require us to see the conditions (soil, distance for hose runs, amount of furniture covering carpet etc). I was just trying to point out how it could certainly be possible to do the job profitably, have people employed with benefits and satisfy a customers needs. We have done lots of jobs like these described over the years, fortunately usually for 6 cents but have done them at 4 and would do so again if needed.

I try not to tell other people something can't be done, because sure as shit I'll be proven wrong. This is one of those situations~ it can and is being done.

Ken

Just like I said above it can be done. And it looks like even another above agrees. It's all about doing the bare minimum and getting in and out. I wouldn't want to do a job for that and haven't but if it meant putting food on the table or not I'd do it. And many of you guys would too once you've gone hungry long enough. You just can't vac, prespray, scrub, rinse, dry stroke etc at the price. Not to mention airpath dry and post bonnet.

 

[Erik]

John is right. Unless you cheat, there is no possible way to clean for .04 Sq/Ft. We do large jobs like this all the time, whether they are schools, banquet hall, what have ya. We charge on an average of .12 sq/ft. We did a job last month that was 90,000 sq/ft @ .12 sq/ft. We used two Vortex Trucks.....on an average we can clean 2,000 sq/ft an hour per truck with two men on each truck using a Zipper. With a TI Wand, we can only clean 1,200 sq/ft an hour at the most. We single wand due to the long pulls and the 12 flow rate. We can't maintain the heat with our Vortex using dual wands. So, if you don't want to kill yourself and your guys.......charge at LEAST .08 sq/ft. Remember that the sq/ft cleaned per hour does not include taking a lunch, dumping your tank, filling your soap, etc....


p.s. Ken- Please raise your prices! You are a household name here in the Detroit Area. Whether you make your money in volume, you are setting a standard in most customer's minds that this is what the price should be. .06 sq/ft, even in this area, is not profitable, unless like John said, you cheat.

 

[Ken Snow]

Erik, most of our commercial work is being done at 12-15 cents. My point was to illustrate how it can be done and has been by us on some jobs. That is fantastic that you are getting 90k sq ft jobs at 12 cents.

 

[DavidB]

is 80k sq ft of carpet or is it 80sq ft building like the releasit marketing?

Just a possible angle

 

[Erik]

Erik, most of our commercial work is being done at 12-15 cents. My point was to illustrate how it can be done and has been by us on some jobs. That is fantastic that you are getting 90k sq ft jobs at 12 cents.

I'm glad to hear your company is at a competitive rate for commercial carpet cleaning. We don't get this size of jobs everyday of the week, although it would be nice. We mostly do commercial carpet cleaning. As you know, the economy in our area has probably been hit the hardest out of the whole country. When I read the boards and hear companies charging .50-.60sq/ft around parts of the country, this would be unheard of in Southeastern Michigan. Most of the residential cleaning has to be done in large volumes in order to profit, at least 5-6 jobs a day per truck. Nothing new said, it is much harder to make money cleaning residential homes. I'm sure it's much easier for a company of your size to profit from residential cleaning due to being able to schedule the jobs in closer proximity to each other. I notice you run two men in each of your trucks and the drive time really cuts into profits. We also run two men per truck. Two good men are like three.