800 chairs...need advise?

[PTMatt]

I have a church that wants a quote for 800 chairs. Just wondering if anyone has advise on how to quote a job like this? I know I need to offer a huge discount off my normal chair pricing just not sure how low to go. Their normal sitting chairs with a top and bottom. Any input is appreciated!

 

[Ken Snow]

3-5$ per

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[prodrying]

I would charge around $4 a chair and if I could I would clean them with a drill and pad driver with some encap cleaner. My experience is you can go faster with this method. Sounds like a great job good luck on getting it. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Royal Man]

I have done several jobs like this. Assembly line them. Have the cleaner sit on a chair while HWEing them to avoid back strain. Spin and tilt the chair to clean backs and sides. Have helper, Pretreat, Roll to you. Take them away, Spray protector, Wipe frame. Repeat 799 more times. You should be able to do them all one long day or 2 short days.

 

[Bruce Humphrey]

But how much would you charge Dave?

 

[Royal Man]

If you go add protector as a selling point and a way to differentiate your company from the rest. $8 is not unheard of. $6 for cleaning and $2 for protector. (Itemize them separately.) You will have to find what ever price point works for you.

 

[Desk Jockey]

I'd tend to agree with the $5.00. That's $75.00 an hour @ 4-minutes each, with a helper you maybe able to knock it down a minute or two per chair. At 3-minutes you'd be up to $100.00!

 

[Art Kelley]

Don't be intimidated by the size of it, 800 is a good sized job you can do yourself. I've done a job that size at least once a year (sometimes twice) for a place for the last 25-30 years. I've had help several times (and that of course makes it easier and sometimes fun) but mostly I've done it myself. You just need a routine and whether you do them where they sit, or stacked up 10-12 high in columns of 70-100, it;s a hard gonzo time. By myself I allot 1 1/2 days: I can do 60-90/hr, with a well coordinated helper, can crank out 80-110 chairs/hr. You can charge $2-3/chair, but that is up to you.
I use my internal jet PMF tool that has continuous flow (I took off the valve) and mist the appropriate upholstery cleaner with a trigger sprayer in one hand and the uph tool vac/steaming with the other hand. Brushes (toothbrush sized and tamping) are in my back pocket and used as needed. Re-stack the chairs or leave them where they are. You may need an Aleve afterward but I like beer. And sleep.

 

[TomKing]

Several things I think over when I quote jobs like this.

Build this bid on cost of materials & labor which is time then profit

What is going to be your set up time?

Will you have help?

How long will this take you to do? If every chair took just 4 minutes to do it would take 53.32 hours.

So if you pay your help $15.00 per hour you have $18 with burden $959.76

Materials depends on your method? Lets say $200.00 this is high

If we took 4 guys in we could do this in one day.

I would go $2400 or $3 per chair.

Lots of people throw out a per chair price you need to know how you get there.

This may not be perfect but is better than pulling a price out of the air.

Over time you might have a target price but in the begining take the time to figure it out.

 

[SamIam]

Ya it its a seat and a small back $3.00 each.

I would hydroforce upholstery prespray 10 at a time have a helper scrubbing with brush.

Three uph tools running non stop. Even if it took 2 days thats not bad.


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[rwcarpet]

At least $5 a chair, and try to sell up some protector, a buck or two......check them out closely. Are they used in a dining area? Look for food stains and fingerprints. If just used for church services, probly not much greasy soil. Does the back and seat meet together? If so, there could be a lot of fuzz/crap in the joint of the chair, and that would need extra vac strokes. Are they standard upholstery, such as fabric stretched over a cushion, or fabric molded to the foam? That can be a problem when wet cleaning.

 

[Goomer]

Keep in mind, if your conscience will allow you to "cheat" a little, you may be able to save a nice amount of time by encap'ing the lightly soiled chairs, and only hwe the dirtier ones.
(You didn't hear that from me)

 

[Chris A]

4 minutes per chair is waaaaay conservative, which is ok for estimating, but a 2 person crew can knock out a chair a minute if their FILTHY, and way better if they're your average soiled office chairs.

 

[Ken Snow]

X2

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[Desk Jockey]

I agree but even with two guys trading off cleaning they're going to tire after several hours of that pace and your production will drop some. I'd rather factor on worse case and welcome the windfall if and when it happens.

 

[Ken Snow]

90 seconds then- .

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[Desk Jockey]

That's 40 an hour, I can see that. In my youth I did 1 a minute with a helper who precon, spotted and switched chairs as i just rinsed them. (that's probably why my elbow has arthritis)

40 x $4.00 = $160.00 per/hr if you can keep production at that rate.

800/40 =20 production hours, bring in a second or third crew and you cut that baby down to size fast. a four man crew could have three cleaning and one doing the prep work. 800/160 =5-hrs

 

[Mikey P]

I wish I hadn't sold my Vortex..

I can't for the life of me figure our how I'm going to clean all these damn chairs with this Trinity...

 

[Charlie Lyman]

I wish I hadn't sold my Vortex..

I can't for the life of me figure our how I'm going to clean all these damn chairs with this Trinity...

Place Trinity on ground with pad up. Bungee cord the switch on. Hold chair up to rotating pad. Move chair around to bring all surfaces into contact with pad.
It is pretty simple.

 

[Desk Jockey]

If they are not too soiled you could use a pad machine I've done it and they come out looking great and dry fast!
But maybe just because I've used HWE for cleaning upholstery for so long, it seems like I'm faster with it.

Although the ATP count might be higher.

I've never tested it either!

 

[BLewis]

You should easily be able to do a chair evert 2 minutes anymore than that and your moving WAY to slow! We just did 280 a few weeks ago and dUaling (we had to split the days due to scheduling conflicts) and I think it took 6/7 hours which is about 1.5 min per chair and this included 2 separate days of set ups and touching up carpet isles afterwards because they decided to clean carpets a week before they decided on chairs. We got $7.50 each and I knew I had overpriced them 2 hour into the job so I threw in Scotchgard as a bonus to them.
Also, something we did on this bid. (Because he was a little hesitant on the price) is I told them they could break it down into 4 payments if be liked and he jumped on it!

so Richard if I do the match correctly we earned about $323 per hour DUaling! I'll take that all day long!

So I believe that $4-5 per chair just for cleaning is spot on or out!

 

[tmdry]

I agree w/ Billy, jobs like that you'll make more $ dual wanding and or having at least 3-4 like the King has mentioned.

If you're going to scrub them, don't do w/ a brush, get a makita 9227c w/ Rick G's fiber plus or tuway pads (you can figure it out what to use by testing it). Have 1 guy prespraying, scrubbing, and protecting, and the other 2 cleaning, they can switch turns after a few hours.

 

[harryhides]

Just for some perspective, guys.
A company that caters to sports arenas with fabric chairs charges 25 cents per chair - gawd knows how they pull that off.
A few years ago Dalworths did 10,000 chairs in a Texas Convention center for a buck a piece and with 12 guys and 3 TMs each running 2 uph tools finished in a single 8 hr day.
We did 1,000 in 4 hours for a hotel with 1 tm and 2 techs - charged $2.00 a chair.

Trick is to have the Tech doing the cleaning stay in one spot with a 4 or 6 inch wide tool while his helpers, bring the chairs to the Tech with the upholstery tool already pre-sprayed and while another helper moves away and wipe down the cleaned chairs.

By using a steamer or drill and pad you can really speed things up depending on the soil load.

 

[bob vawter]

WARNING...churches are notorious for getting legit bids.....
and then letting "one of the flock" do the job!

and BTW the word is advice ...
i would advise you to listen to my advice............!

 

[Desk Jockey]

Bawb, get the "Flock" out of here!

Actually usually they tell you right up front that they already have a member that cares for their church. We usually don't push them but leave infor for restoration work and just let them know if it's larger than he can handle to give us a call and we will help where needed.

 

[PTMatt]

Thanks everyone for all your input! I bid them at $4 per so we'll see what happens. I figure 4 of us with 2 trucks will crank them out pretty fast.

 

[mirf]

Hope you get it. I think your high. One truck with a tech and helper can do at least 400 chairs in a day including some gum removal. If the truck earned $1000. per day and it did not have to move it would be a good day. $125.00 per hour and no down time for travel. two days make them look good and smell pretty and you should get referrals to. I would split how I did them depending on soil. Some HWE and some pad. I would bet 75% of the backs are pretty clean.

 

[ruff]

I think he priced it right.
Hope you get it.

 

[trojancarpetcare]

We will go about 4.25 for each chair good luck.