Concrete and exterior construction recs

J & W Contractors

15' x 30' x 4" slab would require a lot of bags and A LOT of hand mixing! I'd call a concrete company and rent a Georgia buggy for the day.

That's a good deal

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Every contractor out there reading this can go screw themselves.

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simmer down

there is a vast gulf between a homebuilder/residential contractor and a guy who does odd residential repair/small jobs. what is required is an understanding by the homeowner that his/her three or four figure project is nearly impossible to make money on in a vacuum. you need dozens of these jobs, stacked up, to make enough money to be worth the effort.

weather, delays, material availability, staff issues, and yes the homeowner himself often conspire to make that delicate scheduling difficult, and in that environment starting a new job before you are certain you can do it profitably is a bad idea.

what i am getting at is this...your typical small residential project is a considerable risk to the contractor, and as the owner you need to understand that and plan accordingly. or...do it yourself

410 sq ft. total....350 sf 4”, 60 sq ft 6”... tear out existing and replace ... $8/ sq ft

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there is a vast gulf between a homebuilder/residential contractor and a guy who does odd residential repair/small jobs.

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I’ll echo this. For every ten small jobs I quote, which takes time and money by the way, I may get an email back to say I didn’t get the job. I may only get one out of twenty. And there are two reasons why my prices are higher. I pay my labor legitimately, paying taxes and 941s. Also I carry commercial insurance. I’ve seen it so many times that the same people who claim to want to buy local, buy American, don’t want to actually pay for that. They pay for the cheapest rate possible from a Mom and Pop who don’t carry those burdens. In those situations, I’m never competing against someone who pays their fair share or legally operates in the true business environment.
So be it, I’m not a victim here. But there’s your explanation why you don’t get return calls from contractors.

I looked at a job this past week for a family member’s friend for a concrete addition which included forming, digging footings, steel and vapor barrier placement, and two pours. He casualty mentioned that his last quote was $10,000. I started the work up and his concrete alone was $7200. I stopped there and let him know that I couldn’t beat it. There’s no room for me to even cover expenses at that rate. The point is, I get these calls all the time for small jobs because people think they want reputable contractors to do the work but 80-90% of the time they only want the cheapest bid. Which is fine if you want to take the risk. Imagine in this example if they screw up 70yds of concrete and you’ve got to “fix” that.