reasonable price to dot & dab and skim per square meter?

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Hi all

I have a job to do for a friend.
being a friend, I don't want him to think I am ripping him off (even though he knows I would never do that to him or anyone else for that matter) I don't want to charge him the earth but I also don't want to charge less as to make it not worth my time and effort.
he has already agreed to cover the cost of materials, he has asked me for a price on labour, this is where I am struggling.

I have only been plastering for about 18 months, in this time I have had the security of working for a building company with several other tradesmen, including a boss and another time served plasterer who deal with all the quotes and how much to charge for certain jobs.
something which as of yet I am still not quite sure about.
I turn up, I do my work, I get paid. everything else is up to the boss, so you could say I have been quite lucky.
of course, I am the one who measures up to tell the boss what materials we will need and exactly how much, once he has that information from me, he submits the quote to the client.

my friend wants me to remove all the old horse hair plaster (covered by artex) from his stairs and landing, dot and dab the walls, the ceiling is T&G over a 3x2 timber frame which he wants taking down and plaster boarding (the T&G not the 3x2)
then skim everything.

as this is my own personal job, my boss is leaving me to it. he knows I am a good plasterer, he just wants to see how I will get on pricing up a job on my own. as I said before, I have no idea exactly how much to charge for the full job.

the area to be dot and dabbed including boarding the ceiling and skimmed is 42 square meters. also taking the prep work in to account.
hope this helps.

thanks in advance for your help.
 
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then skim everything.

as this is my own personal job, my boss is leaving me to it. he knows I am a good plasterer, he just wants to see how I will get on pricing up a job on my own.
if this is what you boss has said then i think you should price it up on your own without any help from us or it will be cheating, but i will give you a small clue the last job i was on where dot and dabbing was taking place was £4m2 d&d and about £4-£4.50 m2 skim so all in all d&d and skim was about £8-£8.50 a m2 that was a couple of years ago now skim prices has dropped to £3-£3.50m2 but remember this is site work you have to decide how much you are going to charge for private work
 
Well I would say -
to price any job

- how much a day do you earn
- how many days it will take (including set up and tidying up)
- how much the material will cost

gives you the price.

- divide this by the metres for £/m - but really a price per metre on domestic jobs is usually irrelevant without large quantities . (eg 3m ceiling - is this going to cost £12 to skim? )


- include caveat that you may have to deal with any unseen problems when you remove existing, It's doubtful there will be , but any additional works will be agreed before carrying on

Remember , the jobs you do for your boss also include his % !
 
thanks for all the replies guys, I do realise that this could be classed as me cheating.
all I'm asking for is a little help ;)

bearing in mind that I am not just dot & dabbing and then skimming, I have to remove the old plaster first, which is currently 30mm thick.

based on my measurements, I have worked out that I will need:
14 sheets of plasterboard (2440mm x 1220mm x 12.5mm)
5 bags of board finish
2 bags of dri wall adhesive
4 skim beads

roughly costing £135 (depending on where I buy everything from)
 
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thanks for all the replies guys, I do realise that this could be classed as me cheating.
all I'm asking for is a little help ;)

bearing in mind that I am not just dot & dabbing and then skimming, I have to remove the old plaster first, which is currently 30mm thick.

based on my measurements, I have worked out that I will need:
14 sheets of plasterboard (2440mm x 1220mm x 12.5mm)
5 bags of board finish
2 bags of dri wall adhesive
4 skim beads

roughly costing £135 (depending on where I buy everything from)
why cant he remove the old plaster? it will make things cheaper for him, on a job like this i would give him a day rate work out how many days i think it will take me and charge him acordingly + the materials
 
because he is going to be working in London and he wants me to do the job while he is out of the house.
why have a dog and bite yourself so to speak.
 
as he is a friend and knows you will do it as cheap as you can, why not just do the job and give him a bill after for a fair rate for how long it has taken you.
if he is a friend and nobody is out to rip anyone off then that seems the fairest way to go, no need to give him a price
 
he did say he would like a price in advance.
not that he is thinking of getting someone else to do the job if my price is too high. he likes to plan ahead with his money and he likes to know in advance exactly how much things are going to cost.
 
then just have a rough guess of how long you think it will take

if say you think it will take between 4-6 days then tell him what that would cost and he can prepare for the worst

no point guessing an exact price if your not sure because someone will end up feeling robbed whether that be you or him
 
i think you will need more than 2 bags of drywall addy for 14 bags there is no way you will get 7 boards per bag if the walls are old horse hair plaster then the walls behind wnt be true and will need some dobbing out so you will use about 1 bag per 3 boards mabey per 2 boards if the walls are really out of level.
if you are removeing have you got a machanical breaker or you doin it all hammer and bolster as this will obviously dictate how qiuck you get the stuff off.
when you say you need 2 bags for 14 boards are you just doin a few dabs round the board or are you doin a solid line round the perimiter of the board then dots in the middle, cos this is how you should be doin it.
 
sorry, I forgot to mention that all the walls don't need to be dot & dabbed. two of the biggest walls are stud walls and the boards are for the ceiling too. when I said it is 40 square meters, this included all the walls and the ceilings.

I will be doing a solid line round the perimeter of the boards with dots in the middle.
also, I won't need anything too heavy to remove the old plaster. he recently took an old door frame out, so I have been able to get a good look at the wall behind and it looks pretty good.
also the plaster is quite loose in a lot of places so it will be pretty easy to get off. I think a floor scraper will be fine for the job.
there are a few bits of new plaster round some of the door frames which I will need a hammer and bolster to remove.
I doubt it will be too difficult.
 
all depends how good of a mate he is, you see theres mates and theres real mates!

Plus could your mate return the favour somehow in the future......

thats how i would base it.
 
he is a real mate.

he could return the favour by buying me a few pints next time we are out.

I did say that once he has paid for all the materials, I would do the whole job from start to finish for £500.
this is roughly £8 a square meter to dot & dab and skim all the walls and ceiling.
plus as I have said, I will be removing the old plaster first.
he has also asked me to fit new skirting boards and architrave once I have finished the skimming, then paint all the new woodwork and the walls and ceiling.
this will be the easy bit so I'm not going to charge him too much for that.
again he will cover materials.

thanks for all the help and advice guys
 
he is a real mate.

he could return the favour by buying me a few pints next time we are out.
ive got a real mate belive it or not :) i patched his mothers lath and plast ceiling in the hallway then skimmed the whole hallway, overboarded the lid in the middle room then skimmed the whole room so he could turn it into a gym and didn't charge him anything, like paul78 says there are mates and then there are real mates, sometimes good Acquaintances get quoted as being mates who i would charge a daily rate for then there are your mates who i would still charge a daily rate for then there are your close mates who i wouldent charge anything, but there are only a couple of them :mrgreen:
 
haha i reskimmed my best mates bedroom once for a curry :mrgreen: and fitted a kitchen for his mum for a box of mayfair a day, before you ask his mum is like a mum to me she took me in when i was a kid and got thrown out of home so its the least i could do really
 

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