Cost analysis

[captaincal]

I am the ultimate do-it-youselfer and have to tools to boot. The house is a million dollar house and has to have a million dollar walkway, et al to match... Now I have to justify the skidsteer I bought and the 5 weeks its taken me to finish it.

970 sq ft Ideal Block - Boston Colonial Pavers ( Beacon Blend )
The body of the walkway done in 90 Deg Heringbone weave

Price per sqft?

160 sq ft Ideal BlocK Yankee Cobble Lg Rect. (9x6 Inch)
Soldier Course using 9 Inch side.
285 Linear feet. of soldeiring 1/2 of is is against the
Cobble curbing

Price Per linear foot?

10 Ridged Edging 2 Flex = 12 total. 7.5 feet each.

It was pretty easy to install with spikes etc. Most of labor was
the levelling the outermost part of the sand.

200 CobbleStone ($3.00 Each Delivered Mostly clean) Some
residual Mortar needed to be smashed off. Avg size 12x9 Inch
Roughly 200 Linear feet. w/ curved corners.

The cobbles proved to be the most time cosuming.

Price per linear foot?

Skirt all mulch zones with cobble curbing - Dry lay except around
drivewal area. Use dry mortar behind cobble. Finish Driveway still
coming.

Excellent base with stone and sand mix. Note its not masonry sand and its not stonedust. Its a washed byproduct from a rock quarry. Masonary sand doesn't compact well enough for me.


I borrowed a friends plate compactor and compacted it pretty
well.

A mason friend gave me a rough install cost for the boston
colonial pavers 9.50 per sq

Assume I bought all the materials. I just want labor costs
to justify my purchase of Cat 236 Skidsteer

970 sq ft * $9.50 Labor.. Almost a guess.
280 linear feet soldier Course * ?? $3.00 Labor Guess
200 Cobbles around mulch areas * $5.00 Labor Guess
Base preparation Stone and Sand $500 Guessed!
Placed tracer lines under the walkways for wires and hoses. $300
New Construction! No Grass. No price increase...

If I could draw a picture I would. Since I can't the raw numbers
for average is a good starting place.

Cost for material = $2600 Bricks, $600 Cobbles, $300 Sand, $400 Stone.

Cost for Skidsteer = $17K Minus of course the savings on my back

Cost or saving in labor etc. 12K

The wakwalk is about 1200 sq feet +- Its huge. No elevation changes.

[Stonehenge]

Moved to the homeowner forum.

[Nebraska]

Time......

priceless

[Bill Schwab]

From the sounds of the way you are going about it, you would be money in the bank to hire a pro and forget about it. When you assess all the things you could have done in those 5 weeks you spent on the project, unless this is your form of recreation, that time would take you a year to recover doing what you know best to make money for yourself.

Regarding labor, the wild card in business.....

Our labor rates are higher than most, and it is impossible with the information given to assess a labor cost. We do not bill or estimate anything by the foot, but even if we did, square or running foot prices are the products of time, wages with labor burden, insurance and materials invested in that specific job. Every job is different, so, every job has a different square footage price built into it.

[agla]

How close do you live to me?

[Paul]

So you spent $20+ K not counting your labor(nothing is free) for a $14,700 walkway? You tell me whats wrong........... by the way did you get a warranty with your installation? So if the base fails some one will fix it! Guess not.

Now on buying the loader you'd be money ahead by renting one for two days each weekend. that would have been 10 days at 200 per day or $2000 ....................

[Gardenhaus]

I cannot believe what I am reading here. You "live in a million dollar house".....if you live in the midwest that would be huge, in San Fran a Handyman's special:D

...and "it needs a million dollar walkway" it appears as though it almost cost you that.......

You are obviously a successful person if the above is true, but perhaps pennywise and pound foolish. We have many clients with 10-15 million dollar homes and you would not find one of them out there putting a paver walkway in. They would be leading their businesses to make the money to pay one of these hardscape professionals to install their walkway.

Our clients are leaders in international finance and I have never heard one of them describe their multi million dollar weekend home (usually one of five or six homes) as a "million dollar home". In fact our biggest client who has six homes and the one we care for here is worth around 15 million and he is here 4-5 times a year. When he was up over Memorial Day Weekend he stopped by my office in his older suburban in bluejeans and unshaven, just fresh from fly fishing and said "I am up here at the CABIN for the weekend and thought I would stop by and say hello" Cabin...yeah taught me another lesson about humility and the true meaning of success.

I have wandered here a little, but I think this post is a great lession for all contractors in this forum. When a client talks about what I have...be very careful.

My suggestion for the original poster is 1) if you truly like to do this as a hobby.....hats off to you for passion 2) sell the tractor and take your family on a great 2 week vacation for some quality time 3) rent another skid steer for when you need it........

Just my humble opion...as if you expected anything different:D

[captaincal]

My landscaping project is for the entire spring and summer.

Once I'm done, I wouldn't need the skid steer any longer
other than to plow my driveway. Last years bill was $900
for a moderate New England winter. I have a plow attachment
for the skidsteer. The guy I bought it from lets me use his
other toys/attachements as well. He's got a 277 w/ a rockhound
and 3 excavators.

I could do small jobs as well, but that's not the reason I bought it.

My home is with the top % of the homes in the town.

Now the bills. To do all the landscaping by a hired professional, I
figured it out to be 70-80 K. I've got rock walls all over the place.
I spread 300-400 yards loam etc etc etc. I'm not a rich guy but I
am very good with my hands and know the trades well.

I'm actually a want-to-be/use-to-be blue collar guy, but
I'm actually a Software Eng. for Lucent.

I've got friends in the trades who look at me as a regular joe. Not
an uptight white collar home owner. Though all my neighbors are.

Yes my family has been sacrificed but just for this summer only.
Three Boys, one girl. All play hockey. I take the winter off for
projects. I coach youth hockey.

In the end, I can get my money back for the skidsteer. If I didn't
have the machine I'd still do the work but my body would be destroyed.

One last thing, its a blast to drive.

When I finally get around to taking pictures I'll post my handy work. Then you can all judge whether I could make a living at it.

[agla]

Thanks for filling in the profile info. I knew you were not far away by the words and materials that you used.

These are rough prices of established well reputed companies, not run of the mill guys:
Herringbone bricks run between $14-$18 per SF (labor & materials including edge restraint)
Cobble edging set in cement $18-$20 (L&M)
Cobble apron $20-$24


*now add all the money you did not spend to get this done and subtract your salary prorated against the time you spent on it (not just working time, all of the time), that is how much you saved (could be a +, or could be a -).

But, now that I reread this thread, have you done the work yet?

[captaincal]

Walkway is 90-95% Complete. If I go by your estimates
I have underbid my own job.

$1.90 Per sq for pavers + $9.50 Installed.

I don;t know whether my mason friend assumed it was herringbone. I got that ballpark labor price from him. I'm sure
its higher base on the completed job.

Remaining sprinklers go in tomorrow ( Just the back ). Fronts
already done. 8 or 9 zones out fronts (Some are garden zones)
and spray zones. 11-12 zones total $4500 all hunter proseries
system.

Most of the rocks walls are done. 1 left 45 feet finished both sides. 80-90 feet * 2.5-3 feet high * $30-35 square foot.
That's big bucks to dish out for an ornament.

Hydroseed next week. 10,000 square foot tank (he over sprays)
cuts tank down to 8,500 Sq ft. $550 per tank. Probably need
4 tanks.

All of my trees and bushes are in and most of mulch is spread
25 yrds.

I can't imagine what the total cost of this would be. I'm sure
I undercut it.

BTW, I GC'd the house myself. Roof it, sided it, all cabinets, 5 bathrooms, & finish doors windows et al. 6400 sq feet w/ walkup attic.

It took me 10 months to build, I will have lived a year in the house
on halloween 2005.

BTW, if anyone was wonder. My gas bill was $720 for December
and $735 in January..... Whew. I got a printing press down stairs
for green backs....

[Stonehenge]

Captaincal, while I applaud you for being able to handle all these elements of your home building, I hope you can understand that with the intended audience of this site being people in the industry, taking time to calculate how much a DIY'er would be saving is not really productive for us. At least it isn't for me.

So I wish you luck with your project, but I have my own clients projects I need to price.

[HardDaysKnight]

We are here to help each other and we extend that same
courtesy to homeowners. To post on this board to boast
about how much you saved by not using pro's is plain
rude and will certainly force you to look elsewhere when
you need to post the question What happened?

[Bill Schwab]

"Most of the rocks walls are done. 1 left 45 feet finished both sides. 80-90 feet * 2.5-3 feet high * $30-35 square foot.
That's big bucks to dish out for an ornament."

This is one of the most dangerous statements I have ever head. The most dangerous thing you can put in the hands of an unqualified person in my opinion is a segmantal, or rock wall with any type of hieght to it. Improperly built walls kill more people and wreck more houses than any other thing you could add. It is usually those who want to save money who are the ones crying the blues when that wall fails. Then it becomes a game of how to rebuild, and since the budget has usually been spent, the reversion goes to price and who can do the cheapest. Some people never learn, ask the folks in Laguna Beach. every one of those life forms is already committed to rebuilding, and they are going to use federal relief money to do so....

Without trying to sound rude, this whole post reminds me of a group I call the BWAB's out here. Gotta have it, can't afford it, gotta show the neighbors, gotta have the best, then come the plea's with the contractor...."If you do our house you will get all kinds of work from our friends...." The kicker is we get asked to match price criteria. As for BWAB, Beemer With A Boobjob, they seem to go hand in hand..... Everything comes with a price.

It's great to save money, but at what price? How much time have you missed from being with your family and friends, when paying the bill and living could have provided you with that time. And, there is no way the quality of your project can match the quality of a good contractor. I've seen too many under funded homeowner projects to state any differently.

Then there are our regular clients....Typically in a 2 million pluss dollar home, the highest priced home at 42 million. The 10-25 million dollar home range is a great nitche for us because those folks are always doing something to their homes and have the money to pay for it without scraping to get it all in.

The way you could have done it might have been to buy a little less house, you certainly could live in less house, pay to have the jobs done right, and have money on the table when you are done. Then maybe it would have not cost so much to heat.

As I look at the time tables you have provided, there is no way you can do all the work yourself. Which brings to mind labor....I'm sure in all your money saving methods you carry workmans compensation and are making your withholding tax payments right?

[PSUscaper]

Why??????

Why??????

Why??????

Do people do things like this.

That's it for me.

and by the way......I think we need to have a talk in the cabin about this section......I'm starting to feel like I'm working instead of relaxing here anymore.

[HardDaysKnight]

Pennscapes wrote:
Why??????

Do people do things like this?


Because there are always a few bad apples as you know.
Most homeowners seriously need help due to budget and
lack of knowledge in some areas: They appreciate our help.
I can't imagine this mans reasoning for posting and boasting
instead of asking advice.
Start the thread penn. See you in the cabin.

[Stonehenge]

I'm going to close this thread for the time being.