I was contacted by a Janitorial company to provide carpet cleaning as a sub on some government buildings..

the total carpet is stated to be 452,586 SF.. the are specking
2 Extraction methods per year and one Dry Clean method..

in talking with the company rep he was familiar with encap and preferred it on upper level floors. some of the building are like 12 stories tall so HWE the upper going be portables.

they are just trying to bid on the contract and wanted me to bid the carpet cleaning.. they are looking at a Per Sq Ft price and or a annual price.. the jan company will be doing vacuuming daily. They will most likly have it set up to do something monthly in the 11 buildings that are in the bid..

I asked the guy with jan company what a good price SF was.. he mentioned 8-10 cent per foot.. I was thinking along the same line based off stuff i have gotten on this and other forums on this type of large jobs.

later in the conversation he mentioned .04 for encap and 6 for HWE, but i think that might be kinda low..

any thought appreciated..

ps: the company is IH Service in Greenville Sc is any one has insite on them as well..

I agree, 452,586 SF should fall somewhere in the .08 - .10 per sq ft range. If they're subbing it to you, they're going to rightly expect their cut. So in that case, you should expect to get around .05 - .07 per sq ft. Now you will need to sharpen your pencil to see if you can be profitable at those numbers. With a good deal of encap, and considering that THEY will be doing the vacuuming, you may be able to do production work at these rates and still make a profit. But you'd need to look closely at the entire picture before making your decision. It would be hard for any of us on this side of the computer screen to look in at what you're seeing and advise you on what will be best for you. But honestly, I would personally jump on that. Even if you were cleaning at a nickel a foot you'd generate $22,629. And if that's encap work with a Cimex, I could make a solid profit doing that. On the other hand, trying to perform HWE with a porty at .07 per sq ft is going to be more of a challenge. But considering the overall scope of this account, I think I'd still try to find a way to make it work.











Rick Gelinas

thanks rick
always good to hear from the professionals..

the place are govt. office buildings with office stuff in them.. the total SF is close to a million.. the 452,000 number is what "they" consider cleanable carpet..

its mostly night work or weekends over 11 buildings. I have not seen the places per-say but have been to them at one time or the other along the way,, ie courthouse, clerks offices. etc.

did not want to go to low and work for nothing.

rather sit home and watch dancing with the stars then bust my butt on a mex all night for less.

will most likely go with .10 per foot for hwe and .08 for encap.

It seems to me if done properly this could be a great account.
It seems this company is expecting to keep half the money for the carpet cleaning, which in my view is just plain wrong in my view.

The 8-10 cents the gent was talking to you about is what he is going to charge for the carpets, he needs to make some money as they have over head and famlity to feed also.

6 - 8 cents a sq ft would be my preferred pricing for this IF his pricing to the client is 8- 10 cents a sq ft which is close to the 25% fee many would charge for a finders fee for lack of a better word. even at 5 to 7 cents I cold make a darn good profit is the accounts were set up properly.

My question is when is your next raise of that size going to come strolling through your door? The possibilities for you doing more work with this company is more then likely high if you play ball with them correct?





David

If you are doing HWE - a thousand square feet per hour with two guys on a portable would be very good progress. So you could easily slip below 25 per hour per employee at the stated prices when you account for cleaners, spotters, wear on machines and drive times.

In the minds of a Janitorial company 25 - 35 per hour on an employee is pretty good. So days of 200 per hour might not be possible.

I'd say bid it so you can make some money. If it's too high, it might not be the kind of work you want.

In this wonderful world today, even if you made a little less I would go for it, hell I wouldnt know what to do with an acct like that.

Good luck