Pricing for laying flags - Labour only costing

[PhilChap]

We have been offered chance to price to lay flags for private footways and hardstandings on a building site. This will involve steps etc and paths/patios round the houses at a quick glance of the plan. I have yet to measure up but there will no doubt be in excess of 1000m2 in total.

All materials will be supplied, the flags are specified as Marshalls Saxon concrete 600x600

Could anyone give me a pointer in pricing for labour only to lay these. I would rather go in too high and not get the work than end up doing the job for nothing if it proves an awkward. We are not used to pricing for flagging on this scale unseen but are aware the site is on a slope and there will be steps in levels etc.

Thanks in advance.

[Tony McC]

We used to do this sort of thing for a certain helicopter-wielding national builder and I based my then prices (early 90s) on each house taking two men two days to complete. This assumed an average 6-8m long driveway comprising 2 strips of 3x2s with either chippings or (on the 'premier' range of houses) a 600x600 pink or buff saxon, then 900mm wide flags to entire perimeter of house, with silly splash strip of 100-150mm filled with gravel, plus 3 x 2.4m 'patio' of straightforward 3x2s. Step to front door, possible step to rear door and/or patio.

Had to allow for all prep, shifting plasterer's shite, owld cement bags, etc., then regulate levels with crushed stone, bring in bedding and flags, all labour, cutting, setting drainage fittings to level, cleaning and tidying.

Sometimes, a 2-man team would do 3 or 4 houses in a week, but there was always so much effing about working amongst lesser trades who failed to appreciate the importance of the groundworker and continually got under your feet, particularly painters wanting to put ladders where you want to flag, and roofers who refuse to shift their half-used packs of tiles. Pricing based on 4 man-days per house earned us good money.

[GB_Groundworks]

youll have to allow extra for waiting on the telehandler to provide you with materials and mortar and health and safety considerations

work out how much you can sensible lay a day, then go from there, its always better working it out yourselve then you know what a 1m2 will cost you you can work from there where as someone else might have different fixed costs etc

if its a big firm what are your payment terms 120 days? what guarentee of payment? are they going to stop you 20% tax as part of the cis scheme etc

[lutonlagerlout]

if the subbase is in to the correct levels i would say £15 per metre to knock up cut and lay
brick built steps extra
LLL

[sy76uk]

This is the type of job I'm used to doing but only as a subby for a big paving firm so have never had to price up for it myself. As has been mentioned above, having to wait for machines to bring you your stuff can be a pain in the arse. Also if all your doing is putting the footpaths, patios and shed bases around new builds I wouldn't touch it on a price. Not on a busy site anyway, not too many paving firms will. Far too many things can hold you up when you have all the trades working on top of each other. On 99% of the sites I work on the groundworkers do all that on day rate whilst we do the driveways, footpaths and roads. I did help out the ground workers laying 50mm BS 600x600's around 9 new builds a few years back. There were footpaths from the road going to the front door, through to the back, patio and a shed base. All the gardens were sloped so there was a lot of level changes involved. The lads on site were brilliant and kept me going well. The site manager/engineer just left me to set out, set my own levels and bank the machine to stone it up and I got it done in 5 days. If the lads hadn't have been as helpful it would have taken a lot longer. I did get more work from the same firm by doing that job. As soon as that job was finished they nicked me for a few weeks from the firm i was subbing off to finish off a job on a retail park in ipswich laying 450x450 perfecta's. The lads that were doing the job before me didn't do a very good job. They but jointed it all, there lines were all over the place and there were lips all over it which were made worse by the fact that there was no chamfur on the slabs as well as them being but jointed. They walked off the job before it got snagged which is why they pulled me in. I did a good job and got paid very well for it. The awkward slabbing round the new builds that nobody wanted ended up being a mackrel for a sprat.

[Tony McC]

How things have changed. When my company were doing the groundworks 20-odd years ago, we used our own tracked and tyred diggers, no waiting on some arrogant clown on a telehandler, so if we wanted anything, or if someone was in the way, we could usually 'persuade' obstructions to disappear.

[sy76uk]

Thing is Tony, years ago we (pavers) were the last blokes on site so there were no other trades around. You'd even struggle to find a ground worker unless they were called back for snagging kerbs, manholes or what ever. These days as soon as the houses are up and the areas are ready to lay they want us doing the paving so there's roofer's, sparky's, fencers, plumbers, you name all on site at the same time plus the traffic (vans, sciccor lifts ect) then there's 1 or 2 tele handlers loading everyone out. You can spend up to and over an hour a day just waiting for materials. That's no good when your on a price and it's costing you on average £25 a day in fuel. That's one of the reasons I'm out of commercial paving now. It's a shame.

[ilovesettsonmondays]

10 to 12 realistic price on a building site these days . Depends one were you are on the food chain

[lutonlagerlout]

that is why most of the housebashing sites have pretty poor paving
the poor sods are busting a gut to earn a 100 quid a day
LLL

[ilovesettsonmondays]

That's for the groundwork contractor himself lll. The paver will be lucky to get 7 a square

[PhilChap]

Thanks for the replies.
We were tendering for the bitmac and were offered more groundworks including kerbs and flagging. We have never priced on a contract rate for a job on this scale before for flagging so your opinions have been helpful. We had short notice to get a rate to them, I didn't want to go in too expensive but we have more than enough work on the books to need to win the work.