ILENGINE
Lawn Royalty
- Joined
- May 6, 2010
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Don't sell yourself short. The average labor rate for most parts of the country are $85-150/hour.
Labor hours question
- Thread starter TheFixOnMain
- Start date
bertsmobile1
Lawn Royalty
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2014
- Threads
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- 24,995
12 hours a day
Pure luxury
When I kicked off it was 10-12 hours in the shop + 6 to 8 on the web finding out what I did not know .
Even now it would be a 1:1 ratio spanners to keyboards although now days most of the keyboard time is invoicing .
One of the good things about being old & living by yourself is you can afford those hours.
As for rates, keep in mind what Rivets & Illengine said
The local Stihl shop is $ 175 / hr
The JD dealer is $ 160
The Husqvarna / Toro shop is $ 150
The nearest shop is $ 120
I charge $ 75 because I am mobile so have very little fixed costs & live above the shop ( illegally ) so I have no living overheads as the workshop pays all of the bills
There was a link here a while ago to a site that had the Stihl dealers info on it as a disk image for PC's which included the current charge out hours.
A bit difficult as each model series had different hours .
AS you have a shop front apply for accounts with Rotary, Stens, Prime Line & Oregon.
All of them run monthly specials most of the aftermarket parts they sell are good
Basically I use Stens for belts , Oregon for blades, Prime Line for electrics & Kohler parts & Rotary for mower parts.
A friend who now has a Stens & RGS ( RGS is Aust wholesaler ) and when ever he gets a specials catelogue he adds his mark up then posts them as his weekly specials on Face Book market place takes orders (& payments ) then places the order with Stens so he has the cash up front & 2 months to pay Stens
HE only takes orders for the first week so he has a good chance of getting all he has sold.
This pushed up his total sales volume which increase his wholesale discount by 8% so all of his regular parts are cheaper allowing a bigger mark up .
I buy SAE 30 & 10W40 in 44 gallon drums which is 1/3 of the 1 gallon bottles & charge it into the customers mowers at the bottle rate and 10W 50 full synthetic for hydros.
I use 3 drums every 2 years so that is a lot of money and covers things like grease .
Grease is bought in 5 gallon buckets from Tractor supplies, 00 Li for gearboxes , bentonite for Peerless gearboxes, marine Li for general greasing .
I use 3 McNaught mini lubes that I refill out of the 5 gallon buckets and 3 Tricor lever guns with right angle ends for hard to get to places .
The Tricors take standard cartridges but have no plungers so they don't leak and the plungers get refilled from the buckets as well
Thus a $ 15 cartridge gets refilled for $ 6, these sorts of things make a big difference as you go through about 1/2 a grease cartridge on a normal service + additional 1/2 cartridge for each spindle bearing replacement .
Pure luxury
When I kicked off it was 10-12 hours in the shop + 6 to 8 on the web finding out what I did not know .
Even now it would be a 1:1 ratio spanners to keyboards although now days most of the keyboard time is invoicing .
One of the good things about being old & living by yourself is you can afford those hours.
As for rates, keep in mind what Rivets & Illengine said
The local Stihl shop is $ 175 / hr
The JD dealer is $ 160
The Husqvarna / Toro shop is $ 150
The nearest shop is $ 120
I charge $ 75 because I am mobile so have very little fixed costs & live above the shop ( illegally ) so I have no living overheads as the workshop pays all of the bills
There was a link here a while ago to a site that had the Stihl dealers info on it as a disk image for PC's which included the current charge out hours.
A bit difficult as each model series had different hours .
AS you have a shop front apply for accounts with Rotary, Stens, Prime Line & Oregon.
All of them run monthly specials most of the aftermarket parts they sell are good
Basically I use Stens for belts , Oregon for blades, Prime Line for electrics & Kohler parts & Rotary for mower parts.
A friend who now has a Stens & RGS ( RGS is Aust wholesaler ) and when ever he gets a specials catelogue he adds his mark up then posts them as his weekly specials on Face Book market place takes orders (& payments ) then places the order with Stens so he has the cash up front & 2 months to pay Stens
HE only takes orders for the first week so he has a good chance of getting all he has sold.
This pushed up his total sales volume which increase his wholesale discount by 8% so all of his regular parts are cheaper allowing a bigger mark up .
I buy SAE 30 & 10W40 in 44 gallon drums which is 1/3 of the 1 gallon bottles & charge it into the customers mowers at the bottle rate and 10W 50 full synthetic for hydros.
I use 3 drums every 2 years so that is a lot of money and covers things like grease .
Grease is bought in 5 gallon buckets from Tractor supplies, 00 Li for gearboxes , bentonite for Peerless gearboxes, marine Li for general greasing .
I use 3 McNaught mini lubes that I refill out of the 5 gallon buckets and 3 Tricor lever guns with right angle ends for hard to get to places .
The Tricors take standard cartridges but have no plungers so they don't leak and the plungers get refilled from the buckets as well
Thus a $ 15 cartridge gets refilled for $ 6, these sorts of things make a big difference as you go through about 1/2 a grease cartridge on a normal service + additional 1/2 cartridge for each spindle bearing replacement .