Real Licensed and Insured Contractors don’t work by the hour except for tiny little jobs done by handymen. They work by the job. They will propose a contract amount for the Scope of Work set forth by your K&B Designer in the Design Documents. If you don’t have a design and materials worked out and documented, you’re not ready to talk contractors. Typical gut jobs on a 3 pc hall bath run 15-20K. 5 pc Master runs 35-65 mid grade. 60-100K for a luxury redo.

We have never had a remodel job quoted by the house (and I would be wildly uncomfortable with someone quoting by the hour).

If I ran my surface restoration business in Seattle, and I just visited my brother there in September, I wouldn't charge less than $130.00 per hour with a 3-hour minimum, drive and administrative time included, plus materials and expenses.

On a flat rate job, a contractor's markup is none of the customer's business.

id undercut Joe @ $120/hr

Someone’s definition of a remodel seems to be removing wallpaper, painting, and doing a different light fixture. No room left in a 3K budget for a even new vanity top. Much less a new vanity, tub, shower, floor, plumbing fixtures, mirror, fan, or window treatments.

3K in a gut bathroom remodel doesn’t even cover the plumber’s bill. That 15-25K isn’t for a 5pc. master either. That’s a 3 pc hall bath.

You can't "remodel" a decent powder room for 3k unless you spend every weekend doing all of it YOURSELF, and buy your 8 single rolls of wallpaper at Home Depot.

The word remodel is just a word . You need to get quotes and no one will quote hourly rates for a full remodel and IMO workers paid by the hour can kill a lot of time doing nothing.Figure out what you want to do , get a designer to tweak the plans and then get quotes.

On the other hand, [workers/contractors getting paid by the square foot can get pretty sloppy.[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/installing-hardie-around-doorways-is-this-typical-dsvw-vd~4952630?n=8)

Or you get a quote and the contractor can't meet his time line he quoted for then they rush and the job ends up looking like a lot of the ones on the advice column, time and material is more honest.

I rarely bid, and usually always bill by time and material. It allows me to do the job I want to do. If you don't want that, please get someone else, no hard feelings.

95% of our customers are time and material, and 95% are return customer's. When a quote is givin one of the two people usually gets the better of the other person, shouldn't be that way.

Matt Man makes a good point. Time and material is all about sharing risk. On a flat rate bid job, the contractor is taking all the risk and you have to pay me extra for that.

Before I start a T&M job, I have a fairly accurate range wherein the bill will fall. Customers approve that range before I pick up a tool. Everyone wins.

Essentially contractors are bidding an hourly rate. He (or she) believes that the job will take X hours and he (or she) needs to earn Y dollars per hour. Obviously it's dependent on the contractor accurately estimating the time a project should take.

In job with lots of variables or unknowns, time and materials may be a better (or fairer) way to bid a job. I've done time and materials, sometimes with a "not to exceed" number based on what my experience says should be a worst case scenario. It's certainly not perfect but gives the homeowner some assurance that they aren't handing you a blank check. Good communications is the key in those kinds of situations.

Hiring big firms or companies is like hiring the government, and yes Sophie real contractors do work by the hour, we look to have return customer's not how many and how much we can make off them.

Hiring big firms or companies is like hiring the government, and yes Sophie real contractors do work by the hour, we look to have return customer's not how many and how much we can make off them.

Anyone able to weigh in on my question? Given a T&M contract agreement, what current RPH and markup % I should expect?

There’s a difference in a cost plus arrangement and time and materials. The only time and materials jobs that I have dealt with in 40+ years were smaller less involved jobs that had some unknown risk associated with it. Like a window replacement where you could see some rot. Or changing out a couple of light fixtures in an old house. A minimum service call fee usually covers those really small jobs though.

Larger involved construction projects like kitchens, room additions, or roofing redos, have been almost exclusively fixed price contract situations. Some cost plus, if the client wanted more transparency in the cost accounting and had deep enough pockets to assume all of the risk themselves. Yes, occasionally there are some mini time and materials allowances within the fixed cost, such as for a mason who needs to repoint an old soft mortar chimney that you don’t want to start scraping on until the job starts. Or for the 3rd party well digger to keep going down if the aquifer isn’t quite clean enough at the estimated depth.

Generally the only guys on a job site that are paid hourly are the GC’s actual gofer employees picking up nails and bringing up lumber. The framing crew is a fixed price, no matter how long it takes. So is the plumber. Unless change orders happen.

Time and materials for small jobs can make sense. For anything else. It’s a disincentive to finish the job in a timely manner. A fixed price contractor wants to move on to the next job as fast as possible. So he is incentivized to do his work well and fast and not drag it out. Fixed price also let’s customers budget the overall job better than time estimates that may or may not end up being correct.

I have never met any licensed and insured actual contractor (not a handyman) who would even think about doing time and materials on something large like a bathroom gut or an addition.

A bathroom project like that is not a single jack of all master of none hourly slow contractor. You need general labor for the demo. You need a licensed plumber for the plumbing and a licensed electrician for the electrical. And the permitting for the same. You need a carpenter for any new wall framing. A HVAC guy for the new vent. Along with the electrician. You need a specialist contractor who owns a TCNA manual for the tiling and waterproofing. And then a specialist glass contractor. And you need a good painter who can prep, and maybe a dry waller, depending on the scope.

Anyone that would propose a T&M contract for this should be avoided. Unless you want a job that lacks in execution on several fronts.

You do need accurate design documents on the front end too. Otherwise you are spinning your wheels.

When you have ten trades in a bath you better believe it will drag out, a small business will have a crew that can handle tear out, hanging new sheetrock, painting, and carpentry.No you don't need a HVAC guy to install a housing.If you want to save money cut out the designer who just finds pictures on houzz and sells it to you.Yes plumbing, electric, and tile should be subbed out for insurance purposes. A lot of pride in being a jack of all trades instead of a pencil pusher.

Jeeze Sophie, I'm surprised you didn't want to consult with a landscape architect on the off chance Jon wants to put a houseplant in his bathroom. An HVAC tech for a bathroom vent fan? What, no engineer to calculate the size of the fan? Specialist glass contractor? Maybe in your rarefied world of billionaire clients there is a need for glass specialists but lots of people just buy one of those pre-fab shower doors from, gasp, Home Depot or Lowe's. Some, hold on to your hat, even use shower curtains!

Don't forget the locksmith for the privacy latch.

If anything you could ask for estimates for price per sq ft. Sometimes they take a measurement of the room and have an idea how much it will cost going by that.

Price per hour for a full remodel is not common.

With any renovation you get what you pay for. If you look through the endless pages of problems with bathroom renovations on Houzz you will see that this is certainly the case. Water is very invasive and an undetected water leak can cause a huge amount of damage before the owner is even aware there is a problem. Everyone likes to save money on renovations and 'not get ripped off', however with a bathroom redo it's what you can't see that is important. The waterproofing has to be spot on as well as the plumbing. Unfortunately Jon I think you would be very hard pressed to find a contractor who will give an hourly quote - they will just give you a total for the job. The usual way of estimating what a renovation will cost is to think what you believe it will cost and then treble it. Do your research into contractors and get quotes from several and work from there. Question them on what materials they intend using - paying particular attention to waterproofing. I don't know how much knowledge you have in building but it pays to do research on products and methods - the internet is useful for this. A little bit of knowledge is better than none and don't be afraid to ask them to explain things - a good contractor is happy to do this. Good luck with your renovation.

One more thing - we are not billionaires but we did get a specialist glass contractor with both of our bathrooms we have renovated and will be using one for our third. Leaks around ill fitting cheap pre-fab shower doors are what caused damage in both of our bathrooms needing renovation. As I said, you get what you pay for and our new glass in the bathrooms is perfectly fitted and worth the extra money.

Jon, you are not getting a direct answer to your question because, as you can see, there isn't one. Way to many variables involved to provide an hourly rate and a percent mark-up. One person or trade may have an hourly rate (and even within that trade there may be different hourly rates, such as journeyman versus apprentice). Most remodels require multiple craftspeople, at different hourly rates, as well as general contractors and possibly a designer. A general contractor would have a hard time giving you a price PER HOUR for the job for the reason stated above. Mark-up on materials could also vary. Your best bet is to get multiple estimates from contractors who come highly recommended (vet them carefully). Understand that any changes to the scope of work or materials used will result in "change orders" to reflect the difference in price. That being said, there are various approaches to "contracting" a job, depending on your knowledge and experience with the process, and the scope of the work you need done. We have many highly experienced clients who have their "people" and can devote the time to hiring them directly and coordinating among them. Not a good idea for an inexperienced homeowner. Find a bath remodeler who can coordinate the entire process for you. Best of luck.

We give our return customer's a flat hourly rate, if they want a quote they get an estimate.And now custom shower custom glass, there is a standard for shower and bath openings, that an I'll fitting Kohler brand works in.

Jon, don't do anything until you have plans from a licensed professional. Pay for the plans, and then the bidding from a GC is easy. Without a plan, you are at the mercy of a GC who will- anyway he/she can- put more in his pocket than your home.

My husband and I are producers of many forms-mostly TV. Our philosophy on home building/remodeling has served us well:

Why in the heck would you hire a crew before you know what the script is?

Get plans, first. Then all that "time" a GC wants to bill you for is irrelevant, as all he has to do is execute the plan. With a reputable, licensed pro, then the appropriate GC for your budget/project will be easily recommended.

When I had my bathrooms done, the price was based on square footage of tile, plus fixtures, tub, and toilets. I was shown samples of everything and picked the items I wanted. I do not know the markup, but the items came from a plumbing supply store, not the hardware store. FWIW, there are different grades of fixtures, hardware store merchandise is often inferior to the items sold by a trade supply store.

If there was existing damage, they would have shown me the damage, and repairs would be t&m

A fair rate is whatever you will pay to get the job done to your satisfaction, just like for whatever line of work you're in.

Before you buy a loaf of bread do you analyze the cost breakdown of the price of ingredients, labour to bake the bread, fuel to get it to the store, wages for store employees? No, you buy the bread that is the product you want for a price you can afford. No such product? I guess you're going to be hungry. Or in debt...

@mdln provided a useful snapshot of what real homeowners pay for widely ranging bathroom renos in your area. Now you need to assess your desires, figure out what you can afford to budget for the project, and find someone who can do the work for the amount of money you have available. You should be able to get a fairly good idea of the quality of work for various firms in your price range by looking at their portfolios and reading reviews. Ask to speak to current clients if you want. If lots of estimates come in over what you can spend, ask "how can I trim my desires to get me within $X ?"

I'll do it for $10/hr. Will take about 3 days.

"Jon, you are not getting a direct answer to your question because, as you can see, there isn't one."

The written record here shows that I answered Jon's question with my first post.

Laurie Schrader:

Architects and engineers are subs to this General Contractor. The marketplace won't tolerate "a GC who will- anyway he/she can- put more in his pocket than your home" for very long.

I have a very good handyman that works pretty much the way Joseph does - by the house, and I think the last time he worked for me, his hourly rate was $75 (LCOLA).

If all you're doing is replacing the toilet and vanity, then you'll need a plumber and someone to demo the old and take it away, and someone to install the vanity. If you're adding tile, you will need a tile man. Very few handymen would tackle this job - it's more a GC type of thing or you being the GC and hiring the subs.

The OP as it sits Anglo, is perhaps unqualified to GC at this point

"Laurie Schrader:

Architects and engineers are subs to this General Contractor.

Joseph, I have just realized that you may know your handyman business, but no nothing of building contracts, even larger building processes. The above statement demonstrates that very well.

Stick to what you know, and you'll be fine.

Without tradesmen, or handymen, your desk jobs don't exist, nor do your home projects.

This site is a joke, most general contractors have enough experience that they don't need an architect or engineer, we are talking residential not commercial.Why doesn't everyone chime in on their experience in the field instead of getting advice on how to perform a task from someone who hires someone to do it.Designers and architects should stick to pencil work.

"Joseph, I have just realized that you may know your handyman business, but no nothing of building contracts, even larger building processes. The above statement demonstrates that very well.

Stick to what you know, and you'll be fine."

Laurie Schrader:

I've never been more insulted on this board than by being designated a "handyman".

This "handyman" is a licensed building contractor in two states, has been paid to write a magazine column on construction for four consecutive years, and has been published in Old House Journal and the Journal of Light Construction. Apparently some people other than me believe I know a bit about "building processes".

This handyman has maintained a 4.65 customer satisfaction rating out of a possible 5 for over a decade.

This handyman has bailed architects and engineers out of trouble and/or saved them from themselves repeatedly.

If you've got a Frank Gehry masterpiece you'd like built, put that thing up for bid. If you've got residential remodeling, start with your local reputable General Contractor. If he determines your project needs an architect or engineer, he's got some in his phone, right next to a plumber and an electrician.

Partner in a construction company, 17 started building homes with the largest home builder in the area, 18 went to work with the mason the did the same homes.25 yrs with my current company, 5yrs framing, 10 yrs foreman of finishing and painting, 15 custom cabinetry, building, installing, all the good stuff.Jack of all trades ? Heck yes, do all the wrenching on my 79 camaro too.

Home value range 200k- 1.5, and 6 months to get on the list.

I agree with Joseph and Matt.

As an example - I am very good with my hands when it comes to construction. I have a degree in Engineering, and another in Comp Sci. Over the years I have remodeled two of our homes - complete gut of kitchens and baths. All permitted work. My wife has a good eye for design and planning and color. I believe there are many guy's/gal's out there that have similar skills - this is why Home Depot / Lowes / Faucets Direct / etc exists.

Most of remodeling doesn't require an Architect (hell what can one do with a 9 x 7 bathroom?) nor an civil engineer.

We found Seattle rate to be around $75-85 hr for good quality craftsman and $85-95 for electric and plumbing. 200sq ft bath gut job took about 5 weeks.