Monday, September 28, 2015

Free Services

Nothing is free anymore. We all know about anything offered for free and what really happens. 
As an experiment with our surface restoration business, I wanted to try and do something unique ( one of our regular services)for free. What I really wanted to know is what free would cost the business in total value. As an owner operator with no employees it important to put a value on your time. Time is worth  way more than the cost of materials in this business. My first opportunity came with a friend needing to replace a laundry room floor that had been gouged and destroyed by a water leak. This 12x14 room was the perfect opportunity.  The materials would only be $600 to turn this old wood subfloor into a concrete epoxied beauty. Plus I needed to shake off some of the rust with my trowel work.
The floor was pretty straight forward and easy to layout. The concrete though took a little longer to set and dry because of the high humidity of the Oregon weekend and rain. We were able to pour out the base of the floor on Friday, but couldn't get the last colored skim coat finished until Sunday. So after about 18 hours worth of labor (translated $1800) we finally had our floor in ready to seal. And of course, taking advantage of me being there, my friend had me professionally clean the carpets while we watched the floor dry...so add all this up and the weekend basically cost us about $2600 in Free services...
And I still have to take another couple hours to seal it two days later. 
So, there are a few free services out there, but they are unusual and have a "friendship" of some sort attached to them...,
Why couldn't he needed pressure washing and sealing of his concrete or deck? That would have taken half the time and money....?
Now onto a regular paying customer....

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