Pay scale compared to other Industries

:woohoo: So, how do your employees pay compare to a comparably experienced electrician, plumber, hvac technicians? I don't want to include painters, masons, concrete, and other trades as I feel they are not in the same class as us other 4. Simply because we are more important to the house working than the other trades. If the roof leaks, everybody below is in trouble.

Apologies Rocky...I didn't mean to derail your thread. I'm the world's worst about deviating from the subject.

Nice to make your acquaintance, btw.

What do you mean by "stick"? Is that another term for batts?

Hey there, MikeH. I was just thinking of you the other day when talking doomsday preparations with my brother. Specifically, that gas well you have and how that would make one almost totally self contained for most needs in the event of a crisis (here I go a-wandering again, lol).

Good to hear from you Steve.

If only Killian Russell would rear his head, we could just about have all the bases covered.

Jsc, I agree, those prices were close to what we were getting in 2007 and it hasn't advance a whole lot since then. Today we pay for 1 piece conrete tile $12 to dry, stick and metal, $20 to lay and $13 to load

Hi y'all. At the time our tract work collapsed (2004) from lowbid illegal operators from Northern Mexico, aka Southern California (about three years before the actual housing collapse), the pay scale for new const tile was $15.00 sq. for felt, metal, batt, and lay for up to and including 7/12. I know this sounds incredible, but that is the fact. It is also a fact that the builders don't give one chit whether their subs arrive at low bid legally or not, so long as there's no liability to them. The outfit that beat this town up was shortly thereafter indicted for workers comp fraud and was facing a three million dollar fine and up to seventeen years in the pen just from a three year look at their books. BTW, they didn't lose one builder because of it because they were still low bid.Then they filed bk and said adios to their warranties, but the damage was done from the starvation (they took every substantial builder in town for about three years). As of now, another big lowballer outfit from out of town has taken the previous one's place.

At the same time, roofers were getting $15. sq. for comp shingles on regular pitch work.. Go figure.

To Twill, EGG, and TomB: Yep, I've been flipping houses since about last July with my youngest son, and only doing roofing incidental to that endeavor. . Sometimes I don't even turn on the puter for weeks if involved in an extensive rehab. In case you're wondering, I used to make more in a week roofing than I do in three months now, lol. Right now, got one in escrow, one on the market, and one we just bought to process.

When we were operating at a fair clip, our employees would start at $ 12 hr for labor, $ 20 per hr for crew chiefs $ 40 pe hr for field supers. Now that was the last people that we employeed the date was in 2006 When the construct slow came it put quite a few of contractors out of business. I just wandered around picking up speciality estimates for which I was paid by the project, using Xactimate my rate was $ 50 per hour this was fine untill everyone started to cut prices and my last day of work was in 2008, I'm disabled right now and can not do the things that I used to so I just sit back twiddle my thumbs and collect Social Security and a VA disabilty . I market place down this way is bad the construction indusstry is tight and pay is even tighter. When I was running union crews my roofers pay averaged 25 to 27 per hour now that the past and things don't change much. My son who is still in the roofing game sub contracts from established roofing contractors at a fixed rate, but it not like it used to be. B)

Your correct egg....A guy couldn't do it on his own...Remember, this was 20+ years ago....The crew leader would have one or more $10-$8-$6 per hr guys on his crew....Capitalism I suppose....On some of those strip malls, 4 of us would lay 80 +/- sqs/day.

Heck, I made a lot of $ doing B/2-ply/cap BUR for $67/sq. 20+ yrs ago. The "big boys" were doing it for $55/sq.

I remember framing single family homes for $1.65/sf. circa 1990. (These were slab-on-grade "ding-bats", as we called them)

I wasn't paying enough attention. Sorry about that; hate it when that happens.

"Tile; $50/sq F&S(2x2 vt&hz) & $50/sq. tile placing"

I could get rich on that.

"Tile $15 F&S...$25 tile placing."

I could get by on that.

" $6 to F&S and $12 to place tile."

If you laid up 20 sq./day six days per week 50 wks per year, you would gross $72,000 and single-handedly lay half of that 1000 sq./mo avg.

Not sustainable. In reality you couldn't expect enough clean straightforward days to realize much over half of that. And forget being a family man. Of course there was a time when steel workers did six ten-twelve hour shifts for Carnegie and felt they had one of the best jobs in the labor market. Times have changed for some.

That was alot of volume for Colorado...Not for SoCal; There wre guys doing 10 times that when I left Ca. Icouldn'r get anywhere near their prices.....under $100/sq for tract work. JSC could concur, I'm sure. I think we were around $135....I didn't prefer to do tile Ca,....

Then I moved to Colo. where they were getting $300/sq+ & usiing wet-saws on the ground to cut.....The suppliers were charging $25/sq to do a terrible job of loading....So I bought a couple of forkifts and we went to town for a few years, until the local sub-game cheaters figured it out and priced us out......Not to mention the degradation of the workforce.....

egg; I had guys making six figures at those piece prices....The locals would laugh in amazement when I told them what we paid. They were used to getting $80-$100/sq and laying a sq or two a day...My in-house trained guys would lay-out 12-20 sqs a day.

That's a lot of volume.

Don't think I would ever agree to lay up 100 sq. for $1200, no matter how much I think I enjoy it. Maybe the trucker hauling it from portal to portal made the most of anybody.

We used to load our own tile, still do sometimes, until we realized what the spine thinks about it. Too much gravity involved.

JSC who used to post here did a ton of tile tract work before it was impossible to bid against the cheaters. Wish he'd check in once in awhile, I miss him on here.

Wywoody - Those are piece rate wages..Not subletting

When I left Ca. in 92, we were paynig $6 to F&S and $12 to place tile. Most production/track work in the larger metros were paying like $3 to felt & snap, (no battens), and $9 to place tile...Some of the houses were 25 sqs and cut-up to beat hell.....Base, 2-ply & cap was going for $60/sq!

We always used to load our own tile...Had two JCB "articulating" lifts 40' & a couple of those "Lift" aluminum conveyors...paid $5 -$10/sq to load.

We averaged 1,000 sqs/mo for awhile in the mid 90's. 20 - 30 trucks/month hauling tile from Ca.

Woody, you're right about breaking that labor up on a tile roof. We try to have the same dry-in crew install the tile. No arguements about who's leak it is. But some of these jobs we might dry-in and do the metal 6-12 months before the tile install, and the same crew may be on a different job or some other reason not available. as early as 2007 Track homes were paying 4 for dry in and stick 8 to install. we.ve never done track home development, margins were to low. We were probably close to double that in 2007 and have moved up to what I mentioned earlier post. The load is generally sub bed out to a loding contractor with a articulating forklift. Their rates are 13 for one piece and 16 for 2. for loading plus access charges. My pricing i charge might be where you are for labor maybe a little higher because it doesn't include burden, but not the price I pay.

My best quality roofers have always been piece workers.....A guy that's good at what he does, is typically exceptionally proficient at it...It goes hand-in-hand. Typically, the slower they are, the sloppier they are...That's my experiences anyhow.

The employer & employee must have similar mind-sets/goals....The motivation factor of the employer to pay his employee pc wk, is to reward the employee with opportunity to excell, & make more $...Whereas, the employee must possess sincere desire to provide his most effecient/quality work efforts.

SoCal; Mostly 4 & 5/12 pitches.....Comp $15/sq & up...Tile $15 F&S...$25 tile placing. Avg. prod. Comp. 12 - 20 sqs/day per man...Tile 8 - 12 sqs/day per man

Colo Mtns; 4&5/12 pitches....Comp. (shingle only)...$25/sq & up....Tile; $50/sq F&S(2x2 vt&hz) & $50/sq. tile placing.....Avg. prod.....we're working on that.

Of cousre the pc rate prices increase as per steepness & difficulty/complicity increases.

Twill, it does sound like you're right pitting union vs non- union.I think both ways can work in their areas. Piece work doesn't determine fast and sloppy.actually the reverse happens as far sloppiness. When I pay piece work if the applicator screws something up he goes and repairs it on his time and dime.shingles make 18 to 30 per sqdepending on type of shingle and 5 to 10to per sq depending on pitch. If they have to get material which is seldom, theru Most residential are 4/1-5/12 ranch style hmes. 25- 40 sas. 2 guys blow that out in 1a day maybe 2a with complcations. We roof 320 days a year. They are all payed on w2's no 1009's they all get bnnies. Maybe not as extravakgant as union, but my guys and gals get bettered than most in this area. Tile guys get 20forr tile 12 for for dry and stick. No trash haul off. 2 piece tile get 48for plus dry in. You can't tell me those aren't. Fair wages...I m not saying I don't get quality issues popping up now and then, but if the guy is still working for me he fixes the problem on his time. These are all seasoned roofers, not carpenters trying to do a roofeea job or filling in time. Roofers do roofing here carpenters do wood. I know some can do both, but we keep them separate here. I wrote this on my cell phone, hope u can read it.

Ad in the local paper for roofing laborers wanted....

Small, local outfit....Could be "qualifying" for hiring "visiting" workers.

Rate of pay advertised was $ 11.07/hr. Huge ad....outrageously/idiotically detailed....aprx. 6" - 7" column legnth, in the want ads'.

A gooberment requirement?....only ran for two days.

I thought it was something we took for peanut-breath. What am I supposed to do now?