They are hiring roofers

In my opinion.....

Everyone's so caught-up/"tolerant" of this whole pseudo-subcontracting thing.

Imagine, (if you will), if a contractor could not "subcontract" his own specialty trade?

The very notion of it, is simply a tactic to undermine/escape paying appropriate labor burdens.

PLAIN & SIMPLE!

WHY THE H-E- dbl hockey sticks, do you think the "pay" is just about at direct labor rates?

We all know a guy, ("business), cannot operate on the prices somewhat industry-set currently.

In states w/o licensing this is the status quo, (that is FACT - not opinion)

twill59 Said: Heres a question Id like to pose to you Lefty. As this might address the divide here:

The divide is you are trying to fit your business into what I am saying and you can not. I can no longer fit that model either.

All my guys have paid holidays, paid vacation, health insurance, retirement which I match 3%, steady year round work - no layoffs, and training.

So I know how to build both business models.

The shingles cost $100.

twill59 Said: One man 10 sq off/ on everyday? With clean up and set up? 14 hr workdays? I dont actually remember my production back in the day. But it did include a helper. Ive done a few roof s by myself. Easy ones, like under 25 sq ranches.

That is 20 sq. 10sq a day. 5 on - 5 off. 10 off and preped one day. Shingle 10 the next day.

I have done plenty of jack jobs by myself. My wife would help me jockey the dump around at night. Materials always delivered roof top. Always threw shingles down never carried them up.

Working like that at 46 yrs old, I think I would be dead within a few years. Another reason I chose repair work in addition to what I stated in my last reply.

I gotta head out to Homo Depot, pick up two power fans and install for this nice gentleman. You guys have a great day. I'll be back on later, after I spend the next few hours making Three days sub pay. Half of that will be traveling to/from the job and picking up supplies. Peace out!

I don't know about your area Lefty but in mine it's not that way anymore. I ran that way for years also and when I lost my full service roofing business a few years back when the economy tanked, I had to look for work. No one wanted to hire me. Here I am a master roofer, still physically able with over 25 years experience and can't find work.

Today's "Roofing Companies", (nearly all of them are paper pushers), the general contractors and home builders all want an 8-10 man Mexican crew that will do just about any job in one day, for cheap, just like the ad states. I have even seen ads that specifically stated " I need a Mexican roofing crew". So much for equal opportunity employment.

I finally found ONE company to sub-contract from only to discover that I couldn't make a living for my family that way anymore ( residential re-roofs ) because the pay has either barely risen or is the same as 10-20 years ago but the cost of everything is 2-5 times higher.

So I forgot about roofing houses and started doing repair work for this company because they had more repair work than they could get done and only had a couple guys that were any good at it. I got paid by piece work and began to make a decent living again. Once I was back on my feet so to speak, I started my own repair business and that's what I do today. It hasn't been easy by any stretch of the imagination but it is coming along fine and growing with each passing day.

Get over the do the roof in a day. I covered that in the first response.

Everything else you just posted there I address.

I see guys doing this all the time. If you invest your money right, when you want to slow down, you can. I drank every penny I made when I worked like this. So that was not am option for me. Also I want to build a business. Which I am doing. So I know how to build a successful business under both models.

I have to laugh sometimes, sometimes cry. Most people tell me that what I am doing or have done can not be done.

GKRFG Said: Im going to guess that Lefty is playing Devils Advocate here. I mean really, Youre going to tearoff and reroof 10 square each and every day for 52 weeks in the year. The contractor is going to keep you lined up with an uninterupted supply of jobs. Pay you promptly and not string you along for weeks. The weather is going to be perfect with no rain or snow, Your body will stand up to the punishment. Not gonna happen man, you know it. Youre going to get a 1099 which is going to cost you a third of your income. Youre going to carry GL and Work Comp. Your office/truck/dump trailer needs maintainence, insurance, gas. Your phone is gong to cost you a good $2 a day. Clothing, shoes, tools are going to wear out. Knife blades, saw blades. Youre going to install a sheet of plywood for $12 a sheet. :laugh: All of the materials you need are going to be there when you need them. And whats left you are going to split with your partner. Wait! I forgot about Obamacare! You have to have your health insurance. Did you vote for Obama? I guarantee you are going to be working for less than minimum wage.

I figured 200 work days a year. The weather we can not figure.

The Tax issue is moot. You will pay taxes no matter how you get paid.

You do not need workmans comp as there are no employees. You are partners.

The phone is a benefit not a cost. You use the same phone for your business and personel use. If you are working under this model of business you would see this as a benefit.

My clothes last a year. You buy clothes no matter where you work. So when I worked this model, I seen this as a benefit not a cost. Here it is a deduction if I work for someone else it is not a deduction.

My trucks need very little maintence when I am the only one driving them. Usually just inspection, brakes every other year, oil changes. The work truck is also my everyday truck. The wife has a car if I need to use a car instead of a truck without racks. So the truck also looks like a benefit not an exspense.

I do not need an office. My truck is probably my office. Although under this model I can use a part of my house as the office thus I get to use a portion of my house as a deduction. Looks like a benefit not a cost since only get to deduct my personel residence under this model.

There are guys out there that will give you steady work and pay you as soon as the work is done or within the week of your invoice. I had one guy that paid as soon as you gave him the bill. I had one guy that paid me before I was done. They actually get mad when you do work for someone else or the occasional job you get on your own. If you are good they will hustle to keep you working. That bullshit there is no work out there is a lie. I went into business when we had to get into gas lines on certain days to get gas to work. They guy I was subing from did not want to lose me so he made sure I had work. That was at the end of Carter's reign.

If your wife works the only requirement she needs in the job is that it pays for the health insurance. Under this model your insurance does not play a factor.

I ran this way for years.

I re-did a valley on one today. The roof had 6 valleys. Four of them were laced/weaved and 2 were closed cut/california cut but they ran a shingle up the valley before installing the last/top side and left the bottom part of that shingle exposed. This was done so they didn't have to cut the valley out.

When I tore the valley out, one side was a newer addition and the other side had two layers on the top half and only one layer on the bottom half. The valley was leaking in two different places due to the bulkiness of all the layers plus that added shingle.

I started looking around and spotted dozens of nail pops poking through the shingles. The old rectangular furnace vent had a 750 vent installed over top of it and screwed in due to the cap being rusted off, rather than replace the whole thing. All of the shingles were installed over top of the base flashing including the ones at the bottom. Nothing keeping the water out but the black tar they smeared around it.

There were two plumbing pipes. One had a new flashing on it with all the shingles installed over top of the flashing on the left side but all of them underneath it on the right side and then sealed down the side of the flashing. The other had an old antenna bracket on it ( no antenna just the bracket) that they didn't want to slow down and take off so they didn't even install a pipe flashing on that one. Just black tar around it.

They installed a 4 inch neoprene plumbing pipe flashing around the gas hot water heater exhaust that should of had a type B gas vent base flashing and storm collar on it. The heat had just about cooked it already.They imbedded the gun nails into the shingles and as I tore out the valley they pulled right off with ease. The roof was crooked as a politician and just 3 years old.

I told all of this to the owner and he said " Yeah, the company I hired "subbed" the job out to this guy I didn't like and I almost ran him off the job twice, I wish I had now."

I started in a down cycle with a brother as a partner. We were licensed. No insurance to start with. Couldn't afford it. Beat-run Chev pickup with no back window. One flimsy extension ladder from Montgomery Wards. Twenty or thirty roof brackets and some 2X8 planks. One worm-drive skill saw and some hand tools. Going rate for comp was $5/sq. labor. Shakes were $10. Worked 350 days that year. Didn't make squat but stayed alive and after two more years we were starting to get a little wing speed. Couldn't get the cushy jobs because the equipment looked too flakey. We developed a reputation for clean, quality installations and things picked up again. Brother left and I started hiring. Beat me to death with employee costs and the stupid piecework model.

It's all different now, of course. Except for the history of one to sixteen employees depending on a variety of circumstances and mindsets I'm a confirmed artisan contractor running a crew of zero to four or five and walking away with a sense of calm and accomplishment each day. I'm nearing the end of the line though, so small is beautiful to me.

Been in two ugly lawsuits, approximately one per each twenty years. From those two experiences of my own, other twisted near-misses of my own, vicarious experiences of others I have known, and reliable information from still others I do not know personally, my fear of being a sub for a larger entity is clear. Both times I was sued the problems arose over disagreements between clients and general contractors that I had no knowledge of until it was too late to affect the outcome. All sorts of people were erroneously accused and dragged into the fracas. Some of them were not even involved in the projects. Insupportable claims were made blithely by attorneys and others who didn't care one iota for truth, only prospective profit.

So you enter into a sub agreement with a master provider of jobs and he gets sued. You have insurance so your carrier becomes a deep pocket. You have to prove you didn't work on the job(s) in question. Oh, no, they say, your invoices don't tell the whole story. The other guys didn't keep their insurance in force. They are gone. You are still here. Hold onto your hats, kids. Helluva ride. Maybe your provider will treat you equitably. Maybe he won't. You find out who your friends are in a hurry.

I did three jobs for Sears. That was enough. Unbelievable stuff I had to deal with. I'm far, far better off controlling my own destiny.

But I will never forget something an old man told me way back in the beginning. He said, "Everybody has to start somewhere." Now that has a ring to it and I will venture to say that it always will. When they make it impossible to start with anything less than a golden hatchet and a titanium extension ladder we'll know the game has finally been rigged.

Mike H said: "I guess my whole point was that crappy work doesn't come from any specific model or any specific price structure. It's a personal decision."

I agreed with just about everything you said until I got to the last line and I agree with the personal decision part but the problem is that when the company just sub-contracts all the work out at very low pay, the quality control is shifted to the sub-contractor who at those low prices, has or at least feels like he has to do the work quickly to make any decent money. This leads to an inclination to "slap" on roofs rather than "install" them properly. This may not be an issue with commercial work but it certainly is with residential shingle work. I know because I repair their crappy installs every day. In the midst of these repairs, when I fully see what they did, sometimes I laugh out loud. Other times I curse out loud. :dry:

twill59 Said: Its a lot of work to do 5 days per week, even for 2 young men clover. Did you not even tear-off........clean-up?

We cleaned up our mess. It was a new house, 2 straight sides, basically next door. I'm definitely in the camp that says this craigslist article isn't for businesses.

And $10/sq more for steep!! That's crazy.

twill59 Said: Sorry Mike/ Lefty. Been there and done it. This model will work for a couple of guys pounding out some squares. I cannot see building a business based on fulfilling legal requirements w/ employees, having professional tools and bad pricing.

A recipe for failure. Always has been always will be.

There is a reason Proctor and Gamble has been here for over a century.....It sells paper towels for more than they cost to produce, market and distribute, not less. :)

Agreed completely. I failed at it. I didn't want that anymore for myself.

But it can work, and good work can be done that way.

But P&G also works hard every day to make sure they produce those paper towels for less money than their competition, and they make a better product. That's the key to any business. Just being cheap won't last. Just being the best is really hard if you aren't competitive on price. Deliver SUPERIOR quality at a competitive price.... long term SUCCESS!!!

That's what I strive for today. It's so much more comfortable than my old way. I just remember what I did and what I made back in the day, and it kinda felt like I was getting picked on. Thought I'd step up and defend the model I usually pick apart.

I guess my whole point was that crappy work doesn't come from any specific model or any specific price structure. It's a personal decision.

:)

I had a couple of partners back in the early years when I sub-contracted but that was before I realized that $1,000 divided by 2 was $500 but $1,000 minus 3 roofers at $100 a day was $700. Not to mention it's only half the work with 4 people doing it rather than just 2 doing it. ;)

My Dad and I felted & nailed out a 20sq roof for a friend. We charged somewhere around $40-50 per square. He paid cash. We split it and for a brief moment considered firing everybody and cancelling our work comp and advertising. Then realized he is 60 and won't want to do that every day!

There are some good points in this thread.

Working on a crew, you can make some money to help someone with the bills.

Sub-contracting residential work, you can make a living.

Owning a successful roofing business, you can make a profit!