contractor
 

I want to have my bathroom redone. It's a very small bathroom,25 square feet. It need to put in new tile, new toilet, new vanity. All materials, I buy and this contractor charged his labor 1300 + 130 for some extra material and special thing tool for toilet + 80 for instal new vanity vs. old one. SO total 1510.
I think it's quite expensive for such a small bathroom.

Is anyone have any idea if this is expensive or not. For the moment I don't know any contractor to get another estimate. SOme of my friend said you can bargain but i don't feel comfortable to do that. And this guys is my work for my parents in law for a long time.
Any idea, advice will be appreciated.
Mai

Well, I figure at the MOST it will take about 30 hours of labor. So 1500/30 is $50/hr. for labor (not unreasonable I think). Doing the tiles will take the most time, maybe 20 hours at most.

30 hours still sounds like a long time for this small bathroom. Somebody can probably do the job in 20 hours and charge you $1000 even. Just my opinion, but I'd definitely look for another estimate. Check the yellow pages.

Thank you. I definitely try to have another estimate. and compare.
Mai

I'm an architect and generally speaking the labor and materials cost about the same. So if you spent $1,500 on the materials, the same price for the labor is probably fair. The only exception to that rule is tile, which is labor intensive, and tile can vary widely in price. And I don't know that saying the room is small should make it cheaper, at least not labor wise. Usually that means more cutting and fitting on the tile, and that the tile saw will have to be set up somewhere else as the bathroom is too small for all the tools, so more walking back and forth.

Of course knowing the contractor and possibly knowing that he can be trusted to do the job and do it right the first time, in my opinion is probably worth a little extra. So if he's $300 more than another contractor, but he finishes the job when he said he would and gets it done right, then he's probably worth all that and more. It's hard to say without more information really.

Fitday comes to the rescuse again!!! I'm talking to a renovator next week about a bunch of odd jobs I need done. He is $20.00 an hour or a job estimate, whichever I prefer. I plan on hiring him for a small job first and if happy may continue with my top 10 list. Mary