Out of line??? YES/NO?????

Buddy of mine is in the construction business. We've made some good cash on a few people that he bid very high because he didn't really "want" to do the job yet the people said yes (last one I can remember was a small ranch roof, took us 2 days, he bid for four, knowing it wouldn't take that long, good take by all of us). May be that he doesn't really want to do it, but for the right price he will come out. Might want to shop around.

In most applications a self install of a liner, is a moderate level-of-difficulty DIY job. When you get into dealing with steep and high roofs and difficult flues, that is where the sweeps start earning their money. For most if you can get up on a roof and use basic power tools you can do it. I think that there are more than a few professionals out there ripping people off now that the market is hot, but that is my opinion.

Anyway, my father in law and I dropped a 25' liner and installed my Jotul. Took us about six hours and cost us some scraped knuckles, that's all.

pyro68 said:

the fact that he will take the estimate charge off the order says something. Take a minute and put yourself in a "professional's" shoes, you have invested in equipment, training ect. now someone asks you to come to thier home for free, shops your expertise (which cost you to aquire) takes your info and gets someone without the knowledge to do the job. Doesn't take too many of those before you're in trouble. Seems like that's a reasonable approach. . . .

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Iam with you 100%
N of 60

Deducting from the job if job awarded is admirable. But to quote that much money is a blatant rip off.
That quote is a joke. Hell save yourself some cash, buy the liner, fly me down there & back, you supply pizza & beer, I'll install, and you'll still save money.

The guy I had inspect my chimney said he would quote me a price for the install. He came back with $2500. It took me 45 seconds to drop the liner in. Two hours for the complete install. Saved $2000.

A: Do it yourself. You'll save money and you'll know it's done right and how to service it.

B: Pay someone to do it. Good certified and insured installers will do a great job and stand behind it, but it'll cost yah.

C: You could try this route: https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/31806/

I am a contractor and dont charge for estimates but alot of people do and refund the money if you use them because it takes alot of time and effort to give some estimates and say you do 40 hours of estimates in a week and only one person follows through you have wasted a lot of time for nothing kind of like (serious Inquirys Only)

Texas boy said:

I just talked to a local chimney sweep (plus) about coming out to look at my ZC FP/flue situation in preparation for a free standing wood stove installation--to get a second opinion on what the local dealer has been telling me.

First, he charges $70 just to come have a look. He will take it off the bill if he does the job.

Second, he estimated about $1800 to install a 6" SS liner from stove to top of chimney, with insulation, and replace all the top fittings on the chimney, including a "terminator" plate, all of which I didn't know needed to be done. That's the charge for a 16 foot chimney/flue installation, which he said he did four locally last week.

Thirdly, he charges $100 for a sweep job.

Fourth: He said that it would take two men a whole day to do the job.

The question is: Are these charges/estimates reasonable? The $1800 sounded very high, but then I'm not versed in these things.

For those of you who are installers: Can a DIYer do what needs to be done so that it's as safe as this guy doing it? Thanks for the input.

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First, paying for a bid? HAHA, no.
Thats part of his operating costs, you don't have to pay it.

Second, sounds like a rip off.
I installed my chimney myself. A 8 feet of double wall chimney and 5 feet of single wall took me about 3 hours to install.
I can't imagine installing a liner will take THAT much more time.

He sounds like a self righteous (Moderator edit: inappropriate language). I'd look elsewhere.

I am not saying I condone paying for a bid but I am saying that it does take alot of time and effort to do them and I understand how window shoppers are. So HAHA dont look down on a guy if he's been burnt a bunch of times. I do residential construction and everytime I turn around I get burnt for $2500 what do you do take them to court yeah right you'll never see it! Make em pay up front or walk times are hard and it is as hard for the seller as it is for the consumer!! Dont throw stones unless you know his side EDIT THIS

I went bust last summer doing free estimates! Have an F 250 diesel and drag a 14 X 7 enclosed trailer full of tools and the fuel was over $5/gal.

I can't tell you how many 30 mile, one way drives I made to do estimates only to find out some other guy saw my numbers and beat me by $50 or $100 to get the job or the customers were completely clueless about the high costs of materials and were expecting to get the completed job for less then the actual cost of them.

Some estimates consist of a couple hours drive time and a couple hours with the perspective customer going over things they want and then a few more hours drawing up a set of rough plans and materials sheet before you can even give them a dollar figure you can earn a living with.

When you charge customers up front to do the estimate and kick that charge back IF you do the job, you at least get something for your fuel and time and have a good idea the customer is serious about even getting the job done.

Just as is being discussed here, half the folks you do estimates for are considering the DIY possibilities and having Jethro with a pick up truck and circle saw to help him.

On a job like this if the materials are going to cost close to $500 then you should expect the completed job to be right around $1500 unless there are special circumstances dictating allot more work or special tools.

I bet the guy pays a couple grand per year just for his insurance.

Gary

Texas boy said:

I just talked to a local chimney sweep (plus) about coming out to look at my ZC FP/flue situation in preparation for a free standing wood stove installation--to get a second opinion on what the local dealer has been telling me.

First, he charges $70 just to come have a look. He will take it off the bill if he does the job.

Second, he estimated about $1800 to install a 6" SS liner from stove to top of chimney, with insulation, and replace all the top fittings on the chimney, including a "terminator" plate, all of which I didn't know needed to be done. That's the charge for a 16 foot chimney/flue installation, which he said he did four locally last week.

Thirdly, he charges $100 for a sweep job.

Fourth: He said that it would take two men a whole day to do the job.

The question is: Are these charges/estimates reasonable? The $1800 sounded very high, but then I'm not versed in these things.

For those of you who are installers: Can a DIYer do what needs to be done so that it's as safe as this guy doing it? Thanks for the input.

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A buddy just paid $1800 for the pipe alone on his install. It ain't cheap.

i paid 1800.00 for my install of my vermont casting wood insert minus the 68.00 they charged for the cleaning of the chimney before the install. It was well worth it to me because they had a hard time squezing that 6 inch liner down wrapped with insulation. It took 2 guys about 5 hours to finish .

THANK YOU! GAMALOT I am glad i'm not alone here

I am from the school of thought that if i can get a mechanicly inclined friend and really study up on proper way of doing it there is very few things that i cant do or wont atleast attempt ,as a home owner I have saved untold thousands of doallrs by doing things that i initially thought were way over my head and turned out to be no big deal just a little of my weekend ,this installation looks pretty easy to me unless you have some really bizzare roof angles or somw special application ,personaly if I can save a grand thats a grand i can use for something else like purchase quality power tools for another project buy a triaxle of firewood poles or 2 ..or maybe build a wood shed .

Most of these jobs are easily DIY projects if you happen to have the necessary tools and skills to use them.

I do 95% of all my home improvement projects but usually draw the line where safety is concerned. I leave serious electrical stuff to those who are qualified and with something like a stove or chimney that could easily burn your house down I think I would want someone other then a couple of guys doing OJT (on the job training) durring the project.

This is not to say there is Rocket Science involved or that a skilled home owner can't get it done right but I would certainly be extremely careful with this one.

Also consider the time it will take a couple novices Vs the time it might take a pro. Some here can go to work for the day and earn twice what a skilled craftsman might charge to do it right.

I can tell horror stories about DIY projects that went very bad for some and that I had to go and repair afterwards.

Gary

Well west Texas is pretty remote so some kind of service charge is in order imo. As far as the cleaning goes I think that's lower than in many parts of the country so you lucked out there.

as per the charge for giving a quote if the fee was known up front then I see no problem with it. The car mechanic charges a diagnostic fee so that if you decide to DIY it they still get paid to look it over and diagnose it for ya. I do not live in town so I get service charge for anything that somebody has to come out and bid usually I get the fee deducted from the bill if they do the work. It seams fair to me as they have to drive 50 miles round trip from town and that alone takes an hour + the time it takes to Bid the job.