Minimum wage and new reality of it

[Nyboy]

Bob if you have a contract for $600 and he bailed day before small claims court breach of contract. I might do that over my truck

 

[bobm]

Seed, do you have your hat on ??? The next contractor was a no show. Sound familiar ? Seed , is your hat on ? Another contractor came out this morning to get me a quote. Seed, hold onto your hat ... this one quoted THREE THOUSAND EIGHTY DOLLARS and he can't start work untill the end of September .

 

[aftermidnight]

I don't know if this is relevant or not but I had 4 smallish rooms tiled 10 years ago (apprx. $8,000), there's a bit of a story here . When we bought our little house back in 1965 we paid $8,900 for it, not much to look at but it put a roof over us and our three kids. We were still living on a shoestring. When it was built there wasn't a bathroom as they were still using outhouses. By the time we bought it a small bathroom had been added, they had taken a piece of the fairly large kitchen to make it, it was on a septic tank at the time but since then a sewer line was put down our street and we hooked up to it (another story here). Two years later in 67 we added on two rooms, another bedroom and a new kitchen, the existing kitchen became a dining room.
We never could agree on what flooring to put in the kitchen, everything I suggested DH didn't like as we have a lot of gravel paths soooooo for years, and years, and years every couple of years I slapped another coat of paint on the subfloor . All the other floors were carpeted.
Then one day out of the blue I received a small inheritance, we had just put an airtight insert in the fireplace in the living room and to comply with fire regs. we had to put this big ugly fireproof mat on the floor in front of the fireplace, looked like hell . The light bulb came on, why not tile the floor and get rid of the mat, I had the money. So we picked out tile, arranged for a time to have the living room done. Our tiler arrived, great guy, he said I have a bit of bad news some of the tile had been broken in shipment so they had to order more, I'll be back next week. Another light bulb minute , is there enough to do the kitchen floor I asked? He replied yes, so before hubby could open his mouth I said go for it.
Later that morning...




And the next day...

When asked what color of grout I wanted, I said as close to dirt as you can get it .
The problem of the kitchen floor was no more.

The tile arrived for the living room the next week, looked great when done but then the dining room bugged me, sandwiched between two tiled floors it looked shabby sooooo ordered more tile . He finished that, by this time I was on a roll so I said how about tiling this other room it still had just a subfloor with a bit of carpet over it. Soooo, more tile was ordered. My tile guy said I just don't believe this room, I thought oh, oh, it was one of the ones we had added on. He said he had never run into this before in all the years he tiled floors. I didn't have to cut or fit one tile and all the grout lines matched up with the ones in the dining room. We ended up with extra tile.... mind well in gear by this time I said is there enough tile to do our tiny bathroom, he said yes with some to spare so nice guy that he was he came back on his day off and did the bathroom for a small fee.
My inheritance was well spent, other than two bedrooms the whole house is tiled. maybe someday I'll get a new finish on those, the distressed and stained a dark color.
Our house was pretty shabby when we bought it but over the years I worked at changing it a bit at a time .

Annette

 

[seedcorn]

Seed, do you have your hat on ??? The next contractor was a no show. Sound familiar ? Seed , is your hat on ? Another contractor came out this morning to get me a quote. Seed, hold onto your hat ... this one quoted THREE THOUSAND EIGHTY DOLLARS and he can't start work untill the end of September .

@bobm I do not doubt your price increases. What I dispute is the contractor saying a $600 job is now $3000 because of minimum wage increase. I highly doubt he is paying his workers $2400 more for a job like yours. Call me a skeptic.

 

[bobm]

Seed ... check out the current basketball free agency numbers to blow your mind ...

 

[seedcorn]

Entertainment is completely different and has nothing to with minimum wage workers. I quit careing about all professional sports when baseball went on strike for being underpaid. That has been a while back.

Even IF minimum wage tripled, your job increase ($600-$3000) was not due to minimum wagebut management greed.

 

[Nyboy]

I know prices differ all over, but your $600 job sounds way under priced.

 

[thistlebloom]

That $2400 price difference wasn't the same contractor if I'm understanding Bob correctly.

It's not an apples to apples comparison most of the time. For instance my husband usually puts a slip sheet down under the tile, depending on what the subfloor is, and often will even put a waterproofing agent down. He also does a lot of mudwork to make his tile level and plumb as opposed to just masticking (sp?)down on the underlayment cement board. These methods take more time, more expensive materials and more skill. So somebody who tells you they can do it for $600 will more than likely be doing a lick and stick job.

 

[aftermidnight]

I was quite pleased with what we got done for $8000, as Thistle said cement board, and in our case a lot of mud work on our uneven floors, 10 years later not a crack or problem anywhere, actually counting the little bathroom it was 5 rooms for us. It might have been a shack when we bought it but not too shabby now.
I tile floors, so easy to keep clean.
Annette

 

[Nyboy]

You can see the tile floor in my profile photo. Did grooming room and office together about 15 to 20 years ago. Cried over bill years later worth every penny no cracks floor looks same as day was put down.