Installing stained trim

[keith micinski]

I have a job coming up I was hoping to get some input on. A friend of mine owns a floor refinishing company and they redid a concrete floor in a basement that was flooded. They removed all of the base board but none of the casing. What they are wanting me to do is use my Fein to cut all of the casing up 6 inches, install a plinth block and install new 5 1/4 base board. There is about 120 linear feet and there are 7 doorways. I have no clue where to even begin figuring out a price for this since it is going to require quite a bit more work then normal and it's being stained and not painted which means everything has to be done a lot more finicky and fit together a lot better. Any suggestions on what would be a good bid for something like this. I hate to just try and guess on my time because I could easily see it being double or triple what I thought it would be once I get into it.

[Jeff Duncan]

Charge time and materials giving them your best estimate ahead of time….that would be the best way forward IMHO. Otherwise if you give them a fixed quote on something you haven't done before, you'll likely end up on the short end once completed.

good luck,
JeffD

[Peter Quinn]

Time and materials. Or you offer to do one door opening to figure out the approx. time add 20% and multiply X7. Jobs that pay you $7/hour are not good jobs in my book.

[Max Neu]

I would just pull the side pieces of the casing off and cut it with a miter saw,I don't see how you could do a nice job with a multi tool.

[keith micinski]

It thought the same thing myself but no one else agrees with me. I think I'm going to charge them something stupid like a thousand dollars plus the cost of getting the trim stained. That way if it takes me four days which I think is impossible I still make something.

[Max Neu]

I don't see how they can expect you to cut the casing off 6'' high without marring up the drywall,let alone make a nice square cut on the casing itself.

[keith micinski]

Well I have done it before on painted trim and the floor guy knows that but I agree if I made a mistake there and it wasn't quite perfect I knew all I had to do was caulk the gap and paint over it and it was as good as new.

[Tom M King]

If the casing is not nailed on with oversized nails, pull it off, pull the nails through the back with end cutting nippers, and do it the easy way. It can be cut in place without marring anything, but there is nothing fast and cheap about doing it that way. I don't do estimates or ever price jobs, so can't help you with that.