Just reading this thread brings back bad memories when I
had to take on larger scale jobs where estimates were required. I'm so grateful that it's all behind me now. Nothing worse than being hustled by someone after the bottom dollar.
No matter how hard I tried to hit my marks, I always had a diminished hourly rate when you did the math, which was quite painful sometimes. To me it seems that situations like that was what the customer was wanting all along, I was just the fool for doing it I guess.
If you could do it, I'd specify labor charges only, customer buys the material. I had one customer about a month ago wanting me to install the drain line to a toilet by accessing the cleanout with a threaded male adaptor, turn up a cleanout and bring it through a wall. That is the easy part, the part
I do not like is he wants me to install it without a vent. Well, a tee turned up for a cheater vent.
Mind you, this guy is a Master Electrician and he's asking a Master Plumber to half ass a toilet installation.
Needless to say, I never sent the estimate, a fault on not holding to my word. I'm hoping he never calls me to do work ever again. Anyone that wants me to risk my license so they can benefit by my expertise doesn't deserve my professionalism. The whole asking me for an estimate after I told him that the toilet needed to be vented sort of pissed me off. And from the way I told him what needed to be done to properly vent it per say KY code, he blew it off like that was never going to happen. Kinda the same way that I'm never coming back to work for the guy.