Prices and demand

[Ben1191]

Im in the UK but have the ability to move basically anywhere in the usa although utah,california, idaho and collarado are preferred states.

Whats the demand for carpet installers there right now, whats the pay like and how much sqy do you get through in a day?

Right now in the UK im on about £100k a year with no supply of materials which is 5x minimum wage or 115k dollars-ish

 

[Incognito]

Very exclusive installers can fetch that pricing in Southern California along coastal communities as well as in the Bay areas (San Francisco) but I'm sure you'd be in the 97-99th percentile of "independent contractors"-----ALL IN with what you quote. The shops they work through would give them the jobs MOST installers are not capable of doing, at all-----let alone well.

Carpet is out of favor in commercial and residential and is being gradually phases out for hard surface-----mostly vinyl/laminate/cheap plastic tile or planks. So the supply/demand curve is sloping down for just carpet layers--------especially on the lower end.

CURIOUS: the $115K is gross revenue or after vehicle/tool/equipment/other expenses are deducted???? There's a very wide variation in HOURS worked as well in the independent category of tradesman. Union installers in the "big city" markets make roundabout your gross income if you include their benefits (pension, health care, vacation funding). Generally our hours work out to 40 hours per week not guaranteed but the better men are working quite a bit more and earning time and a half hourly so in their good years they'll make substantially more than the slow periods or when they age out and cant do those 14 hours on Saturday and 12 on Sunday back to back like when they were kids.

 

[Ben1191]

Very exclusive installers can fetch that pricing in Southern California along coastal communities as well as in the Bay areas (San Francisco) but I'm sure you'd be in the 97-99th percentile of "independent contractors"-----ALL IN with what you quote. The shops they work through would give them the jobs MOST installers are not capable of doing, at all-----let alone well.

Carpet is out of favor in commercial and residential and is being gradually phases out for hard surface-----mostly vinyl/laminate/cheap plastic tile or planks. So the supply/demand curve is sloping down for just carpet layers--------especially on the lower end.

CURIOUS: the $115K is gross revenue or after vehicle/tool/equipment/other expenses are deducted???? There's a very wide variation in HOURS worked as well in the independent category of tradesman. Union installers in the "big city" markets make roundabout your gross income if you include their benefits (pension, health care, vacation funding). Generally our hours work out to 40 hours per week not guaranteed but the better men are working quite a bit more and earning time and a half hourly so in their good years they'll make substantially more than the slow periods or when they age out and cant do those 14 hours on Saturday and 12 on Sunday back to back like when they were kids.

Its before deductions but i dont have a great deal of outgoings, maybe 4-5000 in fuel and probably under 1000 in blades and staples etc for the year.

Im self employed so not on hourly,there usually isnt enough work to fit into a full day so im finished by around 2pm each day.


Good Carpet installers are getting harder and harder to find here, the major retailers increased their fitting rates last year by almost double and its only going to go up as the work conditions for building sites is getting worse and people are quitting

 

[Incognito]

California is an expensive place to own a vehicle and drive. All-in while the IRS allows 62.5 cents per mile I'd wager anyone driving a PRESENTABLE work vehicle will be losing money on that deal after depreciation, insurance, registration, taxes, fuel and maintenance are calculated. We do have the choice of collecting receipts and claiming the total or using the mileage formula and keeping a log/journal with odometer readings at each stop. Either way it's a freaking hassle but the good part is it forces the independent contractor to realize how much that cuts into profits.

I'm not aware of the immigration situation in the UK and how it might affect tradesmen competing for wages. In Southern California we are pretty much Ground Zero------one of the epicenters for illegal immigrants pouring into our country. They will often pass through on their way to the rest of the country looking for work if they've got a destination (job waiting with family). Otherwise they'll scratch around here taking and and everything that comes their way. Funny thing though with inflation even the illegal aliens sitting around Home Depot waiting for work now have a "minimum wage" of around $15 plus you gotta buy them lunch-------so I'm hearing. I haven't actually hired one aside from one day around 20 years ago I needed a guy to help finish a job on a Sunday when my helper no-showed.

I ask about the hours in the day because depending on whether you've worked a thousand hours to earn the $115K or more like two thousand hours is pretty significant. My hours were always accounted for daily/weekly/monthly/quarterly/annually. 2000 hours is basically a year-------50 weeks times 40 hours.
That's how union guys look at it----------counting up and logging those hours for the pension plus health coverage.

You WILL have to pay your own health insurance as an independent contractor. You're not going to like that monthly bill. Put that into the equation for sure.

 

[Ben1191]

California is an expensive place to own a vehicle and drive. All-in while the IRS allows 62.5 cents per mile I'd wager anyone driving a PRESENTABLE work vehicle will be losing money on that deal after depreciation, insurance, registration, taxes, fuel and maintenance are calculated. We do have the choice of collecting receipts and claiming the total or using the mileage formula and keeping a log/journal with odometer readings at each stop. Either way it's a freaking hassle but the good part is it forces the independent contractor to realize how much that cuts into profits.

I'm not aware of the immigration situation in the UK and how it might affect tradesmen competing for wages. In Southern California we are pretty much Ground Zero------one of the epicenters for illegal immigrants pouring into our country. They will often pass through on their way to the rest of the country looking for work if they've got a destination (job waiting with family). Otherwise they'll scratch around here taking and and everything that comes their way. Funny thing though with inflation even the illegal aliens sitting around Home Depot waiting for work now have a "minimum wage" of around $15 plus you gotta buy them lunch-------so I'm hearing. I haven't actually hired one aside from one day around 20 years ago I needed a guy to help finish a job on a Sunday when my helper no-showed.

I ask about the hours in the day because depending on whether you've worked a thousand hours to earn the $115K or more like two thousand hours is pretty significant. My hours were always accounted for daily/weekly/monthly/quarterly/annually. 2000 hours is basically a year-------50 weeks times 40 hours.
That's how union guys look at it----------counting up and logging those hours for the pension plus health coverage.

You WILL have to pay your own health insurance as an independent contractor. You're not going to like that monthly bill. Put that into the equation for sure.

Id say i work probably 30 hours a week on average, but i do around 15 hours a week ontop of that in driving.

Flooring in the uk isunaffected by immigration, only the UK,USA,L and Australia do stretch fit installations so eastern earopeans have no experience in it and hence we have no competition from them.

Flooring installers are dwindling here and our prices are rising and rising

 

[Tile Tom]

So why would you want to leave for the unknown.
Seems to me like you got it made in the shade, why risk it?

 

[Floorist]

Id say i work probably 30 hours a week on average, but i do around 15 hours a week ontop of that in driving.

Flooring in the uk isunaffected by immigration, only the UK,USA,L and Australia do stretch fit installations so eastern earopeans have no experience in it and hence we have no competition from them.

Flooring installers are dwindling here and our prices are rising and rising

Much of the trade in the US is going DIY; Not much carpet being sold.

 

[C.J.]

Agreed. If you move here you should definitely do something different. Live the good life unless you already are in which case I say carry on.

 

[Incognito]

Id say i work probably 30 hours a week on average, but i do around 15 hours a week ontop of that in driving.

Flooring in the uk isunaffected by immigration, only the UK,USA,L and Australia do stretch fit installations so eastern earopeans have no experience in it and hence we have no competition from them.

Flooring installers are dwindling here and our prices are rising and rising

I would estimate in my ~40 years installing commercial flooring in the USA 15 hours per week of UNPAID driving time was............awful close to the average. But that's on top of 40-50 hours on the floor. We'd get something for gas but that's about it.

Funny what you say about the stretch carpet and immigrants. When I was in New York City in the early '80s running union work I had a few guys who had come out to Los Angeles to try to find their way. In that world the immigrants had completely overtaken residential/stretch-in installations at Third World rates. But they hadn't been around long enough to manage Big Commercial glue-down. So there was still some meat on the bones there.

By the time I moved out here not many years after that the overwhelming majority of ALL carpet was being installed by those immigrants and the prices were sub-standard and dropping. So while inflation is running everything upward flooring installation prices were dropping like an anvil.

Frankly Ben, that's where we sit anywheres in the USA that out of control immigrant labor dominates the market. Southern California is absolutely SATURATED with illegal alien workers in every possible industry.

I was lucky. I didn't come here to get rich. I just liked the weather. I did OK with the union.

 

[Floorist]

I would estimate in my ~40 years installing commercial flooring in the USA 15 hours per week of UNPAID driving time was............awful close to the average. But that's on top of 40-50 hours on the floor. We'd get something for gas but that's about it.

Funny what you say about the stretch carpet and immigrants. When I was in New York City in the early '80s running union work I had a few guys who had come out to Los Angeles to try to find their way. In that world the immigrants had completely overtaken residential/stretch-in installations at Third World rates. But they hadn't been around long enough to manage Big Commercial glue-down. So there was still some meat on the bones there.

By the time I moved out here not many years after that the overwhelming majority of ALL carpet was being installed by those immigrants and the prices were sub-standard and dropping. So while inflation is running everything upward flooring installation prices were dropping like an anvil.

Frankly Ben, that's where we sit anywheres in the USA that out of control immigrant labor dominates the market. Southern California is absolutely SATURATED with illegal alien workers in every possible industry.

I was lucky. I didn't come here to get rich. I just liked the weather. I did OK with the union.

We see immigrants doing all other trades around here but not much in flooring. This is the Bible belt. Red necks don't like immigrants in their homes. I have had customers refuse to let anyone in who had a bunch of tattoos. A good worker here had been in prison and had a lot of prison tatts. We could use him on unoccupied, but that was about it.

 

[highup]

Much of the trade in the US is going DIY; Not much carpet being sold.

I'd be happy if my customers did ther own stairs

 

[Floorist]

I'd be happy if my customers did ther own stairs

Stairs were my favorite of carpet jobs.

 

[highup]

I don't care who does em if they have enough gas money.
The only time I like stairs is when they're done.

 

[Ben1191]

So why would you want to leave for the unknown.
Seems to me like you got it made in the shade, why risk it?

Well money isnt everything i guess, i didnt really think the states would be saturated with labour in the way youve all said, i actually thought id get more there than here, moving to america seems to be in my future as my wife wants to move back one day so im just gaining some knowledge.

 

[Floorist]

Well money isnt everything i guess, i didnt really think the states would be saturated with labour in the way youve all said, i actually thought id get more there than here, moving to america seems to be in my future as my wife wants to move back one day so im just gaining some knowledge.

What state is she from?

 

[Ben1191]

Probably an interesting reason why immigrants may not take to flooring easily over here compared to america, is our rooms,landings and hallways are often ridiculous shapes, nothing is square so its not so easy to get away with a bodge job all our stairs are waterfall too and often 8 kite/pie steps per staircase

 

[Ben1191]

What state is she from?

California. To clarify When i said saturated with labour i meant flooring specifically, i know the problem existed but figured it would be similar to here