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For plumbers: a price for each task, and the water heater on options

A leak under a sink, a drain that will not clear, a water heater that quit in the night: plumbing is quoted by the task when the job is small, and as a replacement with choices when it is big. TailGateBid keeps your price for each task, puts a tank and a tankless heater on one quote for your customer to choose between on their phone, and turns the finished job into an invoice.

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The work

Faucets, toilets, drains, garbage disposals and water heaters; and the long jobs, a repipe or a sewer line. The federal handbook of occupations puts it this way: plumbers install and repair water, gas and other piping systems, install fixtures such as bathtubs and toilets and appliances such as dishwashers and water heaters, and clean drains, remove obstructions, and repair or replace broken pipes and fixtures (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook: Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters). The first duty on its list is the one this page is about: preparing cost estimates for clients.

What needs a license, a permit or an inspection where you work is for your state's licensing board and your local building department to say. Nothing on this page is how to do the work.

How a water heater is sized

  1. A tank has two figures, ENERGY STAR says: its capacity in gallons and its first-hour rating, which measures how much hot water it can deliver during a busy hour under standard test conditions (ENERGY STAR, High Efficiency Gas Storage Water Heaters).
  2. Its advice to a homeowner is where a replacement starts. If the heater they have meets their needs most of the time, they can probably replace it with one the same size, and should still look at the first-hour rating of the new one.
  3. A tankless heater has no tank to go by. It is rated by the gallons of hot water it produces in a minute, GPM, and the more that runs at once, the larger the GPM needed (ENERGY STAR, Whole Home Tankless Gas Water Heaters).
  4. So list what runs at the same time and add it up. ENERGY STAR's average figures are a place to begin: a shower or a bathtub 2.5 GPM, a clothes washer 3.3, a kitchen or bathroom sink 2.2, a dishwasher 1.3. It leaves the estimate itself to an experienced plumber, and which model delivers that flow is on its maker's sheet.
  5. Before a price is given for a tankless heater, the same page says, the installer should confirm the GPM size, determine whether the existing natural gas line is sufficient, whether electricity is available near the heater for a model with forced ventilation, and identify how the combustion gases will be vented. Each answer can be a line on the quote.

An example with made-up numbers, not a going rate

Say the busiest minute in the house is a shower, the clothes washer and the kitchen sink, all running. At ENERGY STAR's average figures that is 2.5, 3.3 and 2.2 gallons a minute: 8 in all. So the tankless heater on the quote is one whose maker's sheet shows it delivering 8 GPM or more in that house. Say the gas line that is there will not do, and the new one runs 24 feet. That is a line on the quote too, by the foot.

A tankless quote, worked through

Sample

Sample Plumbing Co.

Tankless water heater, sized for 8 gallons a minute

  • Tankless gas water heater, 8 GPM, installedQty 1$2,950.00
  • New gas line to the heaterQty 24 feet$456.00
  • Vent kit, through the outside wallQty 1$385.00
  • Old tank water heater drained and hauled awayQty 1$95.00
Subtotal
$3,886.00
Sales tax (7.25%)
$241.79
Total
$4,127.79

Deposit due on approval: $412.78

Before you ask for a deposit on work at a home, check what your state or province allows.

Only you see this part. Your customer never does.

What it costs you
$2,258.00
What is left for you
$1,628.00

You keep about $42 of every $100

A sample. Its prices are made up, and they are not a going rate for a heater or for anything else. The heater is one line, at the 8 GPM worked out above. The gas line is charged by the foot, 24 feet of it, so a longer run is a bigger line. The vent and hauling off the old tank are lines of their own. The two lines ticked as taxed come to $3,335.00, and 7.25% of that is $241.79. A 10% deposit of $412.78 is due on approval. On your side of it, with costs as made up as the prices, $1,628.00 of the $3,886.00 is left: about $42 of every $100.

What TailGateBid does for a plumber

  • Tank and tankless on one quote

    When a customer asks what else there is, the quote can answer. It takes as many as 4 options, each priced: say the same size of tank again, a tank with a higher first-hour rating, and a tankless heater. TailGateBid names them Good, Better and Best until you rename them, and one can carry your recommendation. The link opens on your customer's phone, where they choose and sign. Want a deposit on approval? Its invoice is written the moment they approve. How a quote is put together.

  • A price for each task

    Small work is sold by the task. Keep each one you do again and again in your price book as a service: a faucet replaced, a toilet reset, a drain cleared, each with its price, its unit and, if you want it, what it costs you. Customers never see the cost. On a quote the task goes on with one tap, and you say how many. That is a price by the task, flat-rate pricing, from a book you write yourself. Working by time and materials instead? Your hourly rate and your parts go on a quote as lines in the same way. Rates and the price book.

  • Nights and weekends

    The same handbook says plumbers are often on call to handle emergencies, and that most work full time, nights and weekends included. If you charge more for a night call, that charge and the trip itself can sit in your price book as fees and go on the quote as lines of their own. What a trip costs you, and the smallest job worth taking.

  • A draft from photos of the job

    Photograph the job, add a line or two about what the customer wants, and Bid Partner, TailGateBid's AI tool, comes back with a draft priced from your price book and your rates. Where you have set no price it carries on with one of its own and marks it "Typical": type what you charge and that is your price from then on. It is a draft. Check every line, and nothing reaches your customer until you press Send.

  • The day, the invoice and the money

    Once approved, the quote is a job, and it wants a day: give it one on the schedule. "I am on my way" emails your customer who is coming. Finished? The invoice is one tap away, less any deposit already paid. The money itself never passes through TailGateBid: your customer pays you as they do now, and you record the payment on the invoice.

  • A plumber's website

    A plumbing business gets a website with its account, hosted at no extra cost. It says what you fix and install, in the words you would use, and where you work; it shows only the reviews you have approved; and its request form takes photos, so the leak arrives with the message. What goes on the website, or see it with your own name on it.

What it is not

  • Bid Partner is not a safety inspection, and it makes mistakes. Gas, venting and what your local code asks are yours to judge on site. Check every number before you send the quote.
  • There is no ready-made flat-rate book in TailGateBid, no supplier catalog and no price data. The prices in your price book are the ones you type.
  • It is quotes, a schedule, invoices, a website and Bid Partner, in English and Spanish, from a phone. Dispatch boards, GPS, inventory, financing, memberships and service agreements are not in it, and permits are yours to pull.

The hour inside the price

A price by the task is only as good as the hour inside it. The hour calculator works out what an hour really costs you, with the van and the hours nobody pays for, and the job price calculator shows what a price leaves once the parts are paid for.

Only need a paper tonight? The free estimate maker prints a quote with the same sums and no sign-up. And when a wall is open and the job has grown, the free change order form puts the extra work and the new total on a page you both sign.

And for the paper itself: how an estimate is laid out, with a filled-in one to copy from.

This page is about one trade. TailGateBid works the same way for any other, and Bid Partner is built to price a job in any of them: how it works for your trade.

Sources

Related

Put your next water heater on a quote with two options.

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