[ftp]

My total costs this year are going to be in excess of £6000! No van purchase, no monthly payments just day to day running, new poles and setting up a guttersucker system. This does include my van running costs with nothing bigger than a service and a couple of tyres.

[luther1]

My tax return expenditure is £6590.05. Not inc renault Trafic and Ionics system.

[Clive McDonald]

46 weeks times 5 days times 37 hours is 8510. Divide this into any total yearly cost for an approximate running cost rate per hour.

£6,000 divided by 8510 is 70p an hour.

[luther1]

If i clean 4/5 houses an hour then my cost per house is rather minimal isn't it? Surely it doesn't matter what the running costs are,its the profit that matters.

[Clive McDonald]

The only cost you can't really account for is time you spend at night fixing the system or produceing pure water. If you have to spend a couple of hours in the shed(or on the internet getting stuff) and cost your time at the usual hourly rate then this can add up too.

[ftp]

And that's every working hour, get rained off and the hourly rate could go higher. Have a new clutch on your van and kiss goodbye to up to £600

[luther1]

Exactly.I had Friday off because my pump gave up on my second house.My third pump since the beginning of December actually. Could have carried on working Friday but i don't want to go up ladders anymore!

[Clive McDonald]

I agree with that, that's why there is no real financial difference between ionics and diy despite people thinking there is. What would the difference be 5p a job?

[ftp]

  could be a big difference if it's all on tick, brand new and costing an extra couple of hundred a month to run.

You should work for Ionics Discount - as a sales rep.
What's stopping you from getting a brand new spangly system - 5p a job?

[luther1]

Ionics is to boost the persons ego with other cleaners by leaving the back doors of the van open,and a decent resale value i suppose! A mate of mine bought a 650 ltr system off ebay for 2k (can't remember the make) and its superb!

[Clive McDonald]

I hope you hold your nose and pull apropriate faces when you look in his van.


Would it help if you took your pump off on cold nights or at least covered it?

[luther1]

Frost hasn't been the problem,one packed up,one leaked and the other was pulsing. Another thing is that i go through the 30" colour change di cannister every 3-4 weeks and they are expensive,so on Friday i plumbed in an 11ltr di cannister to save a few bob!
Considering my ppm is 006 before resin i thought the time it lasted was horrendous.

[Clive McDonald]

46 weeks times 5 days times 37 hours is 8510. Divide this into any total yearly cost for an approximate running cost rate per hour.

£6,000 divided by 8510 is 70p an hour.

 

sorry out by a factor of 5, so the answer is £3.50 ph in this example.

[Paul Coleman]

Vehicles and systems are capital expenditure

There not running or operational cost.

For tax purposes - yes.  They still need to be factored in to the hourly rate you charge though.  I'm still paying £200 a month loan + interest for my van and setup.  Also still repaying credit cards for other bits.  I wouldn't let £300 a month go out without making some allowance for it in my pricing.  Even if you were fortunate enough to pay cash for the above, it's still prudent to put some money aside for the next lot and to factor that in too.

[Paul Coleman]

Assuming a 35 hour average week (at 52 weeks a year).  No idea how close this is as there are many aspects to work over and above the actual cleaning.

Anyway, including absolutely everything (including the TOTAL cost of the van and system which I'm still repaying)  I came to £6.68 per hour.  There's all sorts of stuff in that including a couple of one day WFP related courses, paper for my printer etc etc.  Many of these costs would have been incurred if cleaning from a ladder to aren't specifically WFP- 6  related.  I took the average over three years from switching to WFP.  Over 5 years, the figure would drop.  I'm not going to start calculating differences between capital/non-capital items.