California Commercial Cabinets

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Hi, for California market,
what is the price per linear foot for commercial cabinets (Melamine cabinets and laminate doors Blum hinges, with 1/2 melamine drawers with ball baring slides)
i was told $330 for upper and same for base per linear foot but lately we loosing a lots of jobs using this price.
Thank you.

Logan Mankins

I posted the exact thread sometime in the past year. Most replies were in the $125 to $200 range. If you're bidding $330/LF for uppers, I'm not too surprised you're losing bids. That's about double what I'm able to get on winning bids, and I'm in California too.

AA

Thank you for your response
The price range is for upper and same for lower, right?
If you would sell the lineer feet for 150 that makes is 300 for upper and Lowe combined.
Is this price including drawers also, or adding around $40 per drawer?

Logan Mankins

Right. Seems a bit odd to combine uppers and lowers into a single LF price, but you do it however you want.

Any shop with a CNC and a bander can easily bang out laminate cabinets at below $330/LF "combined upper/lower".

AA

i have to do it this way because this project has most of the rooms upper and lower running together, so it is a bit faster to come out with a total.
what a about the drawers and c tops, do you calculate it separately, or it is included at your price.
this project has over 57 drawers 1/2" melamine with KV full extension slide.

mike

Seriously?

Mark B

Member

Im not even in your market but if your pricing 330/ft for uppers AND lowers (660/ft of run) Im surprised your still in business.

Even 330/ft for both would seem sky high to me.

Logan Mankins

The OP is probably Mexican with not so good English. I'm pretty sure what he's saying is $330/LF includes both uppers and lowers. That puts him at $165/LF for either the uppers or lowers. That's reasonable I think.

Akram

Member

Logan what is the OP abbreviation,
yes 300 to 330 is about fair,
attached plan is for one room has 12 LF the cost for material only 1420 using white melamine, P Lam door with plywood core, 1/2 drawer with KV FE slides and self edge lam top.
with two men shop, low end CNC and bander will be built on one day and half including drawing time and assembly, and another day delivery and installation
sale price 3600-1420=2180
take home around 1200 after paying labor and overhead.
does not sound bad but it is not happening every day.

View higher quality, full size image (799 X 545)

ozan

I charge $900 linear at north America, all cnc output installation included.

Pat Gilbert

Sure you do

Alan F.

Downtown SF A space, highrise
30 Doug Mocket pulls $450 cost
5 sheets Abet Laminati premium color laid up panels $2000
16 hours union install 1700
parking $75
8 hours field drill pulls, either out of stock or not selected so can't be drilled on CNC $900
$150 slides
8 sheets melamine $192

Going broke at $330
A-

Logan Mankins

Alan,
So what you're saying is that apples don't cost the same as oranges?

Alan F.

There both $1 per lb, at the orchard, they have different density, size, and shipping to fruit stand on the orchard property costs less than to different stores and the Walmart warehouse. Plus some people want all their fruit exactly 3" in diameter so it takes a lot of fruit to find the right piece and costs a bit to sort.

All cars are the same, you get in drive and go somewhere. Some would argue that a Ferrari and a Cadillac and a Toyota are better than a Yugo, yet in the end when maintained they all get you to your destination. I don't know how much cars cost a foot.

Foot prices were developed by GC and developers as a quick way to budget projects, carpet is x$ per square foot, wall is per linear foot, electrical is x per outlet, ceiling is x per sq foot, cabinets just measure the lineal and come up with a budget. If you always build cabinets the same sizes and install is always the same then footage works. I don't know how you account for economies of scale if you are making a 100 of each of the cabinets in the drawing, booking 4 high on a beam saw gets 100 cut pretty quick compared to 1. Construction managers want unit prices so when they make changes they know the range of the cost impact. They don't want the price of beans going up in the middle of the job.

What happens if they move the wall 18" after we install and they want an 18" cabinet and top added on, is it $495?

If you charge $330 a foot and the market is saying that's too much then you either need to lower your price and get more efficient or sell somewhere else, either way you need to know what it costs in time and materials before you can make a price decision and then you could look at a lot of jobs and reverse engineer profitable footage numbers if you want.

I know people that use multipliers of material cost. In the end it takes x dollars to keep the doors open and y dollars to get everything built. If footage pricing works for you then that's fine. I just see so many variations that I am not comfortable with it.

A-

Pat Gilbert

Alan

So you are saying we should charge by the pound?

Alan F.

Okay I want everyone to pay attention, for the first time on forums I am going to reveal the most accurate pricing methods we ever used. Unfortunately it lost its value when we went to using PDF drawings but here it is

(wind speed * price of gold * plan weight * best guess fudge factor )

Rain days are the best days to bid.

The secrets to phone call budgets for ball park prices is We use 0 though 9 with commas as needed.

Good luck bidding, remember if you get everything you bid you are either a well oiled machine selling in a non competitive market or you are selling too low.

So yes Pat, sell by the lb, net or gross, before cutting or after it can all be made to work.

A-

Pat Gilbert

Thanks Alan, that certainly clears that up.

Larry

No one operating a real business prices by the foot! At least they are not likely to be a business for long. Apples aren't priced that way either!

Akram

Member

I always times the material X 3,
but lately I lose a lots of bids because of the non since of LF calculation, the only way not get damaged is adding $40 to $70 per drawer plus $40 to $60 LF of c tops.
due to variation of overhead for each shop, that creates the meth of as how each one see it to be calculated.
people never bargains with their lawyers of dentist, but when it comes for cabinets they are so hustles and aggressive, as we have no right to make money, or support our family's .
I guess there should be a book to calculate jobs by hours as it does is at the mechanic shop.

Alan F.

The AWI used to have a cost book, it had hundreds of operations and standard run times on a variety of machines, what it didn't have was pricing by the foot.

Labor and material varies if you do custom work that is build to design by others.

If you break your units down with a lot of add ins and deducts I am sure you can make footage pricing work.

How you account for economies of scale, machine setup times, waste factors for different brands of laminate or veneer are up to you.

If your cost with profit is below 330 a foot then you can lower your price, but I would want to know my costs before setting a price per foot. Just because someone else can sell at that price and make money doesn't mean you can.

ozan

if you are in business long time, you can measure how thinks work if you don't know how to do i believe you have to register all off these, DCA, AWI, EPA,FSS,OSHA, etc. compliance are here to guide. I also ask fire marshall all the questions about i am scare of to not add more hazardous situation,Town City and States and taxes vary. If my customers don't like my prices i say them go some other states.
There is a market out there you have to get in and fight with your mark voluntary.

Logan Mankins

For a given volume, you can absolutely price this type of cabinetry by the LF. You guys are making up a bunch of nonsense to make it more complicated than it really is. $330/LF for combined uppers/lowers is about right for a small to medium size job. Talking about how you'd price it with high gloss laminate and solid gold pulls is a sign that you've truly got nothing better to do than put together a hypothetical situation that has nothing to do with the OP's question.

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