Size of Houses

Dp brought up the problem with cleaning the smaller rentals in another thread and it got me thinking.

Every region has different sizes and styles of houses. Around here, the average size is about 1,600 sqft with the rural areas being only around 1,100 sqft. I charge a flat rate by room so that each job is pretty consistent price-wise to the same $42 per bedroom. Larger rooms are more, of course, but the bedrooms are at $42 and normally just 10x10 or maybe 12x12 in dimensions.

You guys in larger markets have some monster houses and so you probably go by sqft for everything. Curious, what are your average sizes for homes in your area and tickets?

Here, I can count on the same 3 bedroom, living room, hallway, stairs (60% are split levels), and furnished basements (tornado alley demands a basement). I rarely see the 5+ bedroom jobs, but once in awhile it happens.

On average, my residential homes generate a $300 ticket for carpets. It can double with some upholstery, but most of the time, it is the $300 for about 2.5 hours worth of work.

What do you see in your area??

Wow, this is the first time you are talking about prices
Not afraid of your competitors reading this thread Rob ?
Because of large and dense areas, there are a lot of apartments, condos and townhouses around here, the average for those around my area is 1500 sq ft, after cutting out all the non carpeted areas and under beds and heavy furnitures, usually the average would be around 400 - 600 sq ft.
I charge $ 3.50 / step for stairs, which on some units, there are 2 - 3 flights of stairs, which can add up to $ 100 - $ 150 just for stairs, I still feel I'm not charging enough for stairs, especially considering the "bluebook" price for stair cleaning in my area is $ 4 / step, I should raise my prices
The average size for homes are about 3000 sq ft with carpeted areas being around 1200 sq ft, because there are a LOT of homes with wood floors on their living, dining and family room, they usually put area rugs there.

Nope, not afraid of the competition at all. They are all advertising "specials" that cost more than my standard pricing.

I work for people that can do math.

With that many wood floors, you really should be raking it in doing wood floor maint. / restorations. It is still limited around here as wood floors get cold in the winter....carpet is still king.

I do wood floors, I don't do sanding though, I only buff the top coat and refinish, my price scares most, I only charge $ 3 / sq ft which includes refinishing.

I wonder why that price would scare them? Do they not realize what new floors cost or even restorative sanding / finishing?

I used to do the whole thing, but the dust and the fact that it took me 3 days to finish the job with all the drying times between coats made it miserable. Hard to convince someone to let you come over 3 days in a row to make a lot of noise.

I love these type of threads, but don't have time to replay now..............I will when I get back from dinner.

And I might be able to shed some light on why most aren't willing to pay $3 s.f. for what DP is talking about on wood floors.

The problem is there are a lot of competition out here that do them for $ 1 / sf, I can't even get close to that price.
What the customers don't realize is they are paying $ 2 less for possibly lack of insurance coverage of their belongings, floors to be cleaned as well as some shit that can go south, e.g. electrical short that can cause fires, etc.
Not to mention also a lack of assurance that their antique China cabinets or grand pianos are not going to get scratched during the cleaning process, but for some, these things worth the $ 2 / sq ft discounts and that's okay, that's just not my market customers

Do you guys have repeat customers that tell you they will be replacing the carpet with all wood every time you clean for them. It cracks me up

Mo wrote:Do you guys have repeat customers that tell you they will be replacing the carpet with all wood every time you clean for them. It cracks me up

All the time!!!

When you've been around a while, you'll find customers that will say that every year you're there for 5-10 years in a row sometimes..........had one yesterday who's been saying it for about 5 years now.

Yup, me too, last time I had someone tell me that they are replacing the carpets next time and that this is the last cleaning, I told them that this shit is getting too old

thats weird I wrote a reply to this thread the other day and it disappeared..  lol   the jist of it was..

I found a decent way to do wood floor cleaning without calling it dustless refinishing,  but just deep cleaning.  

A lot of people wont go for $3/sq ft because its getting too close to the price of refinishing,      we were doing the "dustless refinish" for a while but a lot of people didnt seem to want to pay for it..    also had some great tickets doing it just not able to sell it nearly as much as carpets.  

now I just sweep/vacuum,     spray down basic coatings wood floor cleaner,    then use cotton/green strip pads and just the RV360 because its light enough and you wont strip off the top coat.  

I spray the basic coatings then do slow back and forth passes with the 360,   pads usually get loaded with soil and so far on a few that didnt look very dirty it really lightened up the floor.      


doesnt take me long to do this so I charge .60- .75 per sqft,    adds a good few hundred to the bill easily

Same thing just happened to me, AC, responding to your above post.
I hit send, and it showed my post in this thread just like normal.
Then I clicked the "New Post" link at top and it's no longer here in the thread.........Just P00F!!
No way in hell I'm spending the time it would take to retype it, once is enough!

I wonder how much more action this forum would have, if it wasn't steeling them from many of us fairly often?....After all I think we're the 4th or 5th one's that have mentioned and posted about it happening in the last week or so.

Maybe it has to do with how late you are posting? Seriously, who spends time on a forum at 3:14 am? Maybe you just dreamed that you typed it.

Seriously, get some sleep already.....oh, I guess it is 2:22 am right now...off to bed. If I dream up a good response I will post it to the dream cloud forum.

Shows It was 11:14 pm my time, and I only wish these disappearing post over that last couple years, were a dream........in reality, it feels more like a waste of time .

That is odd....the time stamp is 2 hours too fast from reality. At least on my post, sounds like a lot more on your end.

Yeah, the time stamp had been wrong for some time now, not sure what time zone did Mo put, it's 4:25 pm here pacific time now.
I just edited this and it shows 7:25 pm, so I guess it's showing eastern time.