Quotes get written at night and go out days late.
You look at the job in the afternoon and write the plumbing estimate after dinner. By the time the quote reaches the customer, they may have hired the plumber who sent one first.
Sound familiar?
- Your evenings go to the kitchen table, writing up quotes from the day's visits.
- When a detailed quote takes a few days, it feels like the job is gone before it ever lands.
- It seems like customers want a number the same day, and you're still out on the next job.
- Repiping, a water heater swap, a sewer line: the bigger the job, the longer its quote sits.
What it costs you
The work can go to whoever answered with a number first. A homeowner with a failing sewer line often won't wait days to compare.
Your nights go too. The quoting happens after a full day under houses, when you're tired and easier to distract.
A tired quote is where a part or an extra hour gets left out. You find out when the job is half done, and you eat it.
And the jobs you'd most like to win, the big ones, are the ones that take longest to write up.
Why it keeps happening
The person who can price the job is usually the same person doing the work all day, and at plenty of small shops that's the owner.
A good quote needs the details from the visit: measurements, fixture choices, what's behind the wall, the photos. Those come home in a jumble.
Writing it up is slow, careful work, and it can't start until the day's calls are done.
Plenty of jobs look like ones you've quoted before, but digging up the old quote takes longer than starting over.
Who you'll talk to
I'm Kevin Kirchner, and I'll be the one you talk to. I'll ask about the stretch between seeing the job and sending the quote at your shop, and how many evenings it takes.
Turning visit notes into a clean written quote is desk work that doesn't have to eat your nights anymore. The prices stay your call, and the rest depends on how you quote now.
Questions
How fast should a plumber send a quote?
Faster than the next plumber, in most cases. There's no set rule, but someone with water under the sink is rarely in the mood to wait.
Why does writing a plumbing quote take so long?
The hard part usually isn't the price. It's turning scribbled notes, a few photos and what you remember into something a customer can read and say yes to, after a full day of work.
Would hiring an estimator fix it?
For some shops it does. For a smaller one, another salary just for writing quotes can be hard to justify, so the owner keeps doing it at night.
What exactly do you build?
It depends on how you work today; we figure that out on the call.
Related shop headaches
See all shop headaches, or go back home.
Get your evenings back from the quote pile
Walk me through your last few quotes, from the visit to the send. If I can't help, you'll know before we hang up.