Should I charge extra when the material is the homeowner's pick?

Had a talk with a kitchen contractor over coffee in Portland last week. He said he never marks up customer-supplied tile or lumber, charges straight labor, and takes the hit if something's warped or short. I always add 10% on top of their material cost to cover the headache of dealing with their choices. His way won me over a little, but then I thought about the last time a client handed me plywood that was bowed worse than a banana, cost me 2 hours of cutting around it. Who here charges for handling someone else's material, and how do you word it without sounding greedy?

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skyler4317d ago

Last summer I had a client hand me a stack of "premium" cedar boards that looked like they'd been used as a diving board, and I spent a good hour just sorting the junk from the usable stuff. That's the part the Portland guy is glossing over. Free labor sounds noble until you're the one eating the time. My fix is I don't call it a markup, I put a line on the bid that says "material handling and sorting, flat fee." One number, not a percent, so nobody feels like I'm picking their pocket. If they ask, I tell them straight: I don't make money on your tile, I make money on my hours, and your bowed plywood costs me hours. Cracked a joke to my wife that I should start charging by the banana, since that's the unit of measure for bent lumber. Say it plain and most folks get it, and the ones who don't were gonna be a headache anyway.

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