Haunted House....and cleaning fees

[Clyde Hollinger]

Corey,

Welcome to the list.  I charge the same hourly rate for everything I do unless I
have a predetermined standard fee for some things that usually take about the
same amoutn of time for each piano.  Cleaning the inside of a piano can't be done
by the cleaning lady; it is very specialized work.

But four hours is a long time for cleaning, so for sure you would want to give
the client an estimate before you start so they don't raise the roof later.  When
giving the estimate you might also want to politely say that you require that the
work be done before you will do anything else, if you feel that way, then be
prepared to walk away from the whole job if they refuse.  (You would still charge
for your evaluation, of course.)

Regards, Clyde

SimsPiano@AOL.COM wrote:

> Shortening
> the story, it took me about 4 hours to get the piano clean enough for me to
> tune!  And this was really some sweaty nasty work.  (Thank God for my dust
> mask.)
>
> Do most of you charge an hourly rate for something like this based on your
> tuning fees (eg, where a tuning would be 2 hours of this rate)??
>
> Thanks a lot,
> Corey Sims
> RTP Chapter, North Carolina