You make four trips and the subcontract pays for one
The subcontract prices carpentry as one mobilization and you make four: frame, blocking and backing, trim, and the corrections after the walkthrough. Only one of them got bid.
Every trade behind you hangs its work on a piece of wood you nailed in place before drywall went up, which makes carpentry the only scope that builds the infrastructure for other people's work and then gets held responsible for their layout. The electrician doesn't install backing for the plumber. You install it for all of them, you come back to fix what they damaged, and the subcontract calls all of that one number.
The size of it
Mobilization, drive time, staging, and small crew inefficiency get incurred four times and priced once. Since you're also the one absorbing everyone else's layout errors, damage another trade caused turns up in your books as a carpentry labor overrun with no change order attached.
Read the scope again and count the trips it obligates you to. A framing scope includes return trips as necessary to satisfy frame check and local inspection at no additional cost. A finish scope includes a return trip to correct trim and doors after the homeowner walkthrough at no charge. On top of that you're contractually required to install backing and blocking for every trade that follows you: tub and shower backing, grab bars, handrails, cabinet and countertop backing, medicine cabinets, attic access, soffits, and mechanical chases. At least one standard scope also makes you check everything previously done by other trades, with your failure to catch their defect relieving the builder of all claims, and some attach a hundred dollar per day penalty for missing a 48 or 72 hour punch window.
Three moves, in order
Step 01: Job cost structure
Seven cost categories and three levels of granularity, built so the estimate and the ledger use the same words.
What else costs carpentry contractors money
The same mechanism in other trades
What carpentry owners ask
Should I charge for return trips and blocking on a framing subcontract?
The subcontract prices carpentry as one mobilization and you make four: frame, blocking and backing, trim, and the corrections after the walkthrough. Only one of them got bid.
What does it cost?
Mobilization, drive time, staging, and small crew inefficiency get incurred four times and priced once. Since you're also the one absorbing everyone else's layout errors, damage another trade caused turns up in your books as a carpentry labor overrun with no change order attached.
What do I do first?
Give every trip its own cost code: frame, blocking and backing, trim, and punch return. A trip with no code has no cost, and you'll price the next job the same way you priced this one.
What are carpentry contractors supposed to be making?
No survey separates carpentry, so there is no figure of its own. The nearest comparable trade in the reference is Framing, which runs 18% gross margin, 13% overhead and 5% net profit before taxes at $1M–$5M, with a CFOS target of 10% net. Those are derived figures, not carpentry's own. Read them as the neighbourhood, and read your own job costing as the answer.
Which part of the system fixes it?
The step is number 01, job cost structure. Seven cost categories and three levels of granularity, built so the estimate and the ledger use the same words. It comes from chapter 1 of CONTROL: The Construction Financial Operating System.
Everything on this page is something you can install yourself, andCONTROL is the order to do it in. If you would rather buy the finished result, SPM The Construction CFO does this work for carpentry contractors as a service. It is a separate firm, Sulphur Prairie Management, LLC, run by the same author.
Wrote CONTROL, the 8 step system behind these figures. More about the author.