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My little logbook hit 500 chimneys and my knees feel every one of them
I started writing down every stack I cleaned back in March 2023, mostly so I could stop guessing how many brushes I burned through. Last Tuesday the tally hit 500, which caught me off guard because I would have guessed closer to 300. The log is just a spiral notebook with the address, what kind of flue, and how much soot came out, but looking back at it showed me I've been charging the same rate for two years. I also noticed about 40 of those jobs were return calls on the same handful of creosote-heavy flues on the north side. Curious if anyone else keeps a running count, and if it changed how you price your work.
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phoenixk649d ago
Keeping a log is just busywork that makes you feel productive. You counted 500 jobs but the notebook didn't fix the real problem, which is that you already knew you hadn't raised prices in two years. You don't need a spiral notebook to tell you that, you need a calendar. And those 40 return calls on the same north side flues? A log just records the problem, it doesn't solve it. Charge those folks for a proper sweep or tell them their flue needs real work, otherwise you're just writing down the same loss over and over in neat handwriting. The count didn't change your pricing, you changed your pricing because the number surprised you, and a sticky note with "raise rates" on it would have done the same thing.
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