Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with estimate

How much does it typically cost for a good logo and front page for a web application?

tomargue — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 23:13:25 -0800

Okay, I'm designing a web application with a minimalist look-and-feel. I want a simple, clean, cute logo, and a simple, clean, cute front page. What's a ball-park figure as to what this may cost? A little more detail as to what I'm thinking of...

I'd like the front page to have about maybe 4 main ideas, and when hovering over each idea, more information about the web-application is displayed. However, this idea may change when I start talking to a graphic/web designer about effective front pages. And it may change depending on how much it all costs.

Obviously the price is going to change dependent on my requirements, but at the moment, I don't know whether this is going to cost me $100, $1000 or $10,000. What's an order of magnitude estimate of what it may cost?

Recommendations for Custom Embroidery

cairnish — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 07:58:20 -0800

Recommendations for a custom embroidery vendor? Google returns so many. Would like a recommendation from someone who's used one. An artist made our small club a "theme graphic" for an event. It's basically a scan of an acrylic painting. We'd love to have some wearables made using it, both printed and embroidered. Most of the embroidery vendors say they will scan and convert images. I fear the stitch count will be astronomical and prove prohibitive, but before I abandon the idea I thought I'd at least get some quotes. To waste as few peoples time as possible, if there is a vendor you've worked with and had a good experience, I'd be grateful for any pointers. If you have an opinion on who the best on-demand clothing printers are these days ... also welcome info.

Reasonable Car Repair?

kanuck — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:48:43 -0800

What are reasonable expectations between car repair shops / mechanics and their customers? Specific scenario inside.. Having moved relatively recently, I'm in the process of finding a good car repair shop / mechanic. I've got an older car that needs some HVAC work, so I took it into a shop that an acquaintance recommended to me. They diagnosed it and gave me a quote: 3-4 hours labor, parts costs in the $500-1000 range (depending on whether I'd like everything under discussion replaced).

1) based on various internet parts sites, they have a 100% markup on the parts in question (I'm looking up OEM/OES parts from companies like Bosch and Bohr).
2) the shop claims that they can only get the parts from the manufacturer (which no doubt charges maximum prices).
3) they want me to pre-pay for the parts.

How reasonable is this?

I've put down a small deposit @ other shops in the past for major repairs.. but no more than a few hundred $.

I don't grudge the shop some markup on parts since they deal with the overhead of orders/returns, but charging 2x the internet retail cost?

Is it crazy to think that if I could find several reputable-looking sites that sold these parts (new, OEM brands) in about 5 minutes, that they should be able to source in a similar way?

Is it reasonable to say "I'll order the parts myself and you guys do the replacement"? Should I expect the labor charge to suddenly go up in that situation?

Since parts need to be ordered anyway, I will have to get the car back first. I expect to be charged labor for the diagnosis, is there any reason I should feel bad for taking it somewhere else to get the work done? Are these all red flags that I actually should just take the car somewhere else?

Hardwoods? More like Bore-aphyll.

AsRuinsAreToRome — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:43:04 -0800

Need a hardwood flooring recommendation for West Los Angeles - specifically, the Culver City area. So I bought a condo last April. So far its great. But the entire thing is covered in white carpeting which, unfortunately, has taken a beating since we've moved in. Although we have rugs all over the place white carpet is a dirt magnet and my girlfriend and I own a dirt-loving pug.

Basically, I'd like a guy who's available to come out on the weekends and do a free estimate of how much it'd cost to either a) refinish the existing hardwoods beneath my carpeting or b) install laminate over the existing hardwoods and re-do all the white molding on the floor.

I'm actually not even sure how this even works. Does the guy come out and just rip up a little corner of your carpet to inspect the wood underneath and write me a quote based on that little section of flooring? Will I get options if the entirety of the floor isn't salvageable?

I searched using Google Maps but there are literally THOUSANDS of hardwood flooring showrooms and independent contractors in Los Angeles (most with no reviews to speak of), and I have no idea how to ensure I get a competitive price and a quality job done.

Does anyone have a guy they used that can do the job well for a fair price?

How long does it take to rent out a place?

ignignokt — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 02:51:52 -0800

Is there a good way to estimate how soon I'd be able to rent out my place? I'm considering getting a job in another city and moving. If I did get an offer from an organization in another city, I'd need to rent out my condo, as I doubt I'd be able to sell it in this market at a reasonable price.

The thing is, I don't know how to guess at how long it would take to find tenants. Are there any rules of thumb for figuring this out? Something along the lines of "three weeks, minus a week for every $100 under the average rent for the area"?

I'd also appreciate any advice about the feasibility of relocating while leaving behind a property. I figure that plenty of people have already done this, and that you can take care of your tenants by calling for whatever professional service they need when problems occur, e.g. electrician, plumber.

A grand for two circuit breakers?

Rendus — Sun, 25 May 2008 12:45:26 -0800

Electrical Estimate Filter: Short version is, is $1100 USD a proper estimate for simply replacing a 125 amp breaker and a 60 amp breaker in a standard residential breaker box? I live in Las Vegas, in a house I rent. Last year, the 125 amp breaker would trip seemingly at random during the summer. The only consistent pattern was that the air conditioner was running, which is almost always the case. This year, the same thing has begun already, despite a decrease in household load. While all of the appliances are electric, we don't run them during the day, so peak load is AC compressor and refrigerator compressor coming on at the same time while 2 computers are running.

The AC unit was inspected by the company that installed it 3 years ago, and they found no problems. The electrician that was hired to come out says the 60 amp breaker for the AC unit will not trip, and the 125 amp breaker also needs to be replaced. However, he then went on to blame the AC unit for tripping things anyway. He seemed reluctant to discuss details with me (as I rent), but the quote he left behind states they will charge $420 to replace the 60 amp breaker, and $680 to replace the 125.

This pricing seems excessive to me, especially if it's done on one service call. I'm hoping for advice on how to continue. It's not my money, in the end, as the landlord should be covering any expenses, but I want to save the landlord any unnecessary expense if possible.

KBB, NADA or Edmunds?

WizKid — Mon, 12 May 2008 08:19:30 -0800

KBB, NADA or Edmunds? Which one should I use when buying a car? I was looking at a used 1998 Honda Accord Ex (V4) with 92,000 miles from a personal seller and the asking price was $6500 and it has small cosmetic damages for which the Honda dealer has asked $400 to repair. So the total cost of the car would be $6900 for me.

When I checked the value of the car online I got the following figures.
NADA - $6925 (Clean Retail) (click here)
KBB - $5350 (Private Party - Good) (click here)
Edmunds - $5000 (Private Party) (click here)

He has determined the value of the car according to the NADA value, but from what I see it's not a valid estimate. I belive the KBB value $5350 is a more accurate estimate.

1) Why is these 3 values have such a variation for the same car?
2) What do you normally use in a private sale?
3) What do you normally use if buying from a dealer?
4) Anything else that you would like to tell me?

If an insurance adjustor gives an estimate twice what's expected, should I worry?

SeizeTheDay — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 18:48:47 -0800

What happens if an insurance adjustor gives you an estimate that's twice as large as the original body shop estimate you got before the adjustor saw the damage? A friend was in an accident. This friend called the insurance company, but the company wasn't able to get an adjustor to look at the car until a few days after the accident. In the meantime, this friend got a couple of body shop estimates, just to get an idea of the damage. Anyway, body shop came in at $1500, insurance adjustor came in at $3000. My friend's car is basically brand new and is only in the second year of making payments.

Is there anything weird going on? Should my friend worry about the rather large bill (that my friend won't pay anyway because my friend has a deductible) in the future? Should my friend be worried about having a rather large claim being filed on the car when trying to sell it, should that be necessary?

Is it worth trying to lower the actual amount fixed (i.e. some things aren't mechanically necessary and very minor cosmetic damage) so that in the future a potential buyer of the car doesn't get scared away by such a large fix?

More importantly, since my friend isn't actually worried, am I worried over nothing?

A sell out?

dead_ — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 11:48:11 -0800

How does the media predict the number of fans traveling to see an away game? Tomorrow I will be attending the USC vs. Nebraska college football game in LA. Nebraska fans are notorious travelers, and the various media outlets around the country have been estimating the number of Husker faithful who will be traveling to the game.

Most newspapers are saying between 20,000 and 30,000 Husker fans will be coming. How are they arriving at this guess?

It seems like at first they could easily count the number of visitor tickets sold and to which zip code--but this wouldn't paint the full picture, because people like me purchased tickets via eBay, craigslist or directly through a California contact.

So how do they arrive at this number? How can they possibly estimate with any certainty that 20,000 are going to show up?

Cost to replace 1.8" LCD screen?

davebug — Sun, 06 Aug 2006 11:42:49 -0800

The 1.8" LCD on my Canon S70 camera cracked. Anyone have experience (price, time, quality) getting a similarly sized digital camera LCD screen replaced? Additionally, is there something better than to send it into Canon for repairs? I've heard taking it to local camera shops just means they'll send it in to Canon and possibly charge me extra (and add another 1-2 weeks).

My thought is the cost will be between $100 and $150, and take 4-6 weeks. If it's above $200 I'm thinking I'll just look for a used S80.

How do I come up with an hourly rate for a contract programming job?

mcstayinskool — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 08:37:41 -0800

I need to come up with an hourly rate for a contract programming job, and have no idea where to start. I was approached to do a contract programming job, and while I have a ton of programming experience, I have no experience with contract work. How do I approach the rate quote?

I'm happy to hear either specific answers as to how much I should charge/hour, or helpful tips like "this site is great for figuring out market rate"

some specifics-

Job involves Perl, Perl DBI, SQL, and some database design to parse and provide some intelligence to interpreting webserver logs
I have about 8 years experience as a Perl programmer, 5+ with everything other technology involved in the project
Job is with a startup e-commerce company, and I'm estimating the work could be completed in about 10-20 hours
I'm in the U.S., and so is the job

Tennis, everyone?

starman — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 18:57:47 -0800

Cost of building a tennis court? Not that I even own a house yet much less have the disposable income to built a court, but my question is:

How much does it cost to build a decent residential tennis court?

How much does it cost to build a minimally nice court?

Not talking grass or clay or anything too snazzy. Assuming the land is already clear and relatively flat.

How much rent is reasonable?

abbyladybug — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 13:47:45 -0800

Is there a formula somewhere that will help me determine how much I should be paying for rent based on my income? I’m moving to Boston, and I think I am looking at places in the correct price range, but how can I be sure? Let’s say my partner and I make a combined income of $65K. Is there an online tool that can help me plug in my estimated monthlies and come up with the declaration: Since you are living in TownX, you should pay between Y and Z in rent. Any more, and you’re going to be setting yourself up for disaster!

How much does a catalytic converter cost?

headspace — Mon, 24 May 2004 17:14:18 -0800

The catalytic converter on my 97 Ford Escort blew out today, and I suspect it ruptured part of the exhaust works in front of the muffler. I can find out how much parts cost on my own, but I'm not going to be doing the service myself, so could someone knowledgeable in the realm of automotive repair hazard a ballpark guesstimate as to how much this might cost me to fix? I just need a general idea so I can figure out how much blood to sell to pay for the repairs.