Removing a Teak Deck and Prices

[rebel heart]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

You're sugggesting just painting over plywood? Doesnt seem like that would last long.....

The cabin top of my 38 year old Hans Christian is painted plywood; it's fine.

I'd probably put a layer of cloth down, maybe, but definitely epoxy before I painted (or used whatever non-skid coating). Thick, stiff, water tight. Bed hardware and manage holes the same way anyone with a cored deck does.

[Suijin]

Originally Posted by rebel heart

What prices are you guys quoting? I have teak over plywood over the frames and if I want to remove the teak I need to:

a) remove all deck fittings
b) remove the teak and fasteners
c) clean the plywood, replace any crap wod
d) epoxy in new plywood that's the same depth as the teak
e) put a finish on

I know several people who did all this work themselves on the hook over the course of a few weeks.

The OP asked what is reasonable price to pay to have the work done, strongly suggesting that DIY was not under consideration.

The prices we are quoting are pretty obviously all based on paying someone else, and vary widely, as stated, by location. And beyond that it all obviously depends on who you hire. If you want a well-regarded yard to spray the deck of a 40' boat in Annapolis and you don't want to lift a finger yourself, it's going to cost you $15k. Do all the hardware removal and initial prep, masking, etc yourself and you can hire a professional who moonlights to do the spraying for $500-1000. It all comes down to the value of your time and the depth of your pockets, no matter where you are.

[rebel heart]

Just seems boggling to me to spend $15k on something that isn't beyond the skillset of most people.

[Cheechako]

Originally Posted by rebel heart

The cabin top of my 38 year old Hans Christian is painted plywood; it's fine.

I'd probably put a layer of cloth down, maybe, but definitely epoxy before I painted (or used whatever non-skid coating). Thick, stiff, water tight. Bed hardware and manage holes the same way anyone with a cored deck does.

Yours may be, but there are a heck of alot of rotten ply cabins out there....(Ct41, Sea Tigers, Sea Wolfs etc, a multitude of Trawlers) It's such an epidemic that many ads state "cabin rebuilt" in order to sell their boats. Are you sure your's has never been rebuilt? An often walked on surface would be even worse I would think! Te last old Trawler I had had a 1" ply cabin sole painted. It had wear about 1.5 layers into the ply in spots! ... just sayin'...

[rebel heart]

Yep it's original. Unless you have pure epoxy/cloth I don't see any particular wood construction better than another. Cored, marine ply, home depot cheap-o ply, balsa, whatever: if water penetrates it will delaminate and eventually rot.

I've done some repairs on it in the near ten years we've owned the boat, always from improperly bedded hardware that caused delamination. But repairs on it are cake. Rip open rot, scarf in new wood with or without cloth, epoxy in, sand, paint.

[minaret]

Originally Posted by rebel heart

Just seems boggling to me to spend $15k on something that isn't beyond the skillset of most people.

Many people can take the hours they would have spent on such a job and spend them working instead, and make enough to pay a pro to do it right with money left over. Most, even. At least, most that can afford a large sail boat. I often ask DIY guys in the yard where they would stand if they billed themselves their usual hourly rate for time spent on their boat job. Mostly they don't like to consider it.

[rebel heart]

Originally Posted by minaret

Many people can take the hours they would have spent on such a job and spend them working instead, and make enough to pay a pro to do it right with money left over. Most, even. At least, most that can afford a large sail boat. I often ask DIY guys in the yard where they would stand if they billed themselves their usual hourly rate for time spent on their boat job. Mostly they don't like to consider it.

I think it's a little different if you're out in timbuktu. You either need to do it yourself or supervise it yourself, and if you don't know what to do (via experience) than you can't supervise it. The only reason I can fix and maintain my boat now is because I tackled so many of those jobs, with the vertical learning curve, in the states.

For as many guys as you see wasting time (which to me is also known as learning kills), I see a lot of people down here held hostage by problems that are beyond their experience to solve. They omit the vessel construction and repair knowledge and focus on motoring around to anchorages. Eventually that stuff catches up.

[minaret]

Originally Posted by rebel heart

I think it's a little different if you're out in timbuktu. You either need to do it yourself or supervise it yourself, and if you don't know what to do (via experience) than you can't supervise it. The only reason I can fix and maintain my boat now is because I tackled so many of those jobs, with the vertical learning curve, in the states.

For as many guys as you see wasting time (which to me is also known as learning kills), I see a lot of people down here held hostage by problems that are beyond their experience to solve. They omit the vessel construction and repair knowledge and focus on motoring around to anchorages. Eventually that stuff catches up.

Oh, I agree. Almost every single DIY cruiser or cruiser wanna be I speak to in the yard justifies it in exactly the same way too. Boat repair school, know every inch of their boat, etc etc. It just tickles me when the same guys can't wrap their head around the numbers involved, when I know perfectly well the real math involved, ie they make more than we.

[Bellinghamsailo]

Thanks for the suggestion. I think the primer is one made for use with gelcoat. Another boat in the building just had it done by the same person I am planning on using. I will ask him. Thanks

[SaucySailoress]

Shame to have to lose the teak, though - you can't beat it for looks or for keeping decks cool in the heat!

When we bought our current boat, the first thing we did was lift the teak, since the shrouds were lifting the decks. Both decks under those shrouds were rotten, so we cut away all the fibreglass and ply, and redid that first.

Then we relaid the teak - but this time we epoxied it to the deck giving us double strength decks, effectively. We also used black epoxy instead of caulking between the teak planks and in the old screw holes, and sanded it all down.

That was ten years ago. Every now and then we have had to do a bit of patching but the decks still look great. And we no longer have to scrape out that bloody caulking every few years!!

[jgbrown]

Originally Posted by minaret

Oh, I agree. Almost every single DIY cruiser or cruiser wanna be I speak to in the yard justifies it in exactly the same way too. Boat repair school, know every inch of their boat, etc etc. It just tickles me when the same guys can't wrap their head around the numbers involved, when I know perfectly well the real math involved, ie they make more than we.

This is one of my favorites too. Especially on big boats that will never be more than a few hours away from shore power, which cost 5x our hourly rate just in fuel underway.

[JRM]

Originally Posted by minaret

Oh, I agree. Almost every single DIY cruiser or cruiser wanna be I speak to in the yard justifies it in exactly the same way too. Boat repair school, know every inch of their boat, etc etc. It just tickles me when the same guys can't wrap their head around the numbers involved, when I know perfectly well the real math involved, ie they make more than we.

Or maybe they don't. Even at my overtime rate, I make well under half what the yard charges. Assuming $75 per hour for the yard, anyone making less than about $150K a year is breaking even in time. At my straight time rate I make about a third of the going hourly rate around these parts.

And here's the kicker... Since I do shift work I have days off. Time to work on the boat while the admiral and the boy are at school. So I fail to see why I should pay someone $500 to pound and drill rivets out of my mast when I can easily do it myself.

That being said, I did pay a hefty yard bill this last haul out, because unlike your proscribed "simple math" there's a lot more to it. I paid to have the bottom sanded. Did it a few years ago, will gladly pay to have it done. Hats off to the guys that do it. It sucks. I paid to have my mast media blasted. I don't have the equipment to do it. I also paid to have the primers and top-coat sprayed on my mast. I did my own sanding and fairing, but again, it's worth the money to me to have a professional with the proper equipment and technique paint it. I also paid to have two through-hull holes patched (I removed them ), because I managed to grab an OT shift on the day I was planning to do it, and it made more sense to work 24 hours and pay for 4 hours of yard time.

So what if some guy spends more of his time than you think it's worth to do something? You're making a giant assumption that he or she could bill that time spent. At my previous job, my hourly rate was significantly higher than the yard rate. But there wasn't a magic "billable hours" tree I could go shake whenever I felt like working. I was the top biller in the company, but it still wasn't unlimited.

Since I'm feeding the thread drift, two more things...

Tinkering with the boat is cheap therapy for some of us. And we like it. It's a hobby, and hobbies cost money. We know that. Let us be the judge of what and how to spend our own time and money. I gladly pay to have the mechanic change my oil, but I wouldn't dream of paying to have my car washed. Those are my choices based on my math. There are no shortage of folks willing to throw rocks because I don't change my own oil. I like washing my truck. I like working on my boat. Why should I pay for something I like doing?

And yes, it helps me to learn my boat. Unless you're planning on opening a full service yard everywhere I go, it might be worth my time to know how to fix stuff. Education costs time and money. But some things are worth more. When my head quit working out at the islands a couple years ago, it was nice to know how to troubleshoot and fix it, made possible because I installed it. That took a bunch of time on my part not only the physical install, but the research involve to properly plan and execute it. But the time I didn't have to spend sailing back to the yard to have it fixed was worth more to me than any so-called savings I might have realized. Way more.

Sorry to feed the thread drift, but sometimes it isn't just simple math.

JRM

[Suijin]

Originally Posted by JRM

Or maybe they don't. Even at my overtime rate, I make well under half what the yard charges. Assuming $75 per hour for the yard, anyone making less than about $150K a year is breaking even in time. At my straight time rate I make about a third of the going hourly rate around these parts.

And here's the kicker... Since I do shift work I have days off. Time to work on the boat while the admiral and the boy are at school. So I fail to see why I should pay someone $500 to pound and drill rivets out of my mast when I can easily do it myself...

Again, it's all relative. There are plenty of attorneys around here (DC area) making $1k/hour who are more than happy to pay someone else to fix their boat. Some people want to do it themselves, just so they learn to do it. Some people want to do it themselves to save money. But anyone who says they can't comprehend paying the prices mentioned is pretty much saying that they can't comprehend making enough money to make it an attractive proposition compared to doing it themselves.

[Jim Cate]

I've always been a DIY type... can't help myself, don't like others working on my boat if it is at all possible for me to do the job.

Does it make fiscal sense? Well, back in the dark ages when I was employed, I worked for a fixed salary. Didn't have the choice to work those extra hours to pay a pro to do things for me, so I did save money by DIY. And ya know, now that I've been cruising for almost as long as I was employed, I'm damn glad that I did all that stuff. I have had various problems in places where the only option was to DIY. I have had problems in areas where the pro's were not very good at what they did, so again the best option was DIY. And then, there have been jobs where the satisfaction that I gained by a successful DIY was a joy to me. And finally, I have been in a position to help other cruisers (or dirt dwellers for that matter) to get themselves out of a pickle, and that was cool too!

So, it isn't a simple comparison of hourly wages but a complex assessment of factors that range from fiscal to simple pleasure. To each his own...

Cheers,

Jim

[barnakiel]

I have seen a recent quote of roughly 20k to remove from 70'. That boat has huge amt of bonded/epoxied hardware.

b.