Construction costs are currently skyrocketing

Mid-2021 it was 14€/net per sqm for paving. Driveway just under 100 sqm. It was done in one day. Then 4-5 people came and it went continuously one after the other. One cut, one brought the stones from the cutting table to the laying site with a kind of oversized hand truck, and the others laid them. They really do that all day long. You have to give them respect for that. I didn’t want to miss out and of course laid some myself. But for an untrained person, it really takes a toll on the body...

The offer was created only roughly based on my approximate information, he had not yet been on site. Another person has now quoted pure labor costs of about €35 per square meter and an all-inclusive offer starting at €80 per square meter upwards, depending on the material. That would then be considerably cheaper.

So I do care whether the craftsman pockets 1,000 EUR more than he would need for a healthy business. Fair enough, I don't begrudge him that. But I have nothing to give away either...

The price is of course great, even if it’s just about plain paving.

I don’t quite understand the working time:
With lawn edges? They usually need a whole day to set. So the base was already prepared, or what? What did the bedding look like?

For just under 55m² we needed half a day to prepare, 2 days for the lawn edges, another half day to prepare the base (distributing and compacting gravel, spreading chippings), 2 days for screeding the chippings and rough paving (without cutting), and another day for cutting and initial sweeping.
Well, there were only two of us, but there are some things where having more people doesn’t help either, because they simply have to wait for the preparatory work.

Ok, of course you have to wait for the first viewing. I could imagine that additional costs will be added. Good luck!

But basically it doesn't matter whether he hides the 1000 EUR in the material, in the labor costs, or shows it as business profit. As I said, if you can't do it yourself, it doesn't help you if you get the material cheaper.

Basically, almost everyone can do it, but hardly anyone wants to anymore. It's not as if "we" have developed from craftsmen to pure office people who can't hold a shovel or trowel anymore in less than 2 generations.

Of course. It's a crappy job. After working for 6 weeks, I can hardly crawl anymore... you're just not used to it and at the end of your 30s it's hard to get into it. But for the 6, 7,000 EUR wage and profit that the craftsman pockets from the 14,500 EUR... I have to work 2 months for that.