Drywall (Trockenbau)
The wall goes up in a day, and then a week is spent on what nobody sees. The customer pays for a smooth surface and rarely knows that smoothness comes in grades — each costing something different.
How it is billed
Partition walls and ceilings go by the square metre, shaft and beam casings also by the square metre — each face counted separately, as if the casing were unfolded flat, access panels and door frames by the piece, insulation separately from the framing. A second layer of board is its own item, not a footnote. The surface grade — Q1 to Q4 — belongs in the quote next to the square metres, because it decides half of your time. Areas and volumes are worked out in the program itself: you enter the dimensions wall, ceiling and casing separately, name every measurement your own way, and the total goes into the quote as a finished item with the breakdown — you can see where the figure came from. The program does not deduct openings; that stays with you.
What disappears on paper
What disappears is everything that vanishes under the board and the filler. Q1 is jointing only, Q2 the standard with no tool marks, Q3 additionally closes the pores, and Q4 means filling the entire surface — under raking light and gloss paint only Q4 holds up. If the contract names no grade, Q2 applies; anything above it is extra work that must be agreed before you do it. The difference between Q2 and Q4 can double the time on the same square metre, hidden in the single word „filling". Add fire-rated and moisture-resistant boards: dearer and slower to work with, yet often priced as standard board.
Work it out yourself
Take the last flat. Check which surface grade your quote names, then recall which one you actually delivered because the painter wanted it „properly smooth". If the paper said Q2 and the site produced Q4, multiply those square metres by your hourly rate. Add the second layer wherever fire protection was required but standard board was priced. Then multiply by the number of flats a year.
Five minutes a day
Before you close the wall — a photo of the framing with the services in it. It shows the studs, the spacing, the insulation, the cables and the pipes. In the evening: your hours and your crew’s, the boards and profiles used on this job. That photo is later the only proof of what is actually inside the wall, when somebody drills into a pipe or the customer claims no insulation was fitted.
What the program watches for you
Quote, job, hours and photos sit together, so the invoice comes from the work done rather than from memory three weeks old. It watches the reverse charge under §13b when you work for another construction company — in drywall that is the rule, not the exception, because you are usually the subcontractor. It watches the §48b certificate and the deadline: for work on a property you have six months to invoice, private customers included. For work under VOB/B the warranty runs from acceptance.
At the end of the year
Drywall means a lot of material and a lot of paid hours — the two items that move the result most. Both are already recorded against the jobs: boards, profiles, insulation, hours, kilometres between sites. The annual accounts read finished figures instead of assembling them in January from builders’ merchant receipts.
What matters is entering things regularly — a photo before the wall is closed and the hours logged the same day count for more than the best program.
