I offer free consults and estimates, so I wouldn’t charge for the time spent discussing other, future jobs. And the time spent communicating with other clients shouldn’t be this current client’s responsibility to pay. But everything else (drive time, packing-in, packing-out, and actual work) should be billable. That’s my opinion. I also have an unconventional opinion, which not everyone will agree with: when I get done with a job and look back on how it went, if I feel like it didn’t go as smooth as possible because of my lack of experience with whatever I was working with… and I feel confident that the same task would go faster the next time I do it… then I will shorten my billable time to amount of time that I think the task should have taken.
For context, I’ve had my handyman company for about 10 years, currently with two employees, and various subcontractors… in my experience, a tub recaulk can take anywhere from one hour to three hours, and that’s just the actual work. That of course varies, because sometimes the existing caulk comes up easily and cleanly, and sometimes it’s a nightmare (such as when the existing material is a rock hard adhesive, rather than silicone caulk). For us, we usually have about a 20 minute drive to the property. If it’s a white caulk, then we usually already have that with us, so there isn’t an additional drive to the store; but if it is a colored tile caulk, then we’ll probably have about 30-45 minutes to go to the store and back. All-in, we are probably billing anywhere between two hours and four hours; maybe five hours if there is some unique situation.