Portsmouth Company makes upholstered furniture. Its only variable cost is direct materials. The demand for the company's products far exceeds its manufacturing capacity. The bottleneck (or constriant) in the production process is upholstery labor-hours. Information concerning three of Portsmouth's upholstered chairs appears below:

Recliner Sofa LoveSeat

Selling price per unit - $ 1,146 $ 1,700 $ 1,480

Variable cost per unit $ 750 $ 1,200 $ 1,000

Upholstery labor-hours per unit 6 hours 10 hours 6 hours

1. Portsmouth is considering paying its upholstery laborers additional compensation to work overtime. Assuming that this extra time would be used to produce sofas, up to how much of an overtime premium per hour should the company be willing to pay to keep the upholstery shop open after normal working hours?

2. A small nearby upholstering company has offered to upholster furniture for Portsmouth at a price of $44 per hour. The management of Portsmouth is confident that this upholstering companys work is high quality and their craftsmen can work as quickly as Portsmouths own craftsmen on the simpler upholstering jobs such as the Love Seat. How much additional contribution margin per hour can Portsmouth earn if if it hires the nearby upholstering company to make Love Seats?

3. Should Portsmouth hire the nearby upholstering company?