How much should I pay for a friend's help in renovation?

ringabell · 16 August 2017 at 10:49AM

Hi all, this is very sensitive question when coming to money

I asked a friend to help with renovation the house (he's like a handyman). In the beginning I clearly told him I want to pay for the days he could come and help out but he said let's wait till we finish the renovation and we'll talk about that and avoid telling us the cost. I guess it's also sensitive for both parties. He usually came in the evening for about 3 to 4 hours and work along with my husband and me. I calculated the days he came and it's around 30 days (we've been working on the house for 2.5 months now)

Anyway, half way with the job, he ditched us, disappeared without any notice. And his work, to be honest, not up to our expectation. In the end we have to hire professionals to continue the work and mostly fixing the walls that my friend did very poorly. So over all, I'm not very happy with this friend.

Now he came back and started to complain how much it cost him for fuel and stuff coming to help us, so I can get the hint that he wants his payment.

The thing is, I don't know how much should I pay him. I know I should get it clearly in the beginning but every time I talked about it, he avoided the money issue. So, how much should I give him? Though I'm not happy with his work and his attitude but I'll be a jerk if not paying him anything. I just don't know how much to pay, especially it costs me extra to get someone else to fix what he's done too

Big lesson learnt after this issue!!!

ST1991 · 16 August 2017 at 10:55AM

Im always keen to avoid using friends or friends of friends for any work around the house.
Although if it is just a non-qualified friend who has come around to help us with painting etc i would pay in beers. As soon as it is someones actual job you should really be expected to pay their normal rates.

You can only ask how much he usually charges for a days work, and then work out how much time he has spent helping you.
If you were unhappy with the standard that is a slightly and more sensitive issue - but i would recommend finding out how much he usually charges and negotiating from there.

When you say Handyman, what actual work did he do?
(building stud walls, plastering, electric etc?) Hopefully someone will come along with some 'general guide' to a daily rate for the type of work he has done.

rob7475 · 16 August 2017 at 11:26AM

It's a difficult one this. If it were a mate helping me with odd jobs, I'd either owe them a favour or give them some beer tokens depending on how good friends we were.

This does sound a bit different though - you've had 30 days worth of work out of him and you've now decided is workmanship isn't upto scratch. If I'd hired a pro, I'd be inclined to refuse payment until they'd rectified their work but this will be difficult for you as he isn't a pro.

How good friends are you with him? Is it worth losing that friendship? Maybe get him to suggest what he'd like paying and take it from there? If he's a good friend he might only be after his fuel costs and some beer tokens. If he's turned down other work to help you out though - he may want a bit more.

rach_k · 16 August 2017 at 12:34PM

When did you tell him that his work wasn't up to scratch? I don't think it's fair to allow him to work for 30 days and then only after that tell him that it's not good enough so you're paying him less than you would otherwise have done. If you were going to reduce the pay because of the quality issues, you should have told him early on to either allow him to stop working or start working better.

However, as he ditched you, that changes things a bit I think. I would work out how much he probably spent in fuel and any other expenses and pay that, then some extra as a 'thanks for your efforts even if they weren't good enough'. How much that is depends on how you feel!

Lurkingtoposting17 · 16 August 2017 at 7:33PM

30 days but half days only.
So pay him 15 days.

I'd personally ask him what his day rate is, and then say ok, so this is what we think you did (e.g. 15 days) so I owe you £xxx ?!

Hopefully he will round it down or offer you a mates rate

Make it clear you're happy to pay him and sorry for the delay you would have paid sooner had you agreed the cost up front.

If he doesn't offer a discount, don't push. If you haven't told him previously his work is up to standard, you can't blame him for not rectifying it.

I have my own business; and when working for friends - I still charge. Usually they get a discount but if I'm inconveniencing myself for them, I might not give them one!

Sorry OP you need to notch this one up to experience (and thanks for reaffirming that I won't pay my dad to work for me!)

Norman_Castle · 16 August 2017 at 8:07PM

You don't know what to pay and he doesn't know what to charge. Offer £200 then negotiate.

Doozergirl · 17 August 2017 at 6:37AM

Norman_Castle wrote: »

You don't know what to pay and he doesn't know what to charge. Offer £200 then negotiate.

For 15 full days work?! :eek:

You do know there's a national minimum wage? That would be £900 and there aren't many people on building sites only earning NMW. £10 an hour would be okay for a site labourer just lifting and cleaning.

I wouldn't expect the work of someone 'like a Handyman' to provide a particularly amazing quality of work in a full renovation. If you want skill then you're looking at £15-20 an hour. I suspect the OP got what was advertised, as such, when they got a handyman.

If the OP wants quality, then they should relinquish their friend and pay more for quality. Not liking someone's work doesn't mean staying quiet and expecting work for free.

Never work with friends. If you do, agree a proper pricing structure at proper rates.

Norman_Castle · 17 August 2017 at 7:22AM

Doozergirl wrote: »

For 15 full days work?! :eek:

You're right, offer £150

I work on friends houses often for free. Its between them to figure out what they are happy with.

Davesnave · 17 August 2017 at 7:28AM

When you pay a mate as jack of all trades, you can't expect expertise in every area.

I paid a friend an agreed rate of £15/hr during our years of renovation, but with materials and tools he brought along to the jobs, it often worked-out less than that. In his specialism, his work was spot-on, and in other areas mainly good, but there were times when he faltered, and then I just had to accept he'd given it his best shot.

The bottom line is that without this friend we'd not have achieved half as much with the money available. I think about that whenever I see the odd bit of finishing that might have been better.

MisterP123 · 17 August 2017 at 7:38AM

I've been helping a mate rewire his house recently. Similar schedule, 3-4 hours a night, after work.

Our deal is he buys the beers before we go home :beer: Works for me!

Pdbaggett · 17 August 2017 at 11:03AM

Yeah I would have said £200 is a good starting point. No point in talking about minimum wage ect as it sounds very informal, I imagine what ever he gets won't be going through the tax mans books and you might get £10 an hour labouring on a worksite (not round my area mind its pretty much all minimum wage up north at the min) but believe me you work a damm site harder for it than I imagine (purely conjecture on my part of course) than your odd job friend was working those 3 - 4 hours a night.

How much should I pay for a friend's help in renovation?

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