Whats Wrong With Gas Fitters??

sparky883

My Mom needs a new replacment Combi-Boiler she has so far had one quote of £1500-00 he said the bolier is £600-00 and the other £900-00 is his labour for 1day,He did not flinch one bit when asking for this for a days work i know there are other factors involved but £900-00.
And none of the other 4 have bothered to get back to her.
My question is?
# Are they that busy they cannot take on the work
# Dont gas fitters like changing boilers
I was thinking maybe its a pain to swap them and they would rather do a Central Heating Installation.

ormus

supply and demand. there are not enough gas fitters to meet demand.
and the corgi "safety" rules have made it a virtually closed shop.

some would say the rules are more about protectionism rather than safety.

sparky883

They are all on a sunlounger in the Med!

Canucklehead

Good afternoon: Here we go again:wall: CORGI does not make the gas safety regs...CORGI administers a register of gas installers and a Building compliance notification scheme under the auspices of the HSE: in fact CORGI's remit ends in April 2009 when Capita takes over.
Sparky...if your Mom's only quote fits a boiler in one day then the 'gas fitter' is a bodger: see one of my many posts on this subject. I can't speak for the CORGIs in her neck of the woods: my OH's work practices informs my knowledge...he returns people's calls and sends detailed quotes, usually via email....the problem is some potential clients either don't acknowledge receipt/don't get back to him after they 'had a think' etc...very frustrating as these 'tire kickers' drive up the costs for other clients in the end as the cost of free quotes has to be absorbed somewhere(perhaps this is not your experience as a self employed electrician?) Some CORGIs are now charging for quotations and deducting the cost if the 'client' proceeds with the quote.
Have you tried posting on DIYnot? Several CORGIs post on the Plumbing & Heating forum and might be able to recommend someone

Here's hoping your Mom finds one of the good guys and gets a quality boiler installed according to 'Best Practice' at a reasonable price.

HTH

Canucklehead (sitting in the conservatory with the OH reading the Saturday papers after being out early this a.m. sorting out a lash-up with a customer's Bathstore order :mad: before a possible barrage of abuse/misinformation from the usual suspects:D )

Razor

I wish people would get proper quotes; the amount of times I've heard, "I've gone for the slightly cheaper quote," you ask what boiler they are having and they don't know so you ask whats included in the quote and they don't know. It only works if you compare like for like.

I have fitted boilers in half a day whilst working for a firm that catered for slum landlords but I wouldn't do one now I work for myself.

Electrician that a client was using on a new extension charged £75 a point, 4 sockets, light and switch £450!!

Thats definitely not an expensive price for a boiler change the problem is that it sounds like a low quality boiler and installation.

kaya

my boiler is fubared too, a cheapo repalcement boiler is £400 with 2 years guarantee (plus vat). To pull out and swap the boiler will take me about a day(im a gas engineer), this is an easy swap as well, but £900 for a days work is really taking the mickey

jennifernil

We have a regular boiler at the moment, fully pumped system with 2 pumps, HW tank, thermostatic valves, timer, frost stat etc, large 4 bed house.

Looking at keeping present system but changing to a condensing boiler, keeping boiler in same (wall mounted) position.

Looks like a decent boiler is around £850 inc VAT.

So, how long would such a swap reasonably take, and how much per hour should we expect to be charged?

Pssst

I can speak with some authority on this matter. Up until the privatisation of BG (Tell sid..) many of the gas engineers came through the BG mill which provided the very best standards of training. Many independant contractors had time served apprenticeships. Of course there were bodgers too but far fewer.

Fast forward to today,the pool of Old school BG engineers is dwindling as they get older-even the ones who work for themselves.

The market is now driven by money. Get your bit of paper that says your qualified and your licenced to make loadsa money.

All you people out there,,dont even think that CORGI registration means much. The only thing that really matter is a quality apprenticeship and the personal integrity and standards of the individual engineer.

The training available now to get your bit of paper is lamentable and just like A levels-everyone passes. You more or less pay a big wadge of cash to a training organisation,as long as your not totally useless,you pass.

You see training organisations like to make lots of money and to do that,they like to advertise high pass rates.

CORGI have bumbled along for years,fleecing engineers and giving customers a wrong impression that they maintained the highest standards. Perhaps thats why Capita have now been licenced and many CORGI staff will be TUPE'd over to Capita.

Take not that you must not accept the cheapest quote ! Buy cheap>get cheap.

The most critical points when buying a boiler are the make and model and also that the installer powerflushes the old system before fitting the new boiler and flushes it out atfer fitting the new one before applying some water treatment chemicals. A crap catching filter would also be usefull depending on the state of your old system.

For certain older systems,sometimes its better to replace the lot.

If any of your people are in Greater Manchester then PM me and i can fix you up with a quality engineer> not a fitter !

sparky883

No personally speaking i'm totally fed up with free quotes why should i waste my time giving advice or quoting on work that is never going to happen its getting worse.
i have not earnt a penny this week,but have quoted 7 jobs but what can you do? We are just being a bit more choosy now so i suppose so are Gas Fitters.
I'm Thinking of giving up,We quoted a job yesterday and by the sound of the customers phone call we should have got but he was just a "messer" and it cost me:
#£10-00 Fuel
#£20-00 Extra Wages
#£25-00 Parking Ticket
£55-00 Because a customer lied on the initial call,if he had told me the truth i would not have bothered going (and there i have Found the answer)
Customers lie to tradesmen to get them to go out so that they can pick their brains/Comment on whats already been done.
This is why our charges as (Emergency Electricians) are so high too make up for all "messers"
Quotes should not be Free And Call Out Charges Should Apply but if we done this we would go under,i cannot see a way forward!!
thanks canknuclehead i agree with all you say! And yes i am adding the parking ticket lol

Pssst

I agree Sparky,,,some people think that tradesmen offer free consulatations and advice. They also think its ok to expect to pay a tradesman peanuts but they'd never think of offering the same peanuts to so called professionals such a solicitors,estate agents,dentists etc

fluffpot

I'm also an electrician and recently a friend of a friend asked me to do a quote for some work. Told him I charge £40 per hour and he balked at this - and he works in the City!! I did point out that he's paying for my skills and knowledge - and to do a job that he can't. He still didn't get it! Needless to say I didn't bother doing the quote!

Maybe the OP should retrain as a boiler fitter is there's a shortage and money to be made...