Whats Wrong With Gas Fitters??

Blaster07

Canucklehead & Sparky great responses to these posts.

My OH is Corgi reg and these are the sort of comments we come up against all the time.

A lot of people think for example £40/hour x 8 hour day = £320/day x 5 = £1,600/per week = £83,200.00 per year. If only!!

Perhaps we should start to list all the overheads our rates cover on quotes.

Horseygal - thank you for posting. As you have experienced we are not all out to rip people off.

Steel_2

I haven't had a new boiler fitted, but I have had my existing boiler moved, with all the pipework modifications that entails, by an excellent Corgi-registered fitter and he charged just under £400 and it took the better part of a whole day. He drank tea on the job without stopping and I made him stop for lunch because I felt guilty by 2pm that he hadn't had anything to eat since 8am.

nick.simpson19

I am a time served Aircraft Fitter and If only I could earn £45 an hour its a ludacris amount of money to charge. I earn £15 an hour! To work on planes for you lot to go on your holidays! Far more important than fitting a bit of pipework! One mistake from me and It could kill 200-500 passangers depending on the plane.

However if it never cost so much to become CORGI regiesterd then the prices would be cut alot!!

sparky883

The whole point is we dont earn £45/£65 per hour,We Charge this,There is a difference.
If you had to pay for all your training,tools,test instruments,work clothes,insurance,premises rent,utility charges,IT services,Publications,Certificates,stationary,secretarial services,cleaners,support staff,Phone bill, Then you would get £45 per hour!!

But then when self-employed people come home,Some off the expense needs to be paid again in our own homes.
But your Business pays these bills(i can here) Yes but i am the Business its my money!!

Clive_Woody

I do like threads likes this where it becomes a battle to see who is most hard done by, the customer or the tradesman/woman. :T


I particularly like the complaints about having to go out to do quotes.....how very inconvienient, damn those customers for not simply agreeing a price over the phone...."Yes that's right the bendy bit on my boiler is leaking black stuff and making a funny fzzzzzzzzzzzt noise every few seconds. Sorry £327 to fix it. Brilliant, can you come round tomorrow...":rotfl:


I run clinical trials for a living and if you think plumbers are ripping you off, you should see what some of those GPs are charging for getting involved in studies. Many charge £200 (+ VAT of course) for attending a meeting, including travelling time. On top of their regular salaries of course. Anybody considering re-training should contact their local medical school, plumbing experience not essential.

WobblyGoblin

The trouble is there's perpetrators on both sides of the quoting business. Yes, you get some timewasters who are getting quotes for insurance, or don't call back to let people know, or are just plain lazy and don't get around to getting a job done after getting quotes. A lot of these people are going to lie initially to get people around and that just isn't on.

On the other hand, you get some tradesmen who are useless at turning up or when they are busy just chance it with a ridiculously high quote. We got 3 people in to quote for replastering a couple of small rooms and a small hallway. 1 person didn't turn up (and then called the following day to say he didn't turn up - I noticed, I was there all day...) The other 2 gave very high quotes with one of them explaining that "well, we're busy at the moment so we don't really need the work". They both got calls to explain why we weren't going to use them.

If either of these last two charged me a fee for quoting I'd have been furious.

So people, think about what you're doing and how you're treating tradesmen. They're in business to feed themselves and their family, not to be a convenient free consultation service that you have no intention of using. And tradesmen, if you're wasting people's time with stupidly high quotes and poor timekeeping, then what do you expect?

[note: last 2 comments are aimed at the (hopefully) minority of rubbish 'customers' and tradesmen]

Canucklehead

WobblyGoblin wrote: »

The trouble is there's perpetrators on both sides of the quoting business. Yes, you get some timewasters who are getting quotes for insurance, or don't call back to let people know, or are just plain lazy and don't get around to getting a job done after getting quotes. A lot of these people are going to lie initially to get people around and that just isn't on.

On the other hand, you get some tradesmen who are useless at turning up or when they are busy just chance it with a ridiculously high quote. We got 3 people in to quote for replastering a couple of small rooms and a small hallway. 1 person didn't turn up (and then called the following day to say he didn't turn up - I noticed, I was there all day...) The other 2 gave very high quotes with one of them explaining that "well, we're busy at the moment so we don't really need the work". They both got calls to explain why we weren't going to use them.

If either of these last two charged me a fee for quoting I'd have been furious.

So people, think about what you're doing and how you're treating tradesmen. They're in business to feed themselves and their family, not to be a convenient free consultation service that you have no intention of using. And tradesmen, if you're wasting people's time with stupidly high quotes and poor timekeeping, then what do you expect?

[note: last 2 comments are aimed at the (hopefully) minority of rubbish 'customers' and tradesmen]

Good evening: A thoughtful and even-handed response:T Btw, how did you get on with your boiler installation? What did you go for in the end? (I'm asking as I posted on your thread last spring;)).

Canucklehead

nick.simpson19

My argument is the goverment set a standard for fitting gas etc (Corgi) but due to the high price to stay CORG reg, Gas fitters are charging more so people are not using corgi reg ppl in which case makes the whole standard POINTLESS!

I think the standard should be time served with the relative Certificates to prove it your customers!

Razor

This has turned out to be quite an epic with some good points made, I know some very good guys fully time served and apprenticed that I enjoy working with and also rubbish ones that dont care, they are a nightmare best avoided, likewise there are some relatively new entrants to the trade that do a very competant job.

My personal opinion is that its down to the individual persons attitude. certificates are relatively easy (although expensive) to come by, I have trouble sometimes remembering how many I have, now I need another one for gas analysers:rolleyes:.

Get personal recommendations, proper quotes and be honest, if that radiator hasn't worked for years or the radiators get hot when the hot water comes on tell the tradesman, it's much easier to sort things out if you know whats wrong in advance.

Tradesmen (and women) need to appreciate that anything to do with someones property is extremely personal to that person and what seems trivial to us can be a matter of life and death to them.

Communication is the key!

frank.hopper

Canucklehead wrote: »

Good afternoon: Sparky883...do you have our place bugged?:rotfl:
The OH has experienced all you have described...he now turns down insurance work, won't do any work for landlords or letting agents (the state of some rental properties down here in East Kent is appalling not to mention owner occupied: a particular favourite of his was a Landlord's gas safety cert in Margate 2 years ago...his dust sheet stuck to the floor, in fact he could see a path in the filth where the tenants walked to the fridge...as soon as he got home the dust sheet and his clothes went straight into the washing machine:eek:).

If a customer is flip-flopping on a job/quote the OH will give them short shrift. He is not a bathroom design consultant i.e he won't give advice on which tiles, paint, accessories look 'nice' but he will suggest suppliers, advise what is technically feasible and will fit the client's bathroom to a high standard. Fortunately he has been in plumbing and heating for 30+ years, has built a good client base and can survive yet another economic recession: he won't underbid a job just to get the job...as someone once said on here 'pay peanuts, get monkeys'.

HTH

Canucklehead

What do you say to your long standing decent clients, whom you've had a good relationship with , who may be required to work abroad, or forced to rent out their property-given the difficult housing market , and request you to supply them with a [gas safety] landlords's certificate?