Fair day rate for a plumber

heating-eng

keystone wrote: »

I really can't fathom your thinking on this one at all I'm afraid.

Cheers

I just think £500 a day is too much for a plumber that's all.

asbokid

heating-eng wrote: »

I just think £500 a day is too much for a plumber that's all.

it's only £130,000 a year. out of that, he's got to refill the gas for his blow torch, buy rolls of solder, some flux and possibly a replacement pencil from time to time.

MB_Heating

I normally have two different day rates, although I very rarely give these to the customer, only ever work on price.

For general plumbing work it can be anywhere between £180 and £250. For gas and oil work it is more like £250, lpg is normally a bit more at £300. This is in wales so a lot will depend on your area.

For anyone saying rates of £120 a day, I break even at about £6 an hour being self employed, so they must be happy to work for what is not a lot more than the minimum wage I'm assuming.

heating-eng

MB_Heating wrote: »

I normally have two different day rates, although I very rarely give these to the customer, only ever work on price.

For general plumbing work it can be anywhere between £180 and £250. For gas and oil work it is more like £250, lpg is normally a bit more at £300. This is in wales so a lot will depend on your area.

For anyone saying rates of £120 a day, I break even at about £6 an hour being self employed, so they must be happy to work for what is not a lot more than the minimum wage I'm assuming.

Welcome to the forum

ashcroft121

Saw this thread and realised it is a bit old. There seem to be a LOT of naive people on here (potential customers) grumbling. In particular, one that made me laugh was the guy who talked about not wanting to pay a plumber £40 per hour.

A short lesson in business follows: -

If I work 40 hours per week and take around 6 weeks of holiday a year that leaves me 1,845 hours each year I can charge out. If I manage to charge out 75% of these at £40 per hour, which in the current climate is very optimistic, I will bring in a turnover of £55,350. Sounds great doesn't it?

Now I pay for all the following (genuine) business expenses: -

1.) Van, including servicing, depreciation, hire purchase agreement, insurance and fuel for the year. Depreciation is the largest part by far of this equation. Total cost £8,300.

2.) A modest budget of £1,300 per year for tools/clothing/PPE.

3.) A salary of £25,000 per year. I hope you will agree this is a fairly average salary in the UK, pretty much spot on the average salary. For this I have to spend my evenings doing quote appointments which someone on a salaried job doesn't have to do. I also employ an apprentice who costs me £6,440 per year.

4.) A training and development budget of £1,000 per year.

5.) All costs associated with running an office, including a realistic budget for replacing IT - £2,300 per year.

6.) A budget of £1,300 per year for advertising, if I don't do this I don't get jobs.

The total of all of these outgoings is £46,300 leaving a profit before tax (at 19%) of £9,050. This is used to grow my business.

These figures are based on a real plumbing business in its 3rd year. In year 1 I earnt nothing, in year 2 I would have been better working in a minimum wage job.

Hopefully this will help people who are moaning about plumbing prices to be well informed and actually realise we don't make huge amounts of money. I routinely do a 60 hour week on my business and can only charge out a maximum of 40.

I'm happy doing it, but I would be a fool to be doing it for the money.

Finally, if I charge £120 per day, I would need to book out 100% of my chargeable hours each year to bring in a salary of £12,000 and I would need to sack my apprentice. To the plumbers charging £120 per day, you are busy fools!!

ashcroft121

heating-eng wrote: »

I am happy to earn £120 a day. I take my time and do a good job.
Some people will do a combi swap in one day and charge £500 labour. I would take 2days and do a very good job and then the customer is happy. I then do the odd fixed price job on the way home for around £30 or £40 and the works well for me.
Customers in my area do not want to pay a fortune for new boilers and why should they.
I know this will not please some plumbers but this is a money saving website.
Always do your home work .
Get a full detailed written quote and then get on the net and research the prices for yourself.

You might be charging £120 a day but you will be earning more like £6 per hour or £12k per year. If this isn't the case please post some of your business costs to prove me wrong!

googler

We've just had bathrooms redone and our time-served plumber (time-served enough to have also done the bathroom in my parent's house in the late 1980s), charged £24 per hour for labour, and billed us separately for materials.

He tended to be on-site at 8.30 or so, took a 15 min break for elevenses, half an hour or so for lunch, and depending what was needed to tie in with joiner and other trades, would work till around 3.30 - 4.00 on a full day.

If he was literally doing 8 hrs straight, that would be £192 per day; this is in central Scotland, but things will vary according to whether based in city, town or rural area, I would imagine.

FWIW, he doesn't appear to have expenses 4, 5 and 6 from ashcroft's list, as he works from home (no office), his IT appears to consist of one iPhone, basic PC, with no printer, and he gets all his business by word of mouth, and only the most basic advertising on generic 'local business' type websites. And he has no apprentice.

ashcroft121

Hi Googler. Always interested to hear how other tradesmen work. I tend to work straight through lunch and do a solid 8 hour day. 8 till 4 usually so I can go out to quote appointments etc.

The office expenses I have quoted are actual expenses attached to running an office from home, including landline and mobile phone bills per year. IT Software and depreciation are 2 of the most expensive elements of this.

I guess the point I am trying to get across is if you genuinly account for all expenses (depreciation of vans and expensive tools being the 2nd most expensive of all expenses) then you start to get an idea of why £200 a day is a fair price to pay for a qualified plumber doing 8 hours a day. We really don't see anywhere like £25 per hour for our work, trust me . The most expensive expense is covering for days where there is no work etc. In the current climate booking out 50% of hours each year is quite realistic, then the £192 a day doesn't work out so great!

It does SOUND like the guy charging £192 a day with no apprentice is doing well but when you factor in all of these elements he is probably earning less than you do for a lot more heartache!

heating-eng

ashcroft121 wrote: »

You might be charging £120 a day but you will be earning more like £6 per hour or £12k per year. If this isn't the case please post some of your business costs to prove me wrong!

my cost are low compared to some.
I own my van ,also use this to maintain my houses that i rent out.
Insurance the same,
gassafe £200 or so a year
P/L insuarance
Fuel is the main one.
so i charge £120 a day labour make a little bit on materails and then sometimes do a job on way home for say £40 ,,so in the end earning about £180 a day.
works well for me.

ashcroft121

But you must need to buy tools like all other plumbers? Surely your van depreciates too? It needs servicing etc and you must be paying tax on everything you earn. I don't see how when you factor all these costs in you can be making much money on this but respect the fact that it's how you want to run your business.

£120 a day over 230 days is £27,600, assuming you manage to charge out every day. Either your costs are ridiculously low or you would be much better off working for someone else.

Anyway, best of luck with what you do but I couldn't and wouldn't go out working for that money.