Fair day rate for a plumber

hethmar

Try Mybuilder website, put on the job you want done and ask for quotes

Philip64_2

The prices quoted for the main kit are prices given to me by the plumbers themselves: the tanks, the radiator, even some of the other bits and pieces. Perhaps they're misleading me so as to make their labour look more expensive... (But no, I've found their estimates match closely the prices on-line.)

I don't yet see how you can get from less than £900 of kit to £2123 total without charging well into four figures for labour - which is way out of line with the daily rates recommended on this forum. (I'm ignoring plumber 1 who wanted a lot more than plumber 2, for a smaller job). If that's not a true reflection of the labour charge, fine, great, wonderful. So what IS the labour charge component actually?

heating-eng

Philip64 wrote: »

The prices quoted for the main kit are prices given to me by the plumbers themselves: the tanks, the radiator, even some of the other bits and pieces. Perhaps they're misleading me so as to make their labour look more expensive... (But no, I've found their estimates match closely the prices on-line.)

I don't yet see how you can get from less than £900 of kit to £2123 total without charging well into four figures for labour - which is way out of line with the daily rates recommended on this forum. (I'm ignoring plumber 1 who wanted a lot more than plumber 2, for a smaller job). If that's not a true reflection of the labour charge, fine, great, wonderful. So what IS the labour charge component actually?

Nobody on a forum can answer your question without seeing the job.
A fair day rate in he Leeds area is about £200 per day, although I charge less than this.

GCone

new_home_owner wrote: »

it makes me laugh 40 pound a hour for a plumber

No wonder people in the constuction industry are struggling the average wage in the uk is 25000 pound a year.

A plumbers job is not exactly rocket scientist stuff so how can they even dream about charging 40 per hour.

i suspect plumbers who charge this much are not getting much work.

I have mates now who have site managed for £7.50 a hour and people are fighting over these jobs.

Im planning on having a extension built, and i here the price 1000 psm, which i find astonishing too, in peak times when people have to turn work down, but these people need to be realistic.

why should someone who earns between 10 and 15 pound per hour pay someone 40 pound per hour when the job market is flooded with plumbers.

£40 p/h is cheap for plumbers round my way, I charge £50 p/h for plumbing and £60 for heating/gas work and I am £10 cheaper then most of my mates in the game.

I am booked up for about a month in advance.

£1000 per sq m is about right, think you need to be realistic.

Your post shows a lack of knowledge in most if not all the areas you mention.

You can't compare site work rates to what individuals working for them selves charge.

The market is NOT flooded with GOOD, TIME SERVED plumbers as any builder or developer will tell you. Bad plumbers can make a real mess.

GCone

Philip64 wrote: »

I'm eager to learn, but why don't I keep the issue simple by focusing on the third quote? To replace 8 radiator valves what would you expect to pay for parts, and to charge for labour? (The system will already be drained, but add that in if you like). Then add the cost of one replacement small radiator (which I was quite happy to scrap, but the plumber himself said would be quick and cheap to replace, since it only cost £50, he said).

The other jobs (for cylinder plus sealing of system) are more complex, of course. And there are expansion vessels to fit etc. But the prices for all these items are on the Internet, and they come to maybe a few hundred quid on top of the cylinder itself. Maybe there is also a little copper piping - and copper is expensive. But of that quote, how much is likely to be labour actually. I would really like to know.

Prices come as no surprise to me and the last two don't seem very expensive, in fact as I used to do a lot of work in the area I could probably hazard a guess at who quoted you.

You'll have to get used to those prices living in Wandsworth.

Jimbooo

christineperseus wrote: »

Well I paid £50 for having a pressure reducing valve changed.........(I had the valve so wasn't paying any materials)
He wasn't in the house more than 30mins AND he has previously done lots of work for us..........
He's cetainly off our Christmas card list - AND it was CASH..........:mad:

50 Sounds reasonable

docmatt

Waznik

I would like to thank everybody who has posted on this thread, you have made me laugh, cry & scream at my iPhone tonight!

I did not realise there were so many F-ing numptees out there, and I feel sorry for genuine 'potential' customers who truly want to know what a fair price is (whether per hour, day or per job) - additionally, I feel sorry for those service professionals who are struggling to justify a 'fair' rate when competing with non-professionals charging less per day than I would earn as a student working at McDonalds!

I appreciate this thread is getting on a bit, with inflation, VAT and current economic conditions having an impact, but I thought i'd stick my spoon in and stir a little more...

I am, as are many if my friends, self employed, and between us cover almost all service industries, and we all suffer the same problems.

Yes, £40 - £50 an hour might seem a lot as a wage - but it's not a wage! If only an hours work, it's not actually 'per hour' as call-out expenses need to be considered.

Yes, we would all love to actually charge £40 for every hour we work, in reality we might be lucky to charge for 70% of our time! Not including the days we are on holiday, off sick or for whatever reason cannot work!

Yes, some larger companies may charge a lot more - they may have greater overheads or they may just be trying their luck. If you want to pay over the odds your welcome to!

Yes, some low-key engineers might seem to have little overheads so perhaps make more money than the average?

I know for a fact that for the £40 - £50 per hour my friends and I typically charge (for longer jobs this is normally reduced) we take home (as a wage) between £25k and £45k, with the higher earners putting in 60 hours a week.

So, for all the genuine customers looking for a fair price for a "professional" plumber or any service engineer, I would suggest you look to pay about £40 - £60 an hour for the smaller jobs and around £30 per hour for longer jobs (£250 a day). Anything less and you may not be getting a "professional" (although some smaller 'one-man' outfits can afford to charge less), paying much more - well, you must have money to burn!

And to all those 'haters' out there, I really do suggest you take some time and speak to an accountant - work out what it costs to start, run and sustain a profitable business before commenting.

Thanks again to everyone, it's been emotional!

Gasrate

Hi folks, I've just taken a full time job after 15 years of self employment as a heating engineer. On the face of it I can understand people's reaction to £40.00 an hour etc but in actual fact it is more than reasonable if you want a professional service with the correct amount of after sales back up should things not go to plan. For example when repairing boilers the parts supplied can arrive faulty or breakdown after a month, all quite rightly replacable under warranty. Who pays? The heating engineer does, not the supplier. No matter which supplier you choose this is the case.
I was probably too nice, I'd often do a ten minute repair and just take a 'drink'. Big mistake, my advise to anybody thinking of self employment is to charge what your business dictates, and if it's £40.00 per hour then go for it. Over the years we lost around £45k to builders going bust, professional non payers etc, not bad really considering some of the local business's have gone bust, owners loosing houses, all generally through trying to be competitive and not charging what their business's dictated.
It's a tough game.

leveller2911

Gasrate wrote: »

Over the years we lost around £45k to builders going bust, professional non payers etc, not bad really considering some of the local business's have gone bust, owners loosing houses, all generally through trying to be competitive and not charging what their business's dictated.
It's a tough game.

I'm confused here, are you suggesting that Joe Bloggs should pay a premium because bad debts from Builders going tits up? or Joe Public losing their homes?.Maybe you should have taken stage payments each week and not acted as the builders overdraft facility. I've never allowed it and never will.

I have a small Joinery workshop, don't take this the wrong way but far more overheads than a Plumber and charge far less than £40-00 a hour.I can understand call out charges for small jobs as I know from experience you can run around all day and not make your day rate but "day rate" of £40-00 hr is way over the top. Nearly all of the qualified plumbers (heating engineers) I know charge around £200-00 a day , which is for a full days work.

The market decides and people need to shop around.

Welcome BTW........:D