Replace Boiler

Razor

Canucklehead wrote: »

Hi, Razor....I think you know who can give us the answer to that one:D

Canucklehead

I wish they would get together and open a shop:rotfl:

maryhillgirl

The cost of the boiler itself was just over £700, which is what I originally said. "The WB 24Ri itself costs less than £800" The additional £650 included the additional parts needed to complete the job, and the labour. I've no idea where the engineer sourced his parts, but a quick internet check showed he was charging the right price for the most important component, ie the WB boiler, so we went with his quote.
http://www.plumbnation.co.uk/site/worcester-greenstar-24ri-regular-boiler-natural-gas/
I'm now concerned that it's all been too cheap, and that my son has either paid for a duff job, or robbed the Corgi engineer by agreeing to let him work for next to nothing. Not having mains gas myself here in rural Lancashire, I've never had a gas boiler fitted so have no idea how long the job should take. My own oil boiler was replaced in a day and a half, so it seemed reasonable to assume similar for gas.
Maybe someone who works in the trade will tell us the true cost of materials, the length of time a straighforward boiler swap should take, and the actual amount of money a gas engineer expects to earn for this type of job.

gasbag1602

Maryhillgirl you are the exact type of customer i do not do work for. Have you ever heard the saying, "if it sounds to good to be true". I was mearly telling you that the job was done to fast and thus will not of been installed correctly. I earn a good days pay for a good days work, simple. Yes this forum is for giving advice to those who need it, but its probably best if the advice was acurate. Maybe your son should of asked for some. Regards
:T

wii_man1

maryhillgirl wrote: »

The cost of the boiler itself was just over £700, which is what I originally said. "The WB 24Ri itself costs less than £800" The additional £650 included the additional parts needed to complete the job, and the labour. I've no idea where the engineer sourced his parts, but a quick internet check showed he was charging the right price for the most important component, ie the WB boiler, so we went with his quote.
http://www.plumbnation.co.uk/site/worcester-greenstar-24ri-regular-boiler-natural-gas/
I'm now concerned that it's all been too cheap, and that my son has either paid for a duff job, or robbed the Corgi engineer by agreeing to let him work for next to nothing. Not having mains gas myself here in rural Lancashire, I've never had a gas boiler fitted so have no idea how long the job should take. My own oil boiler was replaced in a day and a half, so it seemed reasonable to assume similar for gas.
Maybe someone who works in the trade will tell us the true cost of materials, the length of time a straighforward boiler swap should take, and the actual amount of money a gas engineer expects to earn for this type of job.

did well for shopping about and checking out prices. too many spanner monkeys thinking they have a right to rip people off for doing a simple task.

Razor

wii_man1 wrote: »

how much would be the going rate for ripping out an old johnson and starley warm air system and replacing it with a combi boiler and about 17 rads, downstairs has concrete floors and would prefer concealed pipe work.

any ideas would be appriciated

And a couple of days later.

wrote:

did well for shopping about and checking out prices. too many spanner monkeys thinking they have a right to rip people off for doing a simple task.

Absolutely priceless

gasbag1602

wii_man1 wrote: »

did well for shopping about and checking out prices. too many spanner monkeys thinking they have a right to rip people off for doing a simple task.

What a complete and utter idiot!
And for spannermonkeys, ha ha ha, i bet you work behind the till in tesco you clown.:rotfl:

maryhillgirl

That's what I thought, Wii Man. If having the audacity to ask how much I'm expected to pay a workman for his labour makes me an awkward customer, then so be it. I'm sure many other readers of this forum are as "awkward" as me in this case. I thought the idea of this site was to compare and check quotes, prices, and get best value for money. The internet has given consumers access to the trade prices of goods like boilers. In the past, we had no idea of the true cost, and had to rely on whatever the "man with the spanner" told us. Now we are better informed, we want to know how much we are REALLY paying them for their time.
As for a "good day's pay for a good day's work", I don't believe many would quibble with this. But the question remains - just what IS a day's pay?

gasbag1602

maryhillgirl wrote: »

That's what I thought, Wii Man. If having the audacity to ask how much I'm expected to pay a workman for his labour makes me an awkward customer, then so be it. I'm sure many other readers of this forum are as "awkward" as me in this case. I thought the idea of this site was to compare and check quotes, prices, and get best value for money. The internet has given consumers access to the trade prices of goods like boilers. In the past, we had no idea of the true cost, and had to rely on whatever the "man with the spanner" told us. Now we are better informed, we want to know how much we are REALLY paying them for their time.
As for a "good day's pay for a good day's work", I don't believe many would quibble with this. But the question remains - just what IS a day's pay?

This forum is exactly for what you said advice.
And i stand by my quote that maybe your son should of asked advice before going for the cheapest job.

The_Governor

I guess the problem is that cheap isn't always good, but then neither is expensive. It's a fallacy to think that just because you're paying someone a few hundred pounds more that they are automatically better, all it really tells you is that they charge more.

That could be dependant on a lot of things, for example one installer might have a a big mortgage and 3 kids, another has less outgoings so can charge less money per day because he/she needs less.

That's where the difficulties start, because the charging is so arbitary, and you know most of the time it isn't based on the actual difficulty of the work, it's how much the particular tradesman wants to earn, and worse sometimes it's what he thinks you can afford.

We employ tradesmen at my company, some of them are good, a lot are right wasters and yet they all earn good money - the salary isn't the measure of skill these days, as much as we would like a simple comparator.

My dad who worked as a Clerk of Works is pretty handy and I've seen him do much better jobs than so called professionals and he does stuff for free, so according to the "payment" measure he's rubbish!

It's really tricky finding a genuinely good, reliable and trustworthy tradesman, and in my experience one who won't give you an exact figure for a job either doesn't know how to do it or is hedging his bets (my impression is that you're simply not happy to say on a piblic forum gasbag, as opposed to anything else?).

Trune

the problem with tradesmen is too many botchers i think.
Although im not saying you will be gasbag1602, infact i highly doubt you are... but quotes are no longer an example of workmanship, thats the problem.

Even when you go on word of mouth, because some people are uneducated in the trade, they rarely know if they've had a poor job or an amazing service.

As for people who moan about what some people charge, its wrong! if your self employed, you will charge as much as you can make for your services. Well i would... People have got bills to pay. lol.

I remember seeing one of those "catch out the bad workmanship" tv shows, where they recorded plumbers doing dodgy jobs, they had one which they complained at for charging too much for a 5 minute job. He charged them call out charge i believe. He replied with im trying to make a living. Which i felt was spot on...