15K for labour is this fair? - London

kaiserphoenix

Hi everyone, been lurking around these forums for ages, great site.

I have just bought an ex council flat near Angel (Zone 1) and its around 46msq.

The flat is not in great decorative condition and I am planning to redo the internals at once.

- Throw out old kitchen, install a brand new one.
- retile, redo bathroom.
- engineered floors in the living room, hallway and bedroom.
- plastering the walls.
- adding some electronic sockets here and there.
- hiding some heating pipes into the wall.

A polish builder has quoted me 40 days work at 15K for this, is this fair? I have no idea about these things and its my first time to do anything. I do know that from what I can read, clearing out an entire kitchen and fitting a brand new one costs around 3-4K. I understand that mine is probably abit more work due to the flooring as well as the tiles as well.

Hope to get some feedback, thank you very much in advance.

evoke

£15K / 40 days = £375/day for labour.

Extortionate - should be closer to £80 - £100 per day for a good Polish builder, £150+ per day for a cr*p, lazy English builder (that's based on my recent experience having forked out £45K+ so far on a full house refurbishment over the last 5 months).

kaiserphoenix

Hello evoke, thank you for your reply. I failed to see the calculation in that way, now that you mention it, it sounds very high, perhaps I am getting r*pped off lol.

vax2002

And what qualifications does this guy have ?
The Myth that polish work harder and do a better job is complete tosh, they are an abundance of unqualified, unexperienced polish bodgit merchants ripping folk off on the strength of these Anti English racist diatribe myths.
What you are looking for is some trades people.
plasterers for the walls
An electrician for the wiring (qualified)
A ceramic tiler
A wood floorlayer
and a plumber/ heating engineer to correctly sink and insulate the pipes so they dont expand and damage everything around them.
Thinking you are going to get one guy to do the lot, well you are asking for trouble, nay begging for it.
Yellow pages and get some quotes.

evoke

kaiserphoenix wrote: »

Hello evoke, thank you for your reply. I failed to see the calculation in that way, now that you mention it, it sounds very high, perhaps I am getting r*pped off lol.

Always work out the day-rate for any quote and get the quote in writing with a full breakdown and payment terms.

kaiserphoenix

Hi vax2002, I never really thought that I need to get 1 trades person for each type of job, is that the way to go? I was under the impression (probably a false impression) that one guy will contract out other tradesmen to do that particular job. But I will definatley follow you advise and start segmenting each job and getting quotes for them. Thank you for your valuable input.

kaiserphoenix

@evoke, yeah he provided an excel sheet with a full break down and full cost of what each job will cost.

The_Blue_Hatter

If thats a labour only quote your being taken to the cleaners.

Leif

kaiserphoenix wrote: »

Hi vax2002, I never really thought that I need to get 1 trades person for each type of job, is that the way to go? I was under the impression (probably a false impression) that one guy will contract out other tradesmen to do that particular job. But I will definatley follow you advise and start segmenting each job and getting quotes for them. Thank you for your valuable input.

In which case he is raking off a large profit for not doing very much. For that price you can get a good builder with a good reputation who will do a good job. But you need to find one, from friends, colleagues etc, it is not easy. Or you hire each person, in the right order, yourself, and be prepared to be onsite to meet them, give them keys, check the work etc.

Alan_M_2

kaiserphoenix wrote: »

Hello evoke, thank you for your reply. I failed to see the calculation in that way, now that you mention it, it sounds very high, perhaps I am getting r*pped off lol.

If it's 40 days for one man - it's expensive.

If it's 40 days for 4 men is it expensive?

There's a lot of red top newspaper extrapolation going on in this thread.

The safest way to work out if it's too much is get 3 or 4 quotes from unconnected builders.

If all 4 come in at around £15K labour - then that's probably about right, if they don't then you know where you are with a little more certainty.

craigsville_2

Bang on right Vax2002, these are very different trades. Ive renovated enough places to know that only an experienced plasterer can plaster a wall, anyone can have a go but the end result is crap, I know a lot of qualified experienced plasterers who still cant do it!!! Electrics can only be done by an electrician, the rest can probably be done by a good builder. Either he is an amazingly multi skilled tradesman or hes just going to subcontract it out and take his slice of pie. If you dont want to sort out all the trades yourself then just think room by room. Go to a kitchen shop to get the whole kitchen done (they will do everything), bathroom shop, flooring shop etc. see how the quotes compare.