£75 p/h - reasonable for a plumber?

abankerbutnotafatcat

I completely agree about paying decent money for skilled tradespeople, we always try and work with local independent guys but thats what this guy was and we're not in London, there's no parking issues, he's from West Sussex and there's two plumbers merchants (1 independent, 1 chain) within half a mile of us that I know of.

My problem was that I was concerned that we may have come across someone trying to take advantage rather than the salt of the earth local guy I perhaps romantically imagine working with us on our house.

Fortunately, we did find such an electrician when all our lights went out three weeks after moving in and his plumbing mate is round tonight so fingers crossed!!

keystone

tigeress289 wrote: »

As for the price, I dont think it was over the top for a one off call out.

If it had been a one off £ 75 for a one off callout you may be right but it wasn't. It was £75 per hour for the duration of the job. Look at the example further down the thread where a customer was charge £ 75 per ½ hour for the duration of the job which was obviously strung out as long as possible and ended up with a bill of over a grand. Thats !!!!!! Turpin stuff.

There is one big company in London charging £80 and their vans are everywhere.

Actually its £90 and just as immoral and having lots of vans doesn't justify it.

Getting a decent tradesman to start with is cheaper in the long run.

Now there I do agree with you.

That £75 might be the only job that day.

So if he's got 10 jobs scheduled that day does he charge £ 7.50 an hour? Of course not. He has to take the rough with the smooth and ripping people off isn't the way to go about it. Lets go back to the other experience quoted. You know as well as I do that £75 (OK lets be genereous and double it to £ 150) plus tap is more than adequate remuneration for changing a kitchen tap. In that case the clients bill was over £ 1,000 !!!!!!.

Take out the running costs to be self employed and make no mistake, he wont retire with some fantastic pension.

Yup far too many people forget all that - mostly as a matter of convenience.

Ask Boris what he gets an hour and thats for a MORON.

Lets all retrain for moron status then on government handouts.

Cheers

lindabelle66

That is taking the mickey!

My son is a part trained plumber, has got all his City and Guilds etc but cannot for love nor money get a job with tradesman who will put him through his NVQ. He would work for nothing to get the qualification and experience but as most plumbers are self employed and the funding for apprentices is almost non existant and incredibly difficult to access they dont want to know.

All this hype about there not being enough plumbers is rubbish, the colleges are turning out young people like my son, with little or no real prospect of employment, their only option to become self employed - they are two a penny. Without an NVQ they are not considered as fully qualified in the industry and are caught in a visious circle of not being able to get experience because they have no NVQ.

I know of several fully qualified plumbers in the Suffolk area who dont have enough work to live on and who suppliment their incomes with agency labouring work.

I agree that if someone is quoting £75 an hour they dont want the job, i think £25-£30 is more realistic, shame you are not in my area as the job sounds like something my son would have been able to fix easily and would done it for far less than has been discussed on here.

By the way, if there are any plumbers in the Suffolk area reading this, pls consider giving a young person a chance, there may be some lazy ones about, but there are some good uns too, and my son is one of them, just looking for a someone who will give him a opportunity

:wave:

Linda

Canucklehead

lindabelle66 wrote: »

That is taking the mickey!

My son is a part trained plumber, has got all his City and Guilds etc but cannot for love nor money get a job with tradesman who will put him through his NVQ. He would work for nothing to get the qualification and experience but as most plumbers are self employed and the funding for apprentices is almost non existant and incredibly difficult to access they dont want to know.

All this hype about there not being enough plumbers is rubbish, the colleges are turning out young people like my son, with little or no real prospect of employment, their only option to become self employed - they are two a penny. Without an NVQ they are not considered as fully qualified in the industry and are caught in a visious circle of not being able to get experience because they have no NVQ.

I know of several fully qualified plumbers in the Suffolk area who dont have enough work to live on and who suppliment their incomes with agency labouring work.

I agree that if someone is quoting £75 an hour they dont want the job, i think £25-£30 is more realistic, shame you are not in my area as the job sounds like something my son would have been able to fix easily and would done it for far less than has been discussed on here.

By the way, if there are any plumbers in the Suffolk area reading this, pls consider giving a young person a chance, there may be some lazy ones about, but there are some good uns too, and my son is one of them, just looking for a someone who will give him a opportunity

:wave:

Linda

Hi: it is tough out there but...has your son considered joining the CIPHE ? Contact details for the Suffolk branch can be found here....lots of opportunities for newbies and old hands to make contacts and engage in continuing professional development.

Worth a shot.

HTH

Canucklehead

YoungBusinessman

Tradesmen pull a price if they dont want the work as opposed to turning it down.Every job is different. If a plumber is really busy and you are only offering a couple hours work, he may decide if its really good money he will do it. You dont have to pay that. You ask for a price, you get one. If you dont take it, he keeps asking these prices, everyone follows suit, his prices will come down. As work picks up again prices go up. I hope you get what i am meaning, the busier a tradesman is,the more expensive.

I am on price per job. That way there is no messing about and its better for me to get done quickier. This doesnt mean i rush jobs. Certain jobs i love i might charge £20 an hour, other jobs i dont love so much,while im busy,while its not many hours but has travelling time included, i will charge alot more than a £20 an hour average.

SailorSam

If you're going to live in your own house buy a few simple tools and a Diy book before you move in.
With modern pipes and taps everyone should be able to do most repairs themselves.

abankerbutnotafatcat

SailorSam wrote: »

If you're going to live in your own house buy a few simple tools and a Diy book before you move in.
With modern pipes and taps everyone should be able to do most repairs themselves.

Err thanks for that. If you read my post you would have seen that we tried to patch repair it. A subsequent post mentioned that I knew where the local plumbers merchants are, there's a reason for that. But some jobs we either don't know how to resolve or are unsure about our ability to resolve- surely that's what professionals are there for?

SailorSam

It wasn't a dig just at you Banker, i was trying to say people shouldn't move into a home not prepared to be able to maintain it.
Even if you decide not to do the job yourself with a little bit of knowledge it should help you from getting ripped off like the lady who was charged over £1k for a new tap earlier.