Any Heating Engineers out there? Would you have charged this??

cuffie

A bit late now, but we have just had a heating engineer round. A mate. Not a "best man" sort of mate - more of a football mate/dad up the school. We know the family fairly well and he has done some work for other friends of ours and they've never complained.......

We had 3 radiators removed. He had to cut through chip board flooring so took longer than what he thought it would. He also put on thermostats to 8 radiators downstairs (not very nice thermostats - chunky white "lifestyle" ones...hubby not happy. He wanted nice chrome looking ones that we have upstairs - we assumed (wrongly!) that he would get the same as those). Apparantly they cost £70.

He put chemicals in the system as well to clean it.

He charged us £240 (including the £70 thermostat costs)

Was there from 9-30 till 6pm minus about 1.5 hours inbetween getting thermostats, popping home, chatting about football etc.

Don't get me wrong. Nice guy. Still a mate. But hubby not happy with price and chunky white thermostats.

I sent his wife (quite a good friend of mine) a text last night to say how much did she think it would cost and she said around £120. If you add on the £70 thats £190. So he's charge an extra £50 for the extra time/effort/whatever.

Can I convince hubby that we didn't get that bad a deal after all?

Do you know how much the nice chrome looking ones would have cost at trade price? (Drayton TRV4)

Thanks. x

Canucklehead

Good evening: The Drayton TRV4 Chrome (angled and straight) are 38.40 plus VAT in the City Plumbing Trade Book.. as far as the price goes, one day's labour plus materials doesn't sound unreasonable down here in the southeast.

HTH

Canucklehead

EliteHeat

cuffie wrote: »

A bit late now, but we have just had a heating engineer round. A mate. Not a "best man" sort of mate - more of a football mate/dad up the school. We know the family fairly well and he has done some work for other friends of ours and they've never complained.......

We had 3 radiators removed. He had to cut through chip board flooring so took longer than what he thought it would. He also put on thermostats to 8 radiators downstairs (not very nice thermostats - chunky white "lifestyle" ones...hubby not happy. He wanted nice chrome looking ones that we have upstairs - we assumed (wrongly!) that he would get the same as those). Apparantly they cost £70.

He put chemicals in the system as well to clean it.

He charged us £240 (including the £70 thermostat costs)

Was there from 9-30 till 6pm minus about 1.5 hours inbetween getting thermostats, popping home, chatting about football etc.

Don't get me wrong. Nice guy. Still a mate. But hubby not happy with price and chunky white thermostats.

I sent his wife (quite a good friend of mine) a text last night to say how much did she think it would cost and she said around £120. If you add on the £70 thats £190. So he's charge an extra £50 for the extra time/effort/whatever.

Can I convince hubby that we didn't get that bad a deal after all?

Do you know how much the nice chrome looking ones would have cost at trade price? (Drayton TRV4)

Thanks. x

£240? you got that job at a mates rate. Tell your husband to stop complaining. You've had a qualified, insured and competent engineer around for the entire day who has worked for about £150 - that is a bargain.

EliteHeat

Deleted: can't get link to work!

baldelectrician

think that is a very fair price

ask yourself this
1. The job had chip board flooring - how many others would have walked away / gave you a silly price?

2. The guy would probably earned over £100 more, with less hassle if he hadn't done your job and did another.

3
This is why I don't do 'mates rates' unless they are a very good mate or my mum (she gets jobs for nowt, to repay her for putting up with me for years )

Ask your hubby if he feels lucky you got someone in who did an excellent job didn't cut any corners?

cuffie

Thanks guys. I've had a chat and I think he realises we couldn't have got it cheaper. I think he would have spent more money on the nice chrome thermostats, but I tried to explain that our friend is not a mind reader - I think he is annoyed with himself for not looking into things like that ( - he would normally go out and find out what he likes first). Anyway - thank you - that's put my mind at rest. I also reminded him that he was here all day and some plumbers might have taken 2 days (incurring 2 days cost, not 1!!). xx

eco-friendly_2

cuffie wrote: »

A bit late now, but we have just had a heating engineer round. A mate. Not a "best man" sort of mate - more of a football mate/dad up the school. We know the family fairly well and he has done some work for other friends of ours and they've never complained.......

We had 3 radiators removed. He had to cut through chip board flooring so took longer than what he thought it would. He also put on thermostats to 8 radiators downstairs (not very nice thermostats - chunky white "lifestyle" ones...hubby not happy. He wanted nice chrome looking ones that we have upstairs - we assumed (wrongly!) that he would get the same as those). Apparantly they cost £70.

He put chemicals in the system as well to clean it.

He charged us £240 (including the £70 thermostat costs)

Was there from 9-30 till 6pm minus about 1.5 hours inbetween getting thermostats, popping home, chatting about football etc.

Don't get me wrong. Nice guy. Still a mate. But hubby not happy with price and chunky white thermostats.

I sent his wife (quite a good friend of mine) a text last night to say how much did she think it would cost and she said around £120. If you add on the £70 thats £190. So he's charge an extra £50 for the extra time/effort/whatever.

Can I convince hubby that we didn't get that bad a deal after all?

Do you know how much the nice chrome looking ones would have cost at trade price? (Drayton TRV4)

Thanks. x[/quote



YOU ARE A WASTE OF SPACE !:o

booty40uk

Hi cuffie

I agree that it is a very fair price.

And "here here" toots also.

Andy