Pay for plumber's time to shop for basic materials?

waxingsatirical

Hi,

I've just had a plumber round for a quick job. I am satisfied with the work done but wasn't expecting to pay for as many hours' work as he'd put down. Thought I'd just ask on here before mentioning it in an online review, to see if I'm being unreasonable.

He said he'd be there for 11am, texted just after 11 to say he'd be 30 minutes late, then arrived at 12.15.

We had a short discussion, 15 minutes MAX. I had already explained the work to him on the phone earlier.

Then he said he needed to buy some materials and left, returning at 13.15.

Completed the work at 14.45.

The materials he was getting were a small amount (3M?) standard 15mm piping, plus a stopcock and some caps. I would have expected him to have this his van. Plus, I live in London so he shouldn't have had to go far.

I wasn't expecting him to include the time for materials shopping in the quote, but he did, and quoted 2.5 hours. I was expecting him to round UP to 2 hours. When I queried this he said I was lucky he didn't quote for 3 hours.

Am I being unreasonable?

Ruski

A pipe clip and a couple of fittings are what I include as 'in the van' - anything else is specific to the job and therefore must be bought at some point and you are charged accordingly.

Maybe next time ask for a price to do the job - not an hourly rate.

HTH

Russ

DaftyDuck

I think you paid for his lunch break....

phill99

Whether you pay for time shopping at the start of a job or during it is irrelevant. Stuff still has to be bought from shops and that time has to be paid for.

waxingsatirical

Ok, fair enough. Seems to be standard practice.

Next time I'll be a money saving expert and buy the materials myself in advance. My time is cheaper than £65 +VAT per hour.

thescouselander

Reminds me of a time when I paid a drain cleaning company to come and clear a blocked drain which we had agreed probably needed to be jet cleaned. Turned out the guy disappeared for an hour as he had not turned up with any water and had to fill his van with more. At the end the price came to twice his original quote because of the extra time taken to get the water. I wrote him a cheque for the original quote and invited him to take me to court for the rest - needless to say that way the last I heard of that.

brightontraveller

Devils advocate but why should they carry them on the van to make the job quicker for client ? There being used on clients job do you think tradesmen should pick up materials store, stock, swallow any loses because they become damage, or increased insurance because there vans broken into or extra expense of garaging vehicles themselves in there own time waiting for a client , Yes some do and charge you for the privilege but people whinge about that too its frustrating / annoying yes but its part of life,

JustAnotherSaver

I work for a company that deals with many builders & plumbers.

We see these tradesmen coming in to our place & they will happily sit there yapping to anyone & everyone for quite an amount of time.

We're not talking 11:30-1:30 here (what i would consider 'typical' dinner time), we're talking at any given time of the day.

I often think - i hope they're not charging their customer for this time, because they are literally doing absolutely F all.

And yes, i know they're doing nothing at all because i've heard plenty of the conversations - last nights football, this coming weekends football, what was on the telly last night, what so & so argued with their wife about, who is conning who etc etc etc.

bsod

the time it took to buy them from the shops has probably been paid for by a 100 clients, a plumber turning up to a job without any pipe on his van, expecting to be paid £65/hour to go shopping is taking the xxxx, shopping takes no skill.

JustAnotherSaver

Am i the only one who doesn't quite understand why this guy said OP was lucky he didn't quote for 3 hours?

12:15 .... 14:45.

I don't see 3 hours in that.

Unless he's referring to the time he was SUPPOSED to turn up, but for [insertexcusehere] he didn't.

sniggings

JustAnotherSaver wrote: »

Am i the only one who doesn't quite understand why thisb

guy said OP was lucky he didn't quote for 3 hours?

12:15 .... 14:45.

I don't see 3 hours in that.

Unless he's referring to the time he was SUPPOSED to turn up, but for [insertexcusehere] he didn't.

many charge a full hourly rate for any part of an hour used...yes even 1 minute into the next hour can e charged at the full hourly rate.