Replace cast iron guttering

meanmum

Our builder estimated £800 + materials to remove the existing cast iron guttering & downpipes and replace with plastic on a large 4 bed Edwardian semi in Cheshire. There's around 15m guttering and 25m of downpipes.
He asked for over £1000 up front for the materials, telling us he's saving us £500 by doing this - now the guttering etc has arrived we find we could have bought it ourselves for much cheaper.
Have we been stupid and/or is he ripping us off?

Doozergirl

Plastic guttering costs virtually nothing! :eek:

The price is all in the labour. Even the labour looks high!

Do you need scaffolding?

Robin9

meanmum wrote: »

Our builder estimated £800 + materials to remove the existing cast iron guttering & downpipes and replace with plastic on a large 4 bed Edwardian semi in Cheshire. There's around 15m guttering and 25m of downpipes.
He asked for over £1000 up front for the materials, telling us he's saving us £500 by doing this - now the guttering etc has arrived we find we could have bought it ourselves for much cheaper.
Have we been stupid and/or is he ripping us off?

You really should have got more quotes for this work.

amerste

Are you sure it's only 15m of guttering? That's only 4 lengths of upvc or is he replacing in cast iron or aluminium which would build up the cost.

meanmum

He's replacing with Brett Martin Cascade cast iron look plastic - which I know is much more expensive. No scaffolding needed. He's also using the existing iron brackets.

meanmum

Oh, & I realise now we should have got more quotes. He's done work for us before & he's been a high standard, but slow - but we trusted him.

J_B

meanmum wrote: »

on a large 4 bed Edwardian semi in Cheshire.

Our daughter got married at a 'wedding venue' near Whitchurch (Shropshire)
On the table when we went was 'Cheshire Brides' magazine - I told them to replace that with 'Shropshire/Staffordshire Brides', then we may be able to negotiate a better deal!!!

Le_Kirk

^^^^ No, you've flummoxed me, what does that have to do with guttering?

rustyboy21

You have asked the guy to give you a quote which he has done. You seem to have accepted it and then did the fatal thing, started looking online.

The guy will want to make a margin on the materials, he is in business after all. The online co, will most likely be a plumbers merchant, who originally sold to the likes of your guy and then found that they could make a little extra 'bunce' by selling online only.

If you were in business, would you be happy with fitting something that most likely has been bought at almost the same price he has paid for it, losing out vital money he needs to run his business? I don't think so.

The online guys wil most likely be making a Tenner on a length of gutter, if that. A fitter cannot work on these such small margins, with the overheads they will have. In my industry, there are co's who work from spare bedrooms, taking orders from the likes of yourself, ordering from their suppler and getting the product delivered direct to you, they don't even see the box. They will then make, maybe a tenner on the sale, just for keying a few things on their keyboard. Do this 20 times a day and it makes a nice little earner for you, when you dont register for VAT, pay business insurance, dont have staff to employ etc. It is chalk and cheese with a proper co. You cannot compare the prices realistically.

IMO, I suggest you suck it up and learn from experience, you agreed to the work and the price, you are happy with the work he has done in the past, could you get a comparable installer to do such a good job, if he says on your bike?

meanmum

I understand all that, and if we'd been given an all in quote including materials that we accepted, then we'd have no grounds to complain. However what he's quoted (actually estimated) is a cost for the labour, but just "plus materials". He tells us he's saved us £500 on these materials by getting us to pay him £1500 in advance.......but now it appears that is not entirely true - more like we've overpaid by £500.
When a builder quotes "plus materials" is he at liberty to charge anything he likes? In this case nearly double the retail cost, when he's almost certainly getting them cheaper.

teneighty

So ask for a breakdown of the actual cost of the materials.

Normal practice would be to charge the cost of the materials plus 10 or 15%. Personally I would expect to pay the trade price plus percentage not the retail price.

As Doozergirl said the bulk of the profit on a job like this is in the labour so it looks like your guy is taking the mickey by charging excess profit on the materials as well.