Central heating engineer quote

MIZZ12

Hi, I need a heating engineer to come and investigate why our unvented hot water system keeps losing pressure and fix it. I have had a recommendation for someone local and they have excellent reviews, but when I asked them to give me a rough idea how much this will cost (excluding any parts), they advised it would be "just a call out charge of £84 then go from there and keep you updated to what we find as we go". This is not London, I'm in Worcester area, so was very surprised by how expensive the call out fee is, plus it all sounds very vague - like I would be signing a blank cheque! Please could I have your views as to what is a reasonable charge for a gas engineer for something of this nature and whether this guy's response sounds reasonable? Many thanks!

Ajmason42

Every man to himself. Sometimes fault finding can be a needle in haystack. That’s not bad for a call out assume includes an hours labour or perhaps more. Try you local spotted face book pages for other recommendations. Google Cwc plumbing they in wychbold/Bromsgrove Calvin has done quite a bit of work for me but be warned he is always very busy. 

nofoollikeold

1. You need to be clear about what is wrong.  An "unvented hot water system" is not the same thing as a sealed heating system.
2. If the person is to work on a gas boiler, he / she requires current accreditation with Gas Safe to work on it.
3. If the person is to work on an unvented hot water cylinder, he / she requires current accreditation to undertake "G3" work.  That accreditation might be with Gas Safe, but there are other accreditation agencies for G3.
4. If the person is to work on both, they require both accreditations.
5. No one can give you an estimate for an unknown fault.  It could be trivial, it could be major and they won't know until they see it.
6. I'd have thought £84 / hour is towards the upper end of charge rates outside a very big city, but not unreasonable.
7. You need to find out:
7a. Whether or not that includes VAT.
7b. How much labour time is included in the call out fee, if any.
7c. What the hourly rate for additional time is, and whether or not that rate includes VAT.

Risteard

So the call-out fee is £70 +VAT @20%. This is entirely reasonable, and far from expensive.

MIZZ12

Hi, thanks for the responses,  so I have since found out that his company is not VAT registered,  so that is removed from the equation.