Going rate for a plumber

[jon]

While getting quotes for the installation of a new combi/condenser boiler, I've been amazed at the different figures I've been quoted. British gas the highest, £3600, right down to a dodgy geezer (although corgi registered) who offered to do it for £2000 (cash in hand), but with a boiler make I'd never heard of (Ariston). Found boiler on Internet and it's retail price(not trade price) including timer and flu, and inc of vat was £500.

Anyway, I would estimate that the installation of a new combi/condenser onto an existing central heating system should take a maximum of 1 person, 2 days. I have also informed those quoting that I would clear away all old pipework, brick up and make good any old flu holes, remove and dispose all of feeder/header tanks and cylinders, and also make sure that they have full access to the necessary pipework by removing any floorboards, cupboards, panelling etc. (purely so I can save a little money).

Now if my figures are correct, cost of boiler, timer, flue, 6 good quality therm rad valves, copper pipe at retail, after quick search on internet comes to £1100 (again this price is not trade price, which should be considerably cheaper). That means, that with the cheapest quote, I'll be paying £1000 for installation, for the maximum of 2 days work, where I'll be doing all of the donkey work.

Now this seems, excessively high, or am I missing something. I fully understand that when quoting for jobs, plumbers need to work on the basis that they're only working for 40 weeks of the year, due to lean times, holidays and sickness. They also have wear and tear on tools and such, and also have to pay their own contributions/pensions, etc. But taking all those factors into account, is it just a case of supply and demand, and plumbers charge as much as they want, when demand is high? Or am I overlooking something. Basically is £1000 for the installation of a new boiler the norm?

Jon

[[news]]

it's more to do with what the market will stand.

why would a plumber do an installation for, say, £1500 when they can charge £2000 and people will pay it. for a plumber it's another £500 for the same amount of work. maybe you won't but people do pay £2000. indeed, british gas feel the market will stand £3600 and get that regularly with a bit of so called prestiege pricing advertising bull$hit.

if you are capable, why not source all the materials, do the rads, hang the boiler, make good etc, leave a days work and then put an advert in your local paper for plumbers (corgi) to call you with their day rates and take it from there.

you could pay as little as £100 for the boiler to be just commissioned.

you pays your money and all that.

RT

[tarquinlinbin]

To be honest,tradesmen are not really into these kind of jobs whereby the person wanting the job tries to reduce expenditure by doing parts of the job. Its usually an all or nothing job and as the market stands,thats just how it is. Good plumbers and/or gas people are about as rare as rocking horse poo so they can pick and choose the jobs they want and are unlikely to want to mess around with a job like this that has been picked apart. Thats just how it is.

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[jon]

So this is seen as a bad job, £1000 for 2 days (easy work). I'm amazed that there's not some sort of regulatory body that put's a cap on the amount these so called 'tradesman' can charge . It seems to be a case stick your finger in the air and pick a number between £500 and £1000 for a days work.

The more and more I look at this, the more I'm tempted to do the the work myself, and then get a corgi registered person to commission, but it'll probably cost me £500 just to get the thing commisioned.

Jon

[John Rumm]

I did much the same sort of changeover to our system last year. I also estimated about two days. It actully took me four in the end. That was without changing any rad valves. I fully expect a full time plumber will do the job quicker than me, however it may not be that much quicker.

(I did include the time to rebrick the old flue hole though, which you will be doing)

Removing the old tanks etc is not that difficult - but it can take a bit of time to replumb the pipework to convert from vented to pressurised operation.

Not sure there is that much trade margin on these things...

If he is quoting a fixed price then remeber they also need to include contingency. For example swapping a rad valve ought to only take 15 mins if all goes well. However it is the sort of task that can turn into a couple of hours is it does not all go well.

buy their own insurance, pay the accountant, finance the van, cough up for membership of trade bodies...

Sounds pretty average...

[jon]

[andrewpreece]

I had a plumber/gas engineer around for a quote to fix my dead combi, though it turned out to be so expensive to repair that I told him I'd like a new combi, and moved to a new location to boot! He said he'd be around on monday for an underfloor recce, but he didn't turn up ( or 'phone ), and when I finally 'phoned him a few days later, he said he'd be around next week, but of course he wasn't. He then said it'd be the week after, but since it was November and I'd had no hot water for two weeks I said I'd start the job off. I'm afraid he didn't like that at all, and I never heard from him again. I ended up doing the entire job myself, including gas. There are regulations to be followed, but a bit of research can find those out, though you do need to be a confident and responsible DIY'er. The only downside is that the guarantee may not be honoured if a fault occurs, and if you blow your house up then tye insurance people might try and wriggle out of it. Neither of these two possibilities bothered me, and I've had the system working for 2+ years now.

I suppose my main point is that, as a previous poster mentioned, plumbers etc do not like getting involved in a part DIY job, for whatever reasons. BTW, the combi, all materials ( and this included moving it ) came to £900 ( and it was a £630 combi ).

Andy.

[.]

There can be a substantial trade margin. I know the boiler I had installed, an Ideal Icos 18HE condensing, cost the installer £454 +Vat. He then got a makers rebate on that price as well. You do a search and see what the public have to pay.

[Mike]

Why ? It's a free market - pure supply and demand. That's why top footballers can charge so much.

I installed an oil boiler and had it commissioned and the oil tank inspected with all paperwork done by an OFTEC guy for £90+VAT.

[John Stumbles]

Speaking personally I have nothing against working with a competent DIY-er to do parts of an install. However the way the OP presented it I could imagine him fussing around doing his bits of work under my feet or giving me the runaround doing them badly or not when needed, and all the time with the attitude that I'm a lazy grasping parasite who he's only engaged under extreme duress and wouldn't touch with a bargepole unless he had to.

And then he says he's never heard of an Ariston (cba to google this group, obviously: what does that tell me about him?) but then seems to be proposing to fit some boiler he's found on the internet for £500 inc VAT and fluE.

Or he'll quibble if the Worcester-Bosch, Vaillant or whatever I want to fit is a penny over this price.

Q: if I fit this ultra-reliable £500 condensing combi boiler and it breaks down within 18 months who is the OP going to blame for it?

Q: anything else that goes wrong: whose fault will it be?

Q: do I want this job?

(Answers on the back of a usenet post please.)

[tarquinlinbin]

Its only my perception Jon,I could be wrong. It is inevitable that tradesmen are no longer respected or trusted in this country. They have been devalued,downtrodden and not respected for so long that now everyone is wary of them AND you can hardly get a decent one.

Think,would you speak in such a way or think in such a way about a so called "professional" like a lawyer or doctor or consultant?,no ,you;d just pay whatever they charged because you value their expertise and respect them. But let that person drive a trannie and carry a tool box and its a different story.

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[Mike]

Dealing with lawyers on a regular basis, I can assure you they come in the 'overcharging tradesman' bracket as well.

[Dave Liquorice]

That's because of the number of cowboys out there.

You trust lawyers? You'll be saying you believe what you read in the newspapers next. B-)

Doctors and consultants vary greatly, some are good and when the realise that they aren't taking to some one who doesn't know their arse from the elbow really involve you in your treatment and tell you the details. Others just don't seem able to handle the fact that someone who hasn't spent 6 years hard intensive training can have even the faintest idea about the human body.

[Jeff]

IMHO - there are in any trade a number of categories

1/ unskilled bodgers 2/ skilled, don't care, out to make as much as poss 3/ skilled, concientious, take pride in work

A lot of the problem is the great british public don't complain enough when a poor job is done.

My neighbour had a fence put up a number of years ago, 7 concrete posts and panels, the 2 guys that did it did not use a line or level and the posts are all at different heights and the last panel goes at a mad angle to line up with the back fence post, the last concrete post has been cut off and screwed to the wooden post and because of the mad angle tha last panel kept blowing out in the wind.

This fence illustrates the problem

1/ cowboy tradesmen who either don't know or don't care 2/ a general public who wouldn't know a good job if they saw one or don't care 3/ a general public who want the job doing as cheap as possible

I don't mind paying the price if the job is done right !

btw - British Gas are a rip off , they use local firms to sub the work out to, if you can find out who the local firm are, they will usually do the job for half the BG quote.

as an aside, the fence irritates the life out of me on a daily basis :-(

Regards Jeff

[Derek *]

*Everyone* is distrusted /disrespected. It's only that the regulated professions still, to a certain extent have Joe public by the short and curlies.

WHAT !!!

My sister last week signed the lease on a seaside shop she is renting for the first time. It took the landlord's solicitor 8 weeks to produce the lease document, all he had to do was edit the document to add her name, and so help us, he spelled it wrong. The delay had been so incredibly long & expensive for her, (she could have missed her seasonal trade for the year), that she aquiesced in knowingly signing it using her name spelt the wrong way.

BTW. The shop unit was one of a parade and the lease agreement was identical between all the shops on the parade. The lease document actually said as much. Quite literally all he had to do was edit it in on his word processor !

All for such a trivial a sum as £600 +vat.

To some extent ISTM this is because today the work is indeed easier than it used to be. I remember my father, born in 1907, who was a Tailor and a Trade Unionist man saying to me a long time ago on seeing Yorkshire fittings for the first time. "My god, isn't a Plumber's job B***dy easy nowadays"

DG