Going rate for a ball valve supply & fit?

[Bob Minchin]

We are house watching for a neighbour who is away and today I found the outside wall of their pebbledashed house saturated with water and it had not been raining.

The cold water cistern ball valve was leaking and encrusted with lime and the overflow had been arranged to discharge into the inside of the soffit and hence was running down the wall. I fitted a new ball-valve as I happened to have a spare to hand. All done in about an hour but I've not touch the bodged up overflow.

Any ideas what a plumber would have charged for a call out to do the ball-valve? I've no intention of charging him for the job but just curious what he might have had to pay out if I had not done the job.

Bob

[Jan Larsen]

An hour did you say? That'll be £50 +VAT and parts bub :)

//J

[John]

Amazing how many overflows are badly fitted. Many start off as a horizontal pipe but then end up pointing a few degrees upwards so that the water runs back down the outside and saturates the wall.

Some council flats near to me are all like this and (for the want of a tee on the end) soon the brickwork will be wrecked.

[The Medway Handyman]

IANAP, but as a Handyman I would have charged £45 labour + the parts. If the parts were £5 I'd mark that up to maybe £10.

[dcbwhaley]

The internal horizontal section of the overflow pipe in our place was not properly supported so that it sagged about two inches. Having once overflowed it then permanently contained water. I discovered this one cold winter night when this water froze and, sods law being what it is, the ball valve failed. One very wet bedroom!

[g.harman]

Overflows you cannot easily see do not help either. In the Spring I assisted a friend to install a water butt in her garden and the associated fitting that diverts water from a downpipe to fill it. The butt filled far quicker than expected though there were a few showers that evening. Next visit was to clean out the gutter of Moss etc. not too difficult to reach with a suitable ladder as the property is a Bungalow. From that viewpoint an overflow on the neighbours property could be seen flowing gently into the gutter which is common to both parts of the semi detached Bungalows. It was tempting to retain this water supply for the garden but next door being decent folk we mentioned this to them. Problem was a sticking ball valve on the water tank in the loft. overflow pipe could not be seen from the ground. Turned out they were on a meter so were pleased to be told about it. They were loosing about 200l of water over a 24 hour period judging by the speed the butt filled. The terminals of both downpipes on the Bungalows end out of sight rather than above a grid on the drains so water flow went unnoticed. They had been done that way as both gardens have large trees and the associated leaf fall problem. G.Harman

[Stephen Dawson]

I would have thought £30 + vat and parts, not a difficult job.

[Steve]

Mine was £40 cash.

It went on my moving in day, jammed down after filling the fish tanks. I didn't even where the local sheds were.

Did find that the ceiling are some kind of hard board, and didn't even get wet. Still want to know how the hell water gets in a light bulb.

Steve