OT annoying tradesmen

[Bill Wright]

That's deep. But I know what you mean. Have you ever tried to photograph that sort of starfish? Just out of amusement?

Bill

[Bill Wright]

He thought you might be trouble and didn't want to risk it.

Bill

[Bill Wright]

To put it another way, if someone rings us and says would we install the aerial they've been and bought from Wickes, we're thinking, they've given most of the profit on the job to Wickes because we could have bought a better aerial cheaper.

My answer is to quote them a figure for installing their shitty aerial (which will be a ballache) with no guarantee on materials of course, or we supply and fit with a full warranty for a cheaper price.

Customers think the aerial costs £80 and the man costs £20. Actually it's the other way round.

Bill

[Bill Wright]

That's really sad.

Bill

[Bill Wright]

Tradesmen need to make a certain amount. They can buy cheaper than you so the result it you will get a cheaper better job if you let them supply.

Good for him. I would have told you to foxtrot oscar with knobs on.

Bill

[Bill Wright]

Yes absolutely. It's an instinct that comes from experience. If in doubt, walk.

There are also certain categories of person that I would never work for because I had had trouble from others in that category before.

Bill

[stephenten]

But the issue that I have is that his quote said 2k for the 832 boiler and then 1k for two men working for one day each making it 500 quid labour each per day. This was for a two bed house.

What he did not know was that I had bought an 838 boiler from a plumbers merchant for my house which is a 5 bed house some years prior. This is a more powerful version of the 832 and had cost me less than a grand then. I got two gas Safe engineers in for one day to fit it, and their labour was £500, which is 250 each for one day. They did not have a problem fitting a customer supplied boiler. But they have now both retired.

When I said I had found the same boiler for half of what he was quoting me he said he did not believe me. I got the plumbers quotes out for the supply and delivery of the exact same boiler. He actually commented that it was cheaper than getting it direct from vaillant themselves by about 100 quid.

So when I suggested to him I got the boiler in and he just charged me for the labour, thats when I got the foxtrot Oscar...

At the end of the day, if he had got the job, out of that 3 grand, 1100 was the boiler, leaving him with 1900 quid for one day's work. Even if we minus off the van running costs, consumables, insurances etc etc that's got to be well over a grand in profit in his back pocket for less than one day's work.

I don't mind if there is a small mark up on supplied materials as he's got yomgo and collect them or order them etc, but not a double markup surely?

[stephenten]

I happen to have trade accounts with many merchants and I often get trade discounts of up to 66% depending on what I buy.

I have not bought from b and q or homebase for over 20 years now.

The boiler quote I mentioned in my other post was on a trade account with a independent plumbers merchants.

[stephenten]

I fully understand your point about customers ringing up for quotes to fit shitty wickes aerials..... But...

The plumber in question had explicitly stated on his quote that it would be a vaillant 832 boiler.

I was getting supply only prices on *exactly* the same boiler, I was not asking him to fit a shitty boiler like a ferroli *spit* or a biasi *spit*

S.

[The Natural Philosopher]

In teh end tradesmen work on the principle that you can see how much they are charging for work, but not for materials.

So they look to make big markups on the latter to appear 'competitive' on labour.

Thebetter ones undesrand taht you are not stuypid and say - ok themn, you get te bouiler and I'll double my labour charges and there wont be a guarantee' # which is fair enough.

[Scott]

Maybe not formally but I don't know anyone who would instruct a job without knowing how much it was likely to cost, or who would not ask around if they thought the price was too high. Maybe that's because I'm a Jock.

I suspect this depends on the socio-economic group you associate with.

Fine if you live in a village. Impractical if you live in a large city. Further, if you phone and say you want to talk about a job but don't want a quote, you are likely to be told where to gef off even more quickly. They will think you want free advice.

This assumes you know how to do the job yourself. If not, I don't see how I would know the quantity of materials, cost of materials, number of hours labour, charge-out rate etc.

I think we are all agreed on that.

[John Rumm]

The "retired" bit is often key. I have often noticed older tradesmen will tend to charge less - partly because they have absorbed many of the overhead costs of the business years ago, but mostly habit - their notion of what is a fair price is somewhat behind the times.

A mate mine was a builder (retired now), and he often used to bemoan that he never made much money in his career. Much of that came down to an inability to price jobs sensibly. He would under estimate the time taken for any job - normally they would take two to three times the amount he expected, plus he seemed to apply a reasonability filter of "would I be prepared to pay that?" to any quote, so he would under quote. Lastly it took me ages to convince him that if he "let the customer pay for the materials", at cost, he was making a loss on all the materials that he handled - since he would often do the ordering and collection, but without a markup on price, that was now time coming out of his profits.

Depends on the industry and the product obviously.

So while a double markup seems (and in this case is) excessive, if most of his customers are prepared to pay[1], then you can see why he would turn down your job if he has a queue of others waiting.

He probably splits the quote like that, to disguise his day rate.

[1] Alternatively, he might not have a queue of customers, but only wants to work a couple of days a week, and cherry picks the particularly profitable jobs.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

A Wickes aerial costs 80 quid? ;-)

[Bill Wright]

I've just had a look and Wickes seem to be leaving that market by degrees. Hardly anything listed. But their competitor has aerial £42, £49, etc mast £11.57

25m coax £11 Outdoor fixing kit (inadequate!) £10.50 20 cable clips £1 coax plug kit (?)

So yes, they could spend £80 plus time and fuel and still do a shit job on a Saturday morning.

Bill

[Scott]

Friend of mine told me he was told by the fishmonger that a woman walked into the shop with a large fish. Said she had bought it from Morrisons but didn't know how to fillet it, and could he assist. He did so and acquired a regular customer from then on.

[Jac Brown]

There are plenty of you lot that don't bother with quotes.

No it doesn't.

No its not.

If you ring them and say you want a particular job done and don't say anything about a quote, you will find most tradesmen will in fact come and do it unless they are swamped with work.

Nope, just read what others have said they paid to get that done.

Most don't bother with any of that, just read what others have paid to say have a new power point added or to have a door changed because the old one has died etc.

[tim...]

I had to get 7 gas people in before I got 1 quote for my new boiler

tim

[tim...]

That's all very well if you are living in the house where the work is required

a right PITA if you don't (and it's a 4 hour round trip)

tim

[tim...]

heard all tat before on this group

my problem is that you don't get any of that shit from me

Your problem is that you don't know that when I ask you to quote

tim

[tim...]

Eh!

how does a stamp and an envelope let someone in so that they can see the scope of the work?

tim