Shocked at the cost of tradesman

I can't do the jobs they do and if I could not with the tools I have so I don't mind paying for a skilled tradesperson who will do an excellent job in less than no time.

I'm having one bedroom walls plastered next week, not the full room as I'm having wardrobes built and I'll strip the wallpaper myself and I've been quoted a rough £500. I can strip the wallpaper as I have the equipment but I can't plaster.

Also painting will be done by someone else and as that will include skirting and door frames and the walls that have no wardrobes on them I imagine it will be about an extra £1,000. The wardrobes on their own are costing about £11k.

But despite my previous comments when they actually came they work really hard and I think the pay is reasonsable as I would not want their job.

I only pay for trades now if we have to, like specialist Gas and Electrics, painting/grouting/wall paper stripping/basic carpentry we just DIY now. It is not that difficult to learn a lot of it yourself. Same with restaurants, do not do that anymore. There comes a price point in everything where it makes more sense to do it yourself. Unless it is really specialist stuff.
I suspect more of my house will become white in the future, less hassle to repaint and I would also only part tile bathrooms for the same reason. Better to get really good quality once and then DIY up date every few years.
DH who was not handy 10 years ago has part repaired walls as well. I do not think I would get him to fully skim a room or take down a ceiling, but repairing parts of walls etc perfectly easy to do.

Appreciate tradespeople partners on here sticking up for them only problem I’ve found is work we previously have had done with tradespeople quite often they call very late to say they can’t come after all that day as got to finish other jobs off! They seem to totally forget we Also have jobs to go to and bosses we are accountable to do when they say they can’t attend on a certain day it messes up our work at the last minute.

Not excessive at all. We've just paid £500 for decorating one room so £3-5k for the full house is absolutely reasonable.

£50ph seems a lot for a tradesman - assuming it’s a 8/9hr day like most do 8/4 or 9/5

but if for 2 people that’s fine /normal

£25ph for se is about normal for local for me (south east)

Agree, I saw a poster in hairdressers to the same effect....
"It may take me 10 minutes to do the job
But it took me 10yrs to learn/be able to do it in 10 minutes
You are paying for the 10yrs, not the 10 minutes
Sums it up perfectly I thought

That's a different story. Far too much tax evasion and benefit fraud in the "black economy" that's costing the country billions.

I refuse to pay anyone in cash. I don't want to be a party to the black economy.

But sadly, it's become endemic with traders offering "cash, no VAT" without being asked as they're clearly not worried about being caught.

And yes, it's no longer just the small jobs. When we needed whole house scaffolding, we were getting quotes of £2k to £3k and 3 of the 4 scaffolders we asked for quotes openly offered to knock off the VAT for cash!

Same when we had our written off car repaired - cost was £3k but the body shop again openly offered to knock off the VAT if we paid cash for "the lads" to do it at a weekend!

Im also south east and I think the flooring quote is cheap!

We got our downstairs fitted with laminate about 13 years ago and paid around £1k then, so £1.5k for a whole house seems reasonable to me!

You could strip wallpaper and paint the walls yourself fairly easily to save some money. Leave the skimming to a pro

Why don’t you DIY? You may find you don’t think it’s a bad price after a week.

Sounds reasonable to me.

Could take best part of a month to strip, skim and paint an entire house.

Why don't you DIY if you think you can do it as well at lower cost ?

We are rural East Mids and that doesn’t seem especially high to me. We would probably pay slightly less here total but not far off. We’ve had a lot of plastering and flooring work done. Just the labour to floor our kitchen and hall was £1600.

You could have chosen a higher paying career, electricians, brick layers, plumbers, carpentry all pay significantly more than you currently earn.

I think you're confusing activity with achievement. Are all your years in academia worth more to society than someone who has the skills and qualifications to install a heating system, trace and repair a wiring short, connect a building to the grid or install an electrical sub station?

My god I screwed up my life choices - 10 years of post school education and more than 20 years working at universities - £180 a day (before tax etc)

I do get that prices have gone up and of course everyone deserves a decent wage - but shouldn’t a university lecturer be able to afford a haircut without a lot of planning??

Don't know about these particular quotes but yes prices have increased.. its the number of people who want paid in cash that really annoys me. Even for expensive jobs..

I didn't even had a good tradesman, he cahrged through the nose and did a shit job, I'd have done better myself but haven't got time to do it.

I started a post like this a while ago and ended up being ripped to pieces, good luck.

All I will say is that you are paying for the years and not the hours.

I saw this from a designer on instagram. Might have been cake but the concept is the same. You are paying for the years of experience not for the number of hours it takes.

Go out, buy all the tools yourself, pay for some courses on how to install flooring and crack on.

Exactly how much should lowly skilled labour pay?

For decades the government pushed the idiotic mantra that only University Degrees were needed and anybody without one was just an unemployable idiot. The result is a chronic shortage of the essential workers needed to have functioning homes, transport and infrastructure.

Your quotes are the going rate, "labour" costs also include the Van, tools, registrations, licences, taxes, and most importantly the SKILL to do the job correctly.

You're paying for the àpplication of knowledge, not "just labour".

Sounds about right. We stripped and wallpapered a large room during lock down as no way of getting someone in and we couldn’t go on our planned holiday. Nearly killed us! Was such hard work! Took us a week - never again!

I paid 4k for the house to be painted after hanging lining paper 18 years ago.

1.5k for laminate, so probably double that with flooring so 3k - really reasonable price.

Sounds all right to me. I’m in Spain and paid €18k to replaster an entire quite small 3 bed house last year!

You'd pay more than that for a days work from a lawyer or a private doctor, people running their own businesses.

I'm in Berkshire and those prices strike me as very reasonable.