Is it normal for a plumber to ask full boiler payment upfront?

[Overtinkerbell]

My boiler needs to be replaced and got an estimate of £3000 😓. However, even more shocking is that plumber is asking all of it upfront.
Is this normal?

I intend to be very careful about paying trades people in advance, after paying for kitchen materials to a kitchen fitter upfront; then he didn't buy the goods, vanished and now I am having to take him to court to try to get my money back. I have since discovered
that I could have paid the suppliers direct and had the goods delivered to me, so I could have got someone else to do the work if the original fitter vanished.
If it was a large reputable company they wouldn't expect payment upfront but I would never pay a self employed tradesman upfront again.

No. Have you had more than one quote?

No tradesman has ever asked me for full payment up front, ever and I've been organising different trades people for decades. Quite a few have been hard to get to come back to sort stuff out once you've paid them. I'm not saying I'm sure he is being dishonest but I'd be very cautious. My experience is that tradespeople are not great at coming back to sort out stuff and once you've paid them, they have much much less incentive. If you live in London, doubly do not do this.

My DH was a tradesman.
Materiels for clients were always purchased by credit card - so up to 30 days credit and therefore no reason to charge the customer upfront.

The only exception might be if a client had previously delayed or defaulted and receiving payment for a job was a known issue.

I've often been asked for 50% upfront on invoice but never 100%. Find someone else.

I paid for my boiler by invoice after it was done and the office rang me to see if i was pleased with the work.

No payment was requested up front.

No.

Do not pay this upfront. If you have a local Facebook group ask for recommendations on there.

As previous poster states...won't cost him a penny up front as it's all on his credit card...and if you change your mind it goes back..Taking the absolute pea...he must have a holiday to pay for ...

My plumber does the work including buying what's needed although I bought the gas hob and had a bargain on a kitchen tap and invoices me after the job is done. That also included £5,500 for a brand new combi boiler system. No money up front at all.

Reputable plumbers normally have trade accounts a meaningful deposit
Up front in full..nope.

It’s normal to pay for material up front or even in some circumstances you order the items and pay for them

The company I work for asks for 50% upfront to secure the booking and buy materials. The remaining 50% is paid when the work is complete.

I wouldn't pay 100% upfront ever. Look elsewhere to get the work done.

The reason we charge a 50% deposit is also because it's not always easy to return a boiler once it's delivered and it avoids having customers cancel at short notice when we might have scheduled a whole week of work for them.

I recently had a boiler fitted, i
ordered the boiler directly from supplier, plumber fitted, paid on invoice

Nope. New boiler and radiators £4k not a penny upfront.

Depending on the job surely there should be a final settlement paid after yu are satisfied with the work. I would say its reasonable to split it into 3

Deposit to enable purchase of materials
2nd payment when work well under way
Final payment on completion

try British Gas