How long is a builders working day .

[hattie43]

Have had someone here for a couple of days to do some small but useful jobs and he told me he charges £200 a day . Fine . But his ‘ day ‘ is from 9.30 ish until 2.30 / 3.00pm depending on his progress . Is this normal to have such a short working day ?

8-4 next door to me 🙄

8.30-3… with a ton of tea and sandwich breaks!

The best builders we had worked from 7.50am until around 4.30pm. They then tidied and left at 5pm. The worst knocked off at 2.30pm and took over a month to do what should have taken a week.

Get the price for the JOB not the day. Then their time is theirs to direct as they wish.

Definitely price for the job, but also get an estimate for how long they think it will take. Arrange to pay on completion.

Then again, getting a builder to turn up these days is hard enough.

Yes this is good advice and what I’ll do next time .

Ours started at 7:30 and finished at 15:30. We weren’t paying by the day though.

It seems to be 8 -3.30 with a break about 11. All the work we’ve got done the tradespeople couldn’t have physically worked much longer.

If you are paying them and want them to get on with the job: approx 9.30/10 - 14.30/15.30.

If next door is having work done, specially noisy dusty work: approx 7.30 - 18.00.

When I worked as a decorators labourer we worked from 8.00 am to 4pm with a break for a late breakfast at 10.30 ish.
If it was the last day of a job, we would stay later to get everything finished.

£200 a day, even for those hours would be very cheap in my area.

Our were 8-4 and cleaned up until 5pm but there we sooooo expensive ( for a good reason) we got a price for the job, so I was happy to pay them the work was amazing and their attitude was like nothing I’ve ever had before.

Our other guys are 9-2 and half the price!

It’s what he asked for . £200 for a days work but I did not envisage it would only be a few hours .

8-4, with possibly 8-8.30 being pick up materials, and 3.30-4 clear up time.

Our builders were off to the pub at 2.30!! I’ve also worked in a pub and can confirm they all started turning up about that time.

I’m not sure but I am decorating a whole house at the moment for a family member who can’t do it and I am absolutely exhausted. I work full time and usually am fairly fit but decorating is exhausting so building must be even worse. I’m managing about 8-1 then I have to go home.
So when I go to work in my office I do 7-5 but there is no way I could do that if I was doing manual labour so I assume they must work much shorter days.

We've just finished major renovations and have had a mix- on average they've been about 8:30-4 I'd say.

The roofers stopped 6 times through the day for tea/coffee, whereas others only stopped for a quick sandwich. 1 man always stopped at 3pm on the dot. Some routinely would finish about an hour earlier on Fridays.

Out tiler is happy to work sat and sundays and till late. He charges by the square metre though, not by the day.

5hrs work for £200 is £40/hr so its not bad! I know people will bang on about insurance, cost of a skilled professional tradesperson etc but this sounds like a handy man.

We are in the process of house renovations so have had builders, plasterers, plumbers, electricians and a joiner, all working for us for the last few months.

Our experience of 'tradies' is that they like to start early and finish early so they would be here about 8am and done by 3.30pm - 4pm. The only one that didn't was our electrician who arrived at 9am, got stuck in, took 45 minutes for lunch and finished up at 5.30pm. However he did tell us he was planning to finish up at 2.30pm then decided to push through so he could get it done and not have to come back the next day and got a day off instead!

We always get quotes for the job, and not the day, so it doesn't piss me off if they naff off to the pub at 3pm.

Sometimes there is a natural break to the work . Like they have to leave something to dry out , set , or start something else . I don't care how long they take , just once it's done and done right .

Doesn't matter because you always get a quote for the whole job, never in terms of how many days it takes.

Our brilliant builders who did our loft conversion started at 8:00 and finished at 6:00 every day. They were diligent and incredibly thoughtful about managing mess and cleaning up after themselves. They never wanted drinks either despite them always being on offer.

We’ve had them back to do several other jobs because we trust them to work hard and do an excellent job.

When we had fence panels replaced (20 of them) the guys would arrive around 9.30; tea at 11; lunch 13.30-14.00; knock off around 15.30.
The guys were semi retired and could only manage so much in a day. They also had to wait for the concrete for the posts to set.
They did a good job.

My DS has a carpentry apprenticeship and his day is 7.30 - 4.

My son is an apprentice on a site and his boss starts at 8am and finishes 5-5:30. He’s a grafter and im glad my son has a fab mentor with a great work ethic