To think that this plumber is taking the piss?

[vicky228]

Am particularly pissed off to receive an enormous bill from the plumber I had out today but wonder if I'm being unreasonable as I was fed up even before he arrived - 5 hours late and having never once phoned to give me an updated ETA...

In total, the bloke was 2hrs 20mins from arriving to leaving. In the middle of this, he disappeared for 50 mins to get some parts from a shop which is barely over a mile away. I then got charged for 3 hours labour...

The terms and conditions say that it is an hourly rate but that you will be charged for the time spent working and reasonable travel to get parts. I would read this as paying pro rata for part hours and am particularly pissed off that the shopping trip took so long.

Is it unreasonable to ask to pay for only 2 hours labour, which I reckon is a fair estimate of the time it actually took and factoring in 'reasonable' time to get the parts?? Is this just normal and I should suck it up??

YANBU, seems unfair to charge you for 3hours, 2hrs30mins maybe but 3 is pushing it a bit IMO!

he was away getting parts for your job so yes, that counts as labour, and you pay for every hour, it was over 2 hours, so you pay for 3, that is how tradesmen work. Some (like us) will do the first hour as a minimum and then charge in half hourly increments after, but we are in the minority.

Ok, I had a feeling that paying full whack for part hours was probably normal (although not at all clear in their terms and conditions). It was more that I can't understand why buying the parts could take 50 mins when the shop is so close. Just felt like it was being spun out to last longer so they could charge more.

But perhaps I'm just being narky because I was stuck in all day waiting on my day off when I had loads of other stuff I could have been doing !

How much is the bill?

yes how much

Nearly £400 - the parts were £80. Ok, it is lovely to have hot water and a working toilet again but that's still a lot of money to pay someone to replace a couple of parts that had got a bit furred up with limescale.

Wondering whether I should spend my upcoming maternity leave doing plumbing, electric and DIY courses!

This is a ridiculous charge for 3 hours labour.
We have recently been charged £300 by a plumber/gas man to service a boiler and heating system which had been unused for 2 years, remove a defunct gas fire and replace a heated towel rail, this included the cost of the towel rail.

In total he was with us for over seven hours.

There is a really useful website called Building Sheriff which gives lots of information about what a job should cost for all sorts of trades.