To think £175 is a lot for

[Cheeseandapple]

A plumber to replace a leaky bath tap, and put back 2 tiles? He's also providing a shower hose but Id need to buy the tap and shower head which would come to £150-£200. Never hired a plumber so might be a spot on quote but seems a hell of a lot.

That sounds about right to me. Plumbers are expensive. My dp is a builder and he can do basic plumbing and customers are always trying to get him to fix leaks etc when he's working in their home because it's cheaper than calling a plumber out.

Normal for London/SE but I don't pay as much as that as know plumber very well and he's done a lot of work for us, plus we've recommended to family and friends.

Shower hoses are very cheap too. Buy it yourself.

Dont do this, if anything goes wrong the plumber blames your materials, the supplier blames the plumber. Ad infinitum
If you think the plumber is expensive, find another.

Also taps (and other plumbing items) range from the quoted £25 to the taps I have that honestly ain't all that for the £1000 price tag.
Fitting costs the same regardless of tap price, so if you can, buy the best you can afford.

Location location location etc is the central lunnon or rural cumbria?.

Did it include VAT or not?

How long is he or was he there for?.

Only Then you can say a good deal or not..

DH is a plumber, I'll ask him.

@IWouldPreferNotTo
Brilliant post. So many people assume the hourly rate of the self employed gets multiplied by 35-40 hours, 52 weeks a year. They don't realise no one pays you for the hours you sit in the office returning calls, writing quotes, visiting prospective clients, travelling form client to client. No one pays a pension contribution. If you are ill, you don;t get paid. On holiday, no pay etc.The amount of meetings I've sat in as an unpaid freelancer while paid staff rabbit on for hours...

Just about to post the same as Justaboy
We need more info .

I think a lot of customers appreciate that plumbers need to make enough money to keep them viable. But prices can vary widely, I have had between 1,000 and 7,000 being quoted for the same plumbing job. And for a boiler engineer job I had one who quoted me 2,000 pounds for a replacement boiler which was the only solution to my boiler problem in his opinion, I turned this down and got a second opinion, sorted for 75 quid. And these were all different companies. Very few of us have money to waste, if the OP's uncertain then needs to weigh up the cost of their time in sorting out additional quotes, and comparing, as well as whether they have used this plumber in the past and found their work to be good. If they have then I would probably pay the extra, as a good plumber is worth holding onto.

I wouldn't buy a tap for £25, it will be shit.

fruitbrewhaha I disagree. You can pay £75 or £25 for the exact same tap. The only difference is where you buy it from.

The plumber will have quoted with a bit of leeway in case the job takes a bit longer than anticipated.

IWouldPreferNotTo I totally agree. DH was an electrician. Hours spent quoting for jobs only to be told that the person's cousin's brother's neighbour's cat would do the job for a tin of whiskers. He makes more money working as an unskilled warehouseman

Doesnt sound too bad. If you shop around you might get a bit cheaper but i would pay more for someone reputable.

Thanks everyone. We're in the northwest so I think he's over charging. Got some more people coming to quote but was just shocked - thought it would be £50 and so did DH. Its a job I'm actually able to do and have done in the past but very awkward to get to and so needs special tools I don't have.

Its a relatively small job and its always difficult to get tradesmen out for them as if it only takes a few hours then unless they have another small job lined up for the same day then thats all they take for the whole day. Its why a lot of trades have a minimum half day charge or its just not financial worth them doing the job

Maybe a tad high for that neck of the woods but taps can be very cheap and well, bloody expensive.

I wouldnt boak at that that here in the home counties a good plumber is an asset;!.

A handyman will be able to do that job, you don't need a plumber.

Look for a semi retired age plumber, they often specifically do small jobs - "no job too small" type ads are the clue. Our electrician is like this and great (dad does our plumbing)

I ask for day rate then get everything done in that day or half day.

Loads of plumbers on my builder. Put your job on and they will quite you and they work against each other so it's a way to get the price down.

They all ratings etc.