To query a quote for works

[MissB83]

I've just had someone complete a major works on my house. It was originally quoted on the basis of 8-10 days labour. It hasn't been 8-10 days labour; it's only been about 10 days since I bought the house and not all of those have been working days. So I asked the tradesperson for a detailed breakdown of the final bill. He got a bit shitty with me but then sent something through which I can only describe as a work of fiction: for example he has put that there were three tradesmen in the house for 8 hours on the first day. I was in the house all that day and there wasn't ONE person there for 8 hours; there were three people there briefly, but for about 1 hour! Essentially they have been juggling jobs and have been in and out of my house, doing 1 or 2 hours here and there. I've been in and out of the house a fair bit to get the garden done so I've had a good idea of when they've been in.

I've already paid him a part balance which was obviously advanced for materials etc but I'm working out whether to start questioning the rest of the bill. AIBU?

He gave you a quote for the works therefore doesn't matter if it took one person 10 days or 5 people 2 days to do the work!

If you're happy with his quality of work etc then pay the bill and move on - good reliable tradesman can be hard to find these days

I don't think that's OP's point though. She was told it would take e.g. 40 man hours and actually it's only taken 20. The precise breakdown of how and when those hours took place is a bit of a red herring.

If the work took longer than originally expected I suspect the tradesman would have told her unexpected issues had arisen which were not foreseen in his initial quote so he'd have to charge her more.

They have you a quote to do the job. If they have done the job and you’re happy with it then it doesn’t actually matter how long they spent doing it. You’ve got what you asked for at the cost you were expecting. If you’re not happy with the work then it’s a different issue.

Contractors will always quote for the worse case scenario in terms of time in case anything unexpected happens. It’s sensible.

Is it sensible? Because here it's clearly annoyed the customer. Nor has he actually admitted the work took less time than estimated - he's just lied about how many men were working and for how long.

I'm not suggesting that the OP hasn't agreed to pay a flat fee. Just that I think she's right to be irritated and should use it to bargain him down on the labour costs for the additional work done.

It’s usually broken down into material costs and labour and would be costed as to the work needing doing rather than the time it actually takes although that would be taken into consideration when pricing if that makes sense. You’re paying for the skills as well as the grunt work. Sometimes jobs are finished early and sometimes they overrun so usually easier to price like that than break it down into time worked as things happen and it’s often easier to go to a different job for the afternoon than have three people standing round waiting for a delivery etc. As long as the price you agreed is fair and you’re happy with the work completed I wouldn’t complain.

I agree, labour is usually costed per task or as a general cost, rather than per hour. But that doesn't seem to be what's actually happened here: It was originally quoted on the basis of 8-10 days labour.

Is it sensible?

Yes it is because the it doesn't leave the tradesman either out of pocket or having to do the job in a frantic rush because something happened which made it take longer than normal.

The vast majority of the thread understand this is accepted practice they are highly unlikely to lose customers as long as work is completed on time and to the correct specification.

I frequently have to estimate how long tasks will take for projects that I work on. If I think something will take me 3 days I'll quote for 4 or 5. No-one has ever complained at getting something completed a early but you can bet your life they'd complain if it was late.

I'm certainly not the only one who thinks it is uncommon for trades to quote for labour costs on a time basis. IME most quote per task or for labour as a flat rate.

Quoting per day when you don't actually intend to charge by the day and can't estimate your time with a fair degree of accuracy just doesn't seem sensible to me.