Am I being ripped off ?

[MamaJules34]

We had a joiner round to give us a quote.

£900 for the following:

To fit two shelves in three cupboards (2 airing cupboards and one cupboard downstairs).

2 poles (clothes poles) in two cupboards.

£900?! Aibu?! That seems extortionate?

Our joiner handyman would do that job in a day tops for £170 incl wood./materials

I do think he wants the job tho. He was saying he has no work on at the moment and he wants to be working.

Anyway, I'll say no thanks.

Regardless of the over inflated quote 2 points

1. You should not expect mates rates from tradesmen because
2. Never mix business with pleasure. As this quote has already shown, without laying a screwdriver to your walls you are already questioning his work.

I thought £20 an hour was brilliant as well. I'm not cheap. Ffs.

I didn't expect mates rates. I expected a reasonable quote.

Go back to him with a price that YOU think is reasonable. Or get another quote or two.
It's a pain in the arse getting quotes, and workmen know that, but once you get used to the getting 3 quotes idea you begin to get a real sense of what you should be paying for work. Or ask on your local WA for FB grp for recommends.
And pay PER JOB, not their time. Otherwise you'll find the job suddenly gets more complicated/longer or they're buggering off every 5 mins to get more paint or nails ( i.e. going to the other job they've got on/ quoting people for jobs on your time).

I'm not sure how anyone can say he's ripping you off unless they've been over to quote you. We have no clue of the quality of materials, the sizing, the type of shelving you want, the joints etc

@haudmadaug I am not questioning his work!! I'm entitled to ask if it's a reasonable price.

As said, I would have gone with it if people had said it sounds good.

OP, have you heard of taskrabbit.co.uk ? I have used them for all sorts of handyman jobs. Always reliable and you can rate the tasker.

I can see why hes quoted so high tbh.

He's taking the piss - it should take him an hour or so tops for the poles and then say 4 hours tops for the shelves

He's charging you that much because it's not worth his time doing it for less. In other words, if he charged you much less for the job, he'd be missing out earning more from someone else.

I'd be interested to know why he thinks it would take 24hrs?

If the price for materials is OK to you, surely it's the labour cost that needs looking at?

Definitely extortionate.

We've had the same lately OP. Recently bought a (big) 4 bed new build in a nice area, prices available for all to see online. Had ridiculous quotes for the simplest jobs.

Funnily enough always from the tradespeople that overly comment on how nice a house and area it is 🤨.

He doesn't want the work.

It looks to be a simple job, research how to do it on you tube, buy the tools and diy.

Cost - unless you go silly on a fancy cordless drill you’ll have loads of change from £100.

B+q and Screwfix are doing contactless click and collect trading.

I put up three slatted shelves on battens in my airing cupboard myself and it cost me about £20 for materials. I am an office bod, not a joiner and it took me a couple of hours to saw and fit. Two poles and their fittings wouldn't cost a lot and take half an hour to fix.

£900 is extortionate!

People can charge whatever they want for their work - equally you have the choice whether to pay it or not.

Lots of trades-people will over charge for minor jobs because it's not worth their time to travel to do a small job when they could travel the same distance and earn much more money elsewhere.

That's a ridiculous price. I wonder whether he's one of those who doesn't declare everything to HMRC and so now will get pennies back with the grant scheme.

Whereabouts are you?

If it's a new home, would the company who built it be able to sort this out for you?

DH is a carpenter. He says extortionate. Proper price would be about 250.

He doesn't want the work

Agreed. Ridiculous quote and he knows it.

YABU for trying to get a cheap job for "cash in hand"
How do you think the NHS and all this furloughed pay is getting funded?

I had a similar quote for something I needed doing so I ended up going to ikea and doing it myself for fraction of the price and I was very happy with the finished product.

He added that 250 is still a bit dear and that a handyman should charge 150.

I think I'd do this job myself. I'd buy a cordless drill and watch a load of YouTube videos, then give it a go.