Greedy tradesmen (or women!)

[LolalovesLondon]

Is it just me or are some people taking the piss at the moment? Everyone I contact is booked up for weeks so it’s not lack of work I don’t think...
Had a quote last week to get a gas oven installed - straight swop, no new pipes or alterations, cooker is the same as we have now just a newer model.
£195 installation only.
Is that normal nowadays? 🤔

@AllTheUserNamesAreTaken

Yep, people with cushy/regular hours jobs fail to realise that whilst they get paid for wasted/down time, a self employed person doesn't.

That’s funny, I’d have thought the 8 years I spent being self employed before needing a change and going to my current ‘cushy/regular’ job meant I know exactly that.

It means I also know just how many ordinary expenses can be deducted before you reach the figure of take home pay. Expenses that those in regular jobs also have to pay, such as vehicle purchase, fuel, clothes etc

It means that when someone claims to be working 6 days a week with a day rate of £400 and they say they are taking home £38,800, whilst they may be telling the truth that doesn’t really represent the real picture

I also have enough family and friends in trades to know that there is a reasonable chunk of cash which isn’t declared. Obviously on MN though every tradesperson declares every single penny they earn

HMRC are very clear on what can and can't be claimed. It's not nearly as generous as you imply.

Just because the tradespeople you are personally acquainted with are dishonest, does not mean that all tradespeople are.

Supply and demand, I guess, like everything else!

I’m not sure why you think these trades deserve low rates of pay?

My experience goes as such -

I call for a quote for a job that is the same as my partner had done the previous week/year and get quoted double what he did.

I call up for a quote where just a description would suffice and get quoted double what my partner gets quoted for the same job description.

My partner = local accent, mine isn't.

My parents, very nice house (the largest) in a village where everyone knows one another, talk frequently and use the same trades people, guaranteed that the quotes they receive are thousands more than others have received for the same/similar type of work.

Even their previous cleaner, on learning they have other properties, decided she wanted to double her hourly rate (was already being paid more than the local average) because, and I quote, "they can afford it".

My parents = large property in comparison to the rest of the area.

Whilst not all trades people are like this, between us we seem to have encountered all of them.

@Carpballs

My experience goes as such -

I call for a quote for a job that is the same as my partner had done the previous week/year and get quoted double what he did.

I call up for a quote where just a description would suffice and get quoted double what my partner gets quoted for the same job description.

My partner = local accent, mine isn't.

My parents, very nice house (the largest) in a village where everyone knows one another, talk frequently and use the same trades people, guaranteed that the quotes they receive are thousands more than others have received for the same/similar type of work.

Even their previous cleaner, on learning they have other properties, decided she wanted to double her hourly rate (was already being paid more than the local average) because, and I quote, "they can afford it".

My parents = large property in comparison to the rest of the area.

Whilst not all trades people are like this, between us we seem to have encountered all of them.

Those tradesmen may have learned from experience, i.e. the last time they did it, it took longer or used more expensive materials, so next time they do it, they quote higher.

There may be subtle differences you don't realise change the job considerably. I.e. say, decking may only be slightly larger, but that may mean that a whole different timber sub frame is needed as well as more lengths of decking, meaning not only more supporting timber, but more time to create the sub frame or more holes/concrete supports, etc.

But, yes, ultimately when it comes to pricing for anything that isn't "off the shelf" and requires some element of tailoring/fitting etc., then prices are going to vary widely, and some of that will include their perception of how difficult the job will be, not to mention how busy they are and how desperate they are for the work. You'll never get a discounted price when someone has weeks worth of work already booked in, but are likely to get a discount if they're quiet and need to fill their diary.

I find myself quite baffled by the number of people accusing Janice of having "dodgy maths" because £400 a day is not magically making its way unfettered into their accounts.

Clearly materials, insurance, additional labourers, accountants fees, tax costs etc., are all free. Raw materials cost money and they fluctuate. During lockdown there was a real shortage of fencing, gravel boards and posts because so many people were having garden work done - the price went up. According to the FMB, the price of a brick went up 9% between 2017-2018. But yes a £400 day rate is clearly all cash straight in your pocket!!

I’m not sure why you think these trades deserve low rates of pay?

We’re talking about nearly £200 v £69 for the same work.
£69 p/h is not a ‘low rate’.
Not sure what you’re talking about.

Tappering
The day rate is the amount charged for labour.
Materials are extra.

Tappering
Just to add, if materials were included in the £400 ‘day rate’ as you seem to think - how do you think that works?

One customer wants a composite worktop and another wants marble...
The day rate is labour only.

The oven is connected btw!!
Really nice bloke came and was here for 40 mins including a chat & a cup of tea!
He’s starting another boiler tomorrow but said he often nips into places and does smaller jobs in between bigger ones. I was lucky to catch him as he had just finished a boiler installation and had a spare afternoon.
I asked him about the first quote.
He said the bloke probably didn’t have much work on atm & was chancing his luck.

We're having our bathroom done in a couple of weeks, not a new suite, but full retile, new towel radiator, shower and screen. Excluding all the bits (we've bought that separately), it's costing £1700. It's not a huge job, but it's his skill we are paying for.

I'm buggered if I could do a good job of the tiling! To be honest, installing the shower is easy, but he's doing the lot.

But we contacted multiple tradesmen - apparently they all think they should be charging this amount.

if a selection of people are giving the same or similar price, that is the market price for it. And since they are booked up presumably people are prepared to pay that price (and as pp have said, you're paying for their expertise etc etc)

The comparison with the 5 quid toilet roll is off because that would be classed as price gouging. Having said that, if all retailers were doing the same - at that time the market price for a roll of toilet paper is 5 quid. That is how supply and demand works

@katmarie

400 x 6 x 48 may well be more than 38k a year, but as a self employed trader, he will be paying out, off the top of my head:

Costs of owning and maintaining a vehicle, including tax, insurance maintenance
Costs of tools, and maintaining those tools.
Insurance for his tools, equipment etc
Consumables, depending on his work could be things like screws, tape, glue etc all the little things you need in every job.
Liability insurance
Travel to and from jobs
Tax
He may be paying for accounting services
Marketing/advertising
Professional memberships, accreditations and skills updates
Cost of premises if he works out of somewhere other than his home, and all the associated costs of that.

If he gets sick and can't work during that time, he doesnt earn, so he needs to cover that too.

There will be other things I've forgotten.
And that calculation assumes that for every day other than holiday he is able to charge the full day rate which is unlikely.
The poster says he brings home 38k, not that the business bills 38k before costs.

And subcontractors and/or employees.

Turnover is not the same thing as salary.

Posted too soon,
Turnover is not the same thing as salary. Too many people seem not to understand that.

The bulk of the work in a small job like this is dealing with customer, driving to the site and back again and lugging tools in. The costs of doing business are the same for a big job and a small job, they have to pay insurance, taxes, office rental etc. The true labour cost on a job like this is small, but the cost of doing business is much bigger.

Say they do two jobs... one is an hour of labor, one is ten minutes of labor so one is bigger than the other.

If they spend the same amount of time driving there, the same amount of time doing the invoice, they have to have the same (eye waveringly expensive) set of tools that are probably going to be stolen at some point(s) in their career, insurance etc. they have to have the same insurance, they have to spend non-billable time doing taxes, repairing vehicle etc. At this point the cost of the labor is only a small amount of the cost of the job. It makes sense that a tiny job is more expensive per minute than a bigger job.

If they didn't charge this way then six tiny jobs would be not worth going to at all vs what they could charge for one job that took six times longer in labor but the same amount of time for everything else.

@LolalovesLondon

I’m not sure why you think these trades deserve low rates of pay?

We’re talking about nearly £200 v £69 for the same work.
£69 p/h is not a ‘low rate’.
Not sure what you’re talking about.

It isn't really £69 p/h of work at just your house though is it?

He has spent time traveling (and they probably charge the same amount whether that is ten minutes traveling or if they are stuck going ten miles in rush hour traffic), spent time on the phone with you, it has included the 'rental' of the van and his tools. It has included your portion of his advertising and bookkeeping costs and it has included your share of his sick coverage because he has to figure that into the cost of business if he is a sole trader. If he is an employee then you are paying your share of the cost of doing business of his employee. That £69 p/h probably works out at much less in reality.

Truculent

5 min conversation this morning

He lives two streets away and dropped in to my house before he went home for the day (he had just finished a job elsewhere)

40 min here from getting out of van to getting back in

5 min (or less) back home

Total : 50 min.

I was happy with his £69 charge btw!

wonkylegs @IncandescentSilver**
lots of inaccuracies in your posts
Your electrical engineer brother would be able to do the work you
describe perfectly legally under the BRegs - certain minor works are exempted from needing to be Part P registered

Somewhat ironically, you have got this wrong, because as I said, my brother is a degree educated electronics engineer", not an electrical engineer". Huge difference. I'm also not sure which work you think I specified, because it wasn't minor work, I was actually referring to a (3-Phase 4 Wire) star circuit in a property, but the person he got to quote for it got the measurements wrong and he ended up doing it himself and getting him to sign it off.

But yes, for someone who is qualified to degree level in a similar field, things such as electrics are quite easy, and the regulations easy to understand. Basic plumbing really isn't difficult either. My brother in fact installed his own central heating, all the pipework and soldering the joints, etc, and just used a CORGI engineer to connect it to the gas supply. He did a great job. He's also renovated a few properties and he says that he would always prefer to do his own plumbing, since the standard of soldering on the joints can be absolutely dreadful.

I think sometimes there is a lack of attention to detail, which is worrying when there are safety concerns in what people are doing.

The UK has a very weird attitude to tradespeople. It is the reason that you had a lot of Polish plumbers back in the day because nobody wanted to do that work. As soon as people realised there was money in it - BAM! - loads of plumbers.

In Germany there are properly controlled and accredited apprenticeships. They get paid a pretty ok salary while they are on their 3 year training, and school which is regulated by the chambers of commerce. At the end of the course they get a recognised qualification. Later on they can do a Meisterbrief (the tradesperson equivalent of a masters) after which they can set up their own company and the standard of work is highly regulated. It's a pity trades are so sneered at that this system was abolished in the UK.

We had a gas hob installed just as restrictions on working on the home were lifted. It was about 90 pounds. So I feel that's pricy but depends on area.

I'd love it if there were locally community tool libraries you could join on subscription.

As Pps have said many of these jobs really dont require a lot of skill or training, but they do usually need a few pricey tools, the cost of which means for a one off small job make it not worthwhile to do it yourself.

You are basically paying the tradesman a hefty whack for the tools!

If you have contacted a number of tradespeople and they are all charging roughly the same figure, then that is clearly the going rate. Why do you think that they should do it below market rates? And if they are busy, others are clearly willing to pay it. Maybe your expectations are too low, rather than theirs too high?

Alternatively, do it yourself if you can do it safely for less. If you can’t, then what you are paying them for is their expertise as well as their time.

One hour car service can be hundreds pounds and they don't even use much material. Maybe a filter. 🤷‍♀️

OP ignore the people on here. There are loads of chancers among trades simply because of information asymmetry. Its not purely supply and demand or market prices. It's that it can hard for individuals to find out what others have paid for the same job, also it's difficult to compare two jobs, so it's easy for tradespeople to inflate prices.

It would help if there was a big publically available database where people could log work done & price paid but it's hard to police, you would just get trades people logging in listing high prices to convince people "market" prices are higher.

Maybe mumsnet is the answer. Maybe we need a "what did you pay" forum with some common trades & what you've paid for jobs so we can all see what the real going rate is.