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Original poster

£52 to put together a chest of drawers - ripped of or reasonable?

213 replies

Fedup2311 · 07/03/2023 18:33

chest of drawers from Argos - 5 drawers. Had for 3 months, husband said will take him 3/4 hours to put together and doesn’t have time. I hired a professional to put together and he did in 2 hours and charged me £52. Is this reasonable? I feel worried as DH will be home soon and will say I’ve been a mug as the chest of drawers only cost us £85.

OP posts:
WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 07/03/2023 23:53

Buying flat-pack furniture that you can't/won't put together yourselves, and also being unwilling to budget for paying somebody else to do it for you, makes as much sense as driving 60 miles to another town purely to save 2p a litre on a tank of petrol.

But sadly, like so many MN threads, this sounds like the subject of paying for the furniture assembly is not really the main issue at all, but just a side symptom.

MrsMiddleMother · 08/03/2023 00:07

Your husband has no right to be angry when he could have assembled it himself for free. Its been unused for months and its finally done, money well spent in my opinion

HollaHolla · 08/03/2023 00:15

I have to admit I wouldn’t even think about buying something I knew I couldn’t put together myself. Given you seem to have not been able to do that, £25 an hour for a professional to do this seems reasonable.
With respect, I’d be making sure I acquired the skills and tools to be able to do this myself in the future. I can manage anything from IKEA/Argos, and I have a physical disability. I live alone, so I don’t have much choice - but have, in the past, asked a pal to come help hold things/put together a large project (a big bookshelf & a bed frame). Being able to do these things yourself is a powerful ability.
If you’re frightened of your partner, however, - about anything - that’s another matter, and I’d suggest you may wish to consider your future in the relationship.

TheCatterall · 08/03/2023 03:19

@Fedup2311 if husbands that bothered then the simple solution going forward is he takes the time to put together the flat pack furniture or he finds someone within his decreed acceptable budget.

Personally I’ve never met a flat pack I can’t put together myself so I’d have given it a go before paying anyone.

JunkinDonuts · 08/03/2023 04:19

He saw you coming op.
If he does flat pack for a living then a set of drawers will have been a piece of piss to him.
He could have done it in 45 mins with his eyes shut when you consider how many he's assembled previously.

Ricketts · 08/03/2023 05:50

DismantledKing · 07/03/2023 18:50

There’s no flat pack in the world that takes 3 or 4 hours to put together

IKEA PAX cupboards disagree

User18695438 · 08/03/2023 06:54

It took DH hours to do the first Pax wardrobe and I had to help but the further ones we got he did quite quickly without my help but they were constructed flat, the first one had to be constructed upright because it was a small room so you need 2 people for the top bit. If they are constructed flat on the floor its quite quick.

coffeecupsandwaxmelts · 08/03/2023 07:31

JunkinDonuts · 08/03/2023 04:19

He saw you coming op.
If he does flat pack for a living then a set of drawers will have been a piece of piss to him.
He could have done it in 45 mins with his eyes shut when you consider how many he's assembled previously.

It doesn't say anywhere that that's all he does it for a living, though.

Most handyman type services charge a flat hourly rate for their time, rather than the service you're hiring them for.

They're also self-employed and need to factor in fuel, insurance, holidays, pensions and sick pay, as well as their taxes and NI.

He's not going to bother coming to someone's house to charge for 45 minutes of work.

User18695438 · 08/03/2023 07:37

It was a fair price

Kitchenette · 08/03/2023 07:48

It’s a fair price for the guy’s time.

It’s expensive because paying people to do basic stuff you could do yourself is expensive. If you paid someone to change a lightbulb and they charged £20- taking account of overheads and travel they’d be making minimum wage but £20 is still a lot to change a lightbulb because you could do it yourself for nothing. Same with this.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 08/03/2023 08:35

It's still not clear why it had to be DH or another man to do this job - and why DH only has himself to blame if he didn't do it.

I can imagine the responses if a man came on saying that the kitchen needed a deep clean, and he'd kept telling his DW that she needed to do it, but that she hadn't, so he'd had no alternative but to pay a different woman to do the job.

All as long as everybody involved is able-bodied, of course.

ThinWomansBrain · 08/03/2023 08:37

wow - all these years and I had no idea that you had to have a penis to put a flatpack together.

Throwncrumbs · 08/03/2023 08:39

That’s more than an ITU nurse gets in an hour, so yes it’s expensive. Why didn’t you do it?

GoodChat · 08/03/2023 08:45

Throwncrumbs · 08/03/2023 08:39

That’s more than an ITU nurse gets in an hour, so yes it’s expensive. Why didn’t you do it?

A lot of people get paid more than them for a less valuable job.

butterfliedtwo · 08/03/2023 08:45

Everything can be a side job, it seems. I had no idea that this was a service people offered.

ZeldaWillTellYourFortune · 08/03/2023 08:48

It's reasonable. Remember he has to pay taxes and overhead out of that.

I have assembled a lot of flatpack furniture in my day and don't see a problem with that fee.

Why do you need to justify the expenditure to your husband & fear he is going to be angry with you? That's concerning.

Mamamia7962 · 08/03/2023 08:53

Redbigbananafeet - It was £150 between them, so you're right it was £37.50 each per hour!

coffeecupsandwaxmelts · 08/03/2023 08:55

Throwncrumbs · 08/03/2023 08:39

That’s more than an ITU nurse gets in an hour, so yes it’s expensive. Why didn’t you do it?

An ITU nurse also gets paid annual leave, sick pay and a pension, as well all their taxes and NI organised for them - a self-employed handyman has to fund every single one of those things out of their hourly rate.

They also have to earn enough to pay for travel in between jobs, insurance, equipment and fuel.

Rainbowshit · 08/03/2023 08:57

Why didn't you do it yourself? My daughter assembled her own flat pack furniture when she was about 11. It's not a hard thing to do.

AlisonDonut · 08/03/2023 08:58

The question isn't were you ripped off, you asked for a quote, he quoted it and you accepted it. He came, did what you asked and then charged you.

If you didn't want to pay he didn't force you, he didn't scam you.

ArcticSkewer · 08/03/2023 08:59

Weird how this was a man job

Mamamia7962 · 08/03/2023 09:00

There's some really rude posters on here. Not everyone enjoys putting flat pack furniture together, not everyone has the time to do it.

If you buy ready assembled furniture you've still paid for someone else to put it together which is why it's more expensive.

queenofthewild · 08/03/2023 09:04

I'd have done it myself. I love a bit of flat pack.

But I'd happily pay that sort of money (and more) for cleaning the oven which is a job I could do, but I hate.

We all have so many hours in the day and it's a case of valuing our own time and paying what we feel our own time saved is worth.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 08/03/2023 09:17

wow - all these years and I had no idea that you had to have a penis to put a flatpack together.

Yes, it's in the parts list as 'Adjustable 8-20cm Multi-Purpose Flexi-Sprocket (1)'.

percypercypercy · 08/03/2023 09:21

Rainbowshit · 08/03/2023 08:57

Why didn't you do it yourself? My daughter assembled her own flat pack furniture when she was about 11. It's not a hard thing to do.

So many people asking this completely irrelevant question. It doesn't matter why OP didn't do it, the question is of finance not furniture building ability.

And FWIW it's great that your 11 year old can build flat pack but that's no measure for anyone else. People shouldn't feel shamed because a child can do something they can't.

The amount of people asking for a medical explanation as well Hmm