Is this a full day for a plasterer?

[Sam9769]

Plasterer came to do some work with his mate yesterday, each charging £220 cash for a day's work.
They arrived about 8.30am and left at 2.45pm, no lunch break.
Plasterer came on his own today at around 8am and left at 1.45pm, no lunch break.
AIBU to think that this is not a day's work?

Do you get paid to travel to work yourself? Majority of people don't.

How did you learn this @BrownTroutBluesAgain I have so many things I need to do - remortaring/pointing is one of them. I need the confidence to do it.

I do actually. My job is quite niche in that my base is from "home" so for any work outside of home, the travel to and from is considered part of the work day.

But its not the majority of people As you said its quite niche. I was vasectomy from home at one point ( self employed) but didn't charge from getting from my house to first customer

I agree, if he actually does a day's work!

Not as niche as you think.

Tradies have to consider travel to/from picking up labourers/builders merchants/parking restrictions.

They might start at 8 at your house but at 7am was at Travis Perkins and 6.30 was collecting their mate for the day.

That's an hour and half before they even start. They have to get the supplies in the morning as most building merchants close early, when their customer like OP still expects them to be working.

We supplied the materials because we could purchase them in B&Q for less then half the price he was offering to supply them.

He was taking the puss? Oh your poor puss. Taken by a pointer

😂 this sorry gave me a cracking laughing start to my day

Id be bloody irritated if it took a trade and hour picking up stuff from TP and getting to my house. As for picking up a mate, we'll that shouldn't be customers responsibility to pay for .

Oh and TP open until 5 so they could pop there after tge 2 or 3pm finish and get stuff for following day. Much more efficient

Haven't you had builders in before? They always start before 9 and are gone by about 3.

My neighbours are having major building work done. Every day for 10 weeks the blokes arrive around 8 or 8:30 and are gone at 3.

That’s a really fair day rate for a plasterer, my DH hires a lot of plasterers for his business, pays £325 per plaster per day, and a full day on site is 8hrs with an hour for lunch so I think this seems ok

You paid for the job and it was done. Are you saying you'd be happier if he did it more slowly? Either you felt the job was worth the money or you didn't.

You do know TP don’t have everything in stock all the time, right? DH often has no choice but to go in the morning as he has to wait on their delivery.

Order in advance. Good tradies are booked up way in advance so they know what they need for the following few days.

But that was your choice. I’m self-employed and visit clients in their homes - while I don’t specifically charge for travel it’s all included in my rates, and tracked via an app so I can claim all my costs back on my tax return.

You can’t always do that. Customers change their mind, jobs take longer than you think, you don’t always have somewhere to store materials.

DH is booked up well into the end of next year but we don’t have unlimited storage to keep everything he might possibly need.

Also, last time he ordered in advance from TP they forgot to deliver and he had to push the whole job back a week.

Why would they be delivering if the customer is being charged an hour for him to pop 5 mins down the rd to collect stuff

Yeah, he left at 1.50pm!

Because he hasn’t got the equipment to collect and deliver several tons of materials?

His prices include quoting, driving to and from the job as well as to and from TP and other builders merchants, the time he spends on admin and writing invoices, the time it takes to clean his tools etc.

Obviously they’re not given a fully itemised bill but it’s all part of what he charges for a job - all self-employed people price like that (or should do, anyway).

My self-employment rates cover all my travel, my admin, wear and tear on my car, equipment, holidays, pension and sick days, plus a whole host of other stuff I can’t think of right now.

My customers don’t receive a breakdown of what goes where, but it’s all included in my hourly rates. Just as my accountant charges me a flat fee but doesn’t give me a bill itemising absolutely everything she does.

But did he have time to do anything else between 1.50 and the end of the day?

The plasterer took the puss who then got taken by the pointer?

This is getting more elaborate by the minute 🤣

I’ve been a member of SPAB for 30 years and volunteer.

I’ve also taken some of their courses

Re mortaring and pointing is not that difficult. Scrub out the old, remove all lose mortar and refill. Then finish off either flat or at an angle. Get used to using a trowel first which tbh you could learn to use by watching YouTube videos.

I work in construction. Based in the office. I don’t get paid travel time to my office, it’s my primary work base. The lads that work for me do get paid for travel time. If they’re travelling from South Yorkshire to Portsmouth and not getting paid for it, they wont be going! Portsmouth isn’t their primary work base. They do not get paid for travelling to the office.

Well spotted. Twists and turns!

I don’t think it’s that easy to find good plasterers so if he did a good job and a sizeable amount of work that seems like an ok rate. They did an average of 6 hours each day (12 on the first day if there was two of them). I would definitely count 6 hours as a full day. 18 hours work for 660 = c £37 per hour. It’s a skilled job and not easy to do yourself so that seems reasonable to me. The caveat is that you haven’t said what job he is doing or what he’s been doing so far if he hasn’t started plastering yet and how long he estimated the job would take or whether he is working at a snail’s pace or whether you are happy with the work so far, so it is pretty difficult to answer. How long is a piece of string? I think you are focusing on the wrong variable though.