£270, £560 and £1481 - these are three quotes for the same work. How can that be?? need advice!

[emkana]

I've had such wildly differing quotes for work that includes one new radiator, 7 new valves and chemically flushing the heating system - and I want to make up my mind whether to go for the cheapest quote or the middle one. I've looked up the prices for the valves and the material and by the looks of it that would amount to about £200 to £250. So is another £300 pound justified for labour/flushing the system? Or is that wildly overpriced really as well? The £270 guy seemed a bit dodgy and he smelled a bit of alcohol at 10 in the morning, so not sure about him - but if his quote turns out to be the only realistic one...

HELP! Can't get any more quotes, it was difficult enough to nail these three down.

Thank you for advice!

We paid £200 to flush the system.

I would imagine that 250 guy will SAY he's flushed the system and hope you never find out.

£560 sounds about right.

I would go for the middle one if you can afford it, as you say smelling of alcohol at 10 in the morning isn't good and if he seemed dodgy you are better off staying clear - might end up costing you more in the long run to correct his mistakes.

£270 seems too cheap to me for the work you've been quoted for ... not sure I'd trust the guy either, if he seemed dodgy and had been on the bottle at 10am! Was he from a company or is he independant? Was he registered with a trade association?

Thanks ladies, that's really helpful. Isn't the £1481 one incredible though? It fits in with what somebody told me once: that companies, if they're too busy, will give a quote which is far too high, but if somebody is willing to pay that, then they will cancel other jobs for you...

the dodgy guy is Corgi registered, yes. He was also wearing track pants, even worse than smelling of booze.

Agree about your theory emkana. We had some outrageous quotes for replacing our bathroom and ensuite and a couple of no shows/not interesteds. It was still a few thousand £s of work but obviously they busy enough to pass it by . Middle one sounds ok - we had it done as part of a boiler replacement by British Gas a few years back - think it came to around £1200.