Painter booked for 2 days - going to take a lot less

[Marina11]

New painter to us presently completing job in medium sized kitchen - walls; ceilings; door frames; skirting boards.

Quoted £130.00 per day. But is likely to finish in an hour or so so will have taken him a day and about 3 hours. Quick and seems to be very good worker.

Will want him back for slightly bigger job.

Don't quite know what to do .. give him £260.00 or a proportion therefore, obviously after discussion with him. I hate being mean but the job obviously isn't going to take 2 days.

Thoughts please!

Pay him both days. He won't have booked anything else on the basis that you were employing him for 2 days. Thats what you owe him!

Well it's not like he can go out and find some work this afternoon....
Did he quote £260 for the job and said it will take him 2 days. If so, you will have to pay up- especially if you want him back. 130 a day seems quite reasonable.
I would have a chat with him about future jobs and just get a quote for the job, not the time taken.

Inclined to agree - and he has worked hard and the kitchen is looking so much more appealing ...
And he's trying to build up his business.

Yes, he quoted £130.00 per day and at the time assumed it would take 2 days - in fact spoke of coming in if necessary a third day and not charging anymore.

It's normal practice to build in a bit of extra snagging time, I think. I know relatives who charge by he day, and it's unusual from them to finish exactly at 5 pm on the last day.

pay by the job

He said £260 and would come in and finish for no extra charge if it took longer, so pay him in full. In future get a quote for the job, not a day rate.

Thanks all - and happy Christmas!

Ended up paying him £260.00 though work was finished by the end of the morning of the second day. As some of you have pointed out, he'd have been unlikely to get any work in the afternoon - and he's done a good job.

He quoted for the living - a larger room - 4 days work he said (walls, skirting boards - he didn't think the ceiling needed doing - but the walls are tired). A total of £490.00. As with the kitchen, we'd provide the paints.

I asked him for a job quote and he said that I'd be better off with his day rate quote, irrespective of how long the work took. He implied that a job quote would be higher.

I'm not sure - he's pretty good, available but I'm fairly sure that the living room would take rather less than 4 days. And I'd be stuck with paying him nearly £500.00.

Maybe get different quotes?

That sounds good to me. We've been paying our decorator £200 per day.

How many hours did he work overall? Could it be he finished work early on day 2 because he worked a very long day on day 1?

Happy - he started work at about 8 am on the second day, so effectively did a day and a half but we paid him for the full two days because, as others have said, he'd have been unlikely to get work elsewhere for the second afternoon and that was, pretty much, the agreement.

With the living room, it's harder to know what to do because it is very unlikely it will take 4 days (it's not that big!) but he wants the equivalent of 4 full days' work - £490.00. I wish he'd quoted by the job - it would be so much clearer then.

I want to ask him, if he's booked for/is paid for 4 days, to paint the ceiling but he's adamant it's OK - though it was last painted some years ago.

If it's the same as last time, i.e. he'll do the job for £490, even if it spreads into the 5th day, then you might as well think of it as a quote for the job.

If you're happy with his work and think it's a reasonable price given the size of the room, then go ahead. You wouldn't want him to work slowly just to fill in the hours he estimated.

Sounds fair to me, we had just walls painted in our lounge and cloakroom and 2 walls in our Kitchen. Our decorator is £120 a day and quoted three days £360 for the job. We were going away for the weekend, so he came and did a bit of prep on Friday night then worked 8-8 on the Saturday and called at lunchtime on the Sunday to say he had finished. He put all my curtains and blinds back up and left the place spotless. He is a young lad with two small children trying to get his business of the ground, I wouldn't of dreamed of paying him any less. Like Thymeout says he is basically quoting you for the job.