Gas Engineers - why WON"T they break down cost of parts and labour?!

[CoastalWave]

Just had whole new central heating system in installed (boiler, pipework, radiators) £5k +vat.

Paid half but now final part is due, which is fine. But now I'm thinking about how much labour has taken place (not as much as I thought it would involve if I'm honest) , time on site etc and thinking I've been overcharged. So asked for an itemised breakdown on the final bill.

Didn't think this was an unreasonable request (after all, I am paying!) but been told they won't breakdown costs and the price is the price.

I realise I'm in the wrong in the first place for not insisting on this from the off so to speak (there's a reason why I didn't) but I genuinely didn't think they would be a problem asking for one now. if you're genuine, why wouldn't you provide a breakdown?

Have I been had or is this cost the going rate? Any idea why they won't provide a breakdown?

Does it really matter? They gave a price for the whole job, you were happy with the proce for the job, you instructed the work to be carried out, the work was carried out, presumably to the standard you expected, payment is due.

Perhaps they don't want to itemise the bill because you may be a competitor, or working on behalf of a competitor, who wants to work out how to price jobs more competitively than them in order to undercut them.

Have you been had? You agreed the price. Did you get other quotes? If not, why not? If so, how did this quote compare?

You say it didn't take as long as you expected. Did you actually ask how long the job would take?

How long did the whole job take? How many people on the job? Assuming 2 people, 1 week, £2,500 in materials. That leaves £2,500 to pay for:

Wages
Pension
Holiday pay
Sick pay contingency
Advertising
Time spent travelling to and from places to quite for the job in the first place
Vehicle
Fuel
Vehicle insurance
Trade insurance
Training & qualifications
Trade body membership
Certification & notification of job completion to trade body
And anything else I cant think of - of which there are probably many.

As long as you're happy with the quality of work, pay the bill and don't worry about what proportion was materials and what was labour. You were happy with the proce before. What difference does it make?

I would imagine that it'd be impossible to quantify labour in the original quote. So many variables could affect the time taken to do the job with so many different elements involved. Even just servicing a boiler and central heating system can take varying amounts of time depending on what they find as they go along. Yes, they probably gave you 'worst case scenario' in terms of the Labour part of the quote, but you were happy with that. Would you have preferred for them to have gone with 'best case scenario' for labour and then asked for more money with a list of reasons why, ie issues they found as the job went on? I don't mean to sound short in my response but I bet it's difficult to quote for a job like that with so many unknowns.....

Some do, we paid £140 per day plus parts. But it's too late after the work to ask. The reason many want to be somewhat opaque is that plumbing supplies don't cost that much, I replace my own radiators, they cost about £70 each plus a roll of plumbing tape (which does several)

Great post Andrea I second everything you have said.

You agreed to the price and to ask for a breakdown now just means you are going to start questioning things and seek a lower price on the basis of 'that's a bit steep' or 'why is that bit so dear'

I think the refusal to give a breakdown is entirely correct seeing as you agreed to a price you were happy with. Just pay it.

Sounds about average tbh.

Probably doesn't want to give breakdown as many plumbers and gas engineers by pipework and bits in bulk so have it on the van read, but they have already bought it.

Depends on boiler you bought because they all cost different. Did you have it relocated? Any additional radiators? Did you upgrade pipework throughout?

It's too late now Op. You need a breakdown at the beginning. As you agreed the price, you will have to pay.

I usually supply most items then pay just for labour, as its the cheapest way to do things. Usually when they quote all in, they put on x amounts for profit and usually make x amount on top of buying parts trade price also.

Most people can access trade prices and less just by using the Internet.

I also don't like standard rads, so I buy my own online. Horizontal ones take up so much space, so I go for as many vertical ones as possible.

FWIW, £5k+VAT sounds like a good price. We've just had a new heating system installed and we paid around £7k for it - for a large 4 bed house, and £1500 was on nice radiators for the ground floor.

Yep, as said, a lot of the stock will be from off the van, or with amounts added to it to account for the fact that the gas fitter has sourced it, laid out for it, arranged transport, etc- honestly, if you knew the time that goes into finding the right size bath, then a screen that fits, then does the shower have the right valves, etc, it takes FOREVER. Then the labour cost is hard to quantify, especially if you're asked after the fact. Yes, he might have only taken 2 days to fit your boiler, due to pipes being in better condition than expected or something needed to be moved. But at the same time, he may have needed to reroute the pipework, or brace the flue, or make up a backplate since one that fits isn't available in time. Never mind quoting for time for pricing, sourcing, writing quotes, etc, which everyone hates paying for!

At the end of the day, when approaching a trade, you either need to quote for parts and agree a day rate, which comes with risks of its own, or you ask for a quote and know that you're either going to get lucky if there's problems or be paying over the odds if it's easier than expected.

And I appreciate it's radiators here, not a bathroom as I used in the example above, but that's worse! Having to calculate BTU s then find radiators that fit the calculations, the aesthetics, the timescales and the budget, making sure the boiler is strong enough for the new system, putting on all of the necessary add ons- trvs, magnaclean, scale reducer, possibly a pump, copper is stupidly expensive. There's a lot of scope for mistakes!

To be honest if you're a main contractor and giving someone a lot of work you would do it as time and materials, but it's basically like being employed, you're near enough getting a flat rate for plodding work out day after day.
Anyone with business sense ie doing scoped jobs would be far more efficient to find the jobs that they can do well and are valuable to the customer, quote what the job is worth rather than time and materials, and do a quality job, more reliably and more quickly than your time and materials guy. Then everyone should be happy in theory.
To use an analogy if you used to get bricks for a pound each from the builders merchant made using an old machine and they said they got a new machine that produced more consistent bricks and you could have them for 90p each now, would you be unhappy if it turned out the better machine actually produced bricks twice as quickly?

You agreed the price of the job at the start, you are only asking for a breakdown to get money off so I don't think you'll get a breakdown they will know this is what you're trying.
Tbh the time to query the price was at the start not now the work is complete and you don't want to pay, that's really not fair.

What absolute BS some come out with. I suspect the reason they don't want to provide a breakdown is they have experience that when customers ask its because they want to argue the bill.

If a part is "off the van" or bought in its still not difficult to price, yes copper prices change but you don't need to go that deep a breakdown could be £2000 hardware £3000 labour etc.

I also suspect you've been quoted a price & if it works out it takes longer than they thought they lose out a bit, if it's quicker then you lose a bit that's what happens with a fixed price. I'm sure they'd have happily installed on an hourly rate basis until its finished but then you'd not know the final price until the end.

I recently got a price for moving house a fixed cost if it was easier than they thought I pay more per hour than necessary if not then I save (I saved a LOT fwiw) & that's similar to what you've got here.

Imho if you're happy with the price & happy with the work then just pay up & remember don't upset these guys over nothing because that's who you're going to need if a warranty issue pops up if you annoy them now you'll pay later iykwim.

Mine did. We had a new boiler and thermostatic valves on all the radiators fitted about 4 years ago. 3 bed detached house, 20 years old. I found the bill when sorting out a drawer last week, it was something like;

Boiler - £900
Thermo valves x 10 - £200
Pipework - £100
Labour - 2 people x 1 day - £500

This was a local Gassafe company, recommended by Worcester Bosch. They were less than half the price of British Gas.