Kitchen plumbing quote - expensive?

[SunnyUpNorth]

We are having a new kitchen installed over the next few weeks.

The fitter recommended a plumber he usually uses and as there isn’t that much plumbing work involved we didn’t think the quote would be much so agreed to have him around.

He has sent me through the price today and I’m really shocked. We have done quite a bit of work on our house over the last few years so had a rough idea what it would be.

The work is to replace two radiators, in the same location. The new radiators are a few cm smaller so the pipework will have to be slightly adjusted.

The sink and dishwasher are currently in the island and these are moving to a counter alongside the island, probably a metre away. The drainage already goes out under there so it will be the hot/cold feed that needs moving. Then installing a boiling water tap.

The person buying the kitchen is doing all the removing and capping off so he won’t be required for that.

He’s quoting £1500.

I always casually ask someone how many days the work would take them. You'll then know what their day rate is (don't forget materials)

£250 a day for a plumber is what's being charged in our area.

In my experience, what a plumber would charge for a few odd jobs - moving the dishwasher, plumbing in a new radiator etc and what they charge as soon as they hear the words ‘new kitchen’ are completely different!

Our kitchen guys were able to do most of the plumbing work, the plumber popped in for a few hours here and there. The bill came to £3K and we supplied the materials! Madness.

Sounds pricey to me. £250 for a days plumbing round here.

Just had 4 new rad- 2 incl moving pipework and lifting/replacing floors. Had a leak fixed, tap tightened, new tap and overflow fitted. Over 3 call outs. Total £400.

That sounds reasonable to me. But I live in Ireland so maybe plumbers are more expensive here? E g. Replacing radiators means draining whole system doesn't it? Then filling and air locks etc, it's maybe not as straightforward as it seems?

Mixed responses!

I’ve asked a local friend who recently had a kitchen done and she thinks it’s about right. He’s the mate of the fitter so I feel like he might have quoted on the expensive end thinking it was a done deal he was doing the job.

We paid less in 2021 for plumbers to completely resite the rising main supply (we dug and backfilled the trench though), move some piping temporarily into plastic so plasterboarding and plastering could be done, and then come back a third time to redo all the weird and wonderful old piping to sink, mains and dishwasher into nice new copper, and make it neat and tidy. Bits of the jobs were a stinker- having to drill a new hole for the mains in a two-skin Accrington brick wall plus concrete- the lad sat there on the floor with the core drill grinding away slowly for over three hours. And the in/out pipes for the rest of the house were embeddded in the wall and needed a lot of fiddly work to get the new pipes snugged close the the new wall. Your quote seems pricey, unless you're in a very expensive part of the country.

@BlueMongoose thanks. I’m comparing it to all the pipework we had to have done when we had our cellar converted, all new rads etc and it seems so expensive. We are in the north west so not a mega expensive area but I am finding everyone is very busy at the moment so maybe they can throw out crazy prices and just do the jobs where people are willing to pay that.
I’ve arranged for a couple of other plumbers to come out tomorrow to quote.

Very expensive. Get at least 3 quotes hun

Also see if you can look up reviews for the plumber