Joinery charges - £150 to fit an internal door??

[Eastie77Returns]

I need to have 3 internal bedroom doors fitted. The first tradesman I contacted quoted me £500. I dismissed him as a chancer and asked a couple of other joiners for quotes. They have come back with £150 and £180 per door. I'm shocked. I haven't used this kind of service before but was expecting something in the range of £70 per door.

Can I ask anyone who is London/SE based and has paid to have doors hung recently, how much did you pay? The doors are only £100 each so these prices to get them installed just seem crazy.

You tube is your friend

Oh my life. I was thinking of having the doors replaced in my house. I don't think I'll bother now!

Door Man Dan charged me £120 per door. I needed 11 doors. I was in huge shock but he was lower of the quotes and best reviews. He did an excellent job.

https://www.facebook.com/people/Door-Man-Dan/100060041550516/

Just for comparison, although I know it doesn't answer your question but we are south Wales and just paid 40 per door to be fitted. We did have one quote that was 70 per door. That seems insane! The carpenter was here maybe 3.5 hours.

@colddrytoast I'm just not handy enough to follow any of those DIY videos on YouTube. Believe me if I could, I would.

I wouldn't bother but we don't actually have doors in place at the moment so we need to get these doors hung. If we existing doors I wouldn't bother replacing them as this is just extortionate.

Insane. I'm in NW and was quoted 70 per door.

We just paid £1700 inc VAT to have 4 oak doors and fittings bought and fitted.

(We are south/south east)

It's about right. We paid £1k for 5 doors to be fitted with one already brought. Oak wooden doors. We where handy enough to do the downstairs one into the new frame but we didn't even want to attempt to fit doors in frame from the 70s. Good job we paid as it was a pig of a job for him but he done it much much quicker than we would have done.

Thanks...I understand the huge shock! Ok.

So I think this is a SE England thing and the quote from @roseopose confirms this. My friend in Leeds messaged me and said she thought £150 was 'a bit pricey'. It turns out she thought I meant £150 for all three doors as she paid £45 per door recently.

This is actually insane.

How about posing the question on NextDoor if you have that app. It may be that a competent local handyman could do it for you. I agree that although it seems to be a trickier thing to do than it sounds, it cant be that expensive! Local independent DIY shop might have some leads too if you talk to them.

Good joiners are not one a penny. And it takes a good joiner to properly fit an internal door so it closes nicely and fits perfectly.

Another trade to encourage your kids into.

I really can't get my head around this but ok, thank you for confirming those in diffrent parts of the UK.

All I can say is...I'm going to encourage DD and DS to learn a trade alongside anything else they want to be.

I've heard some horror stories from NextDoor but I'll take a look. I hired someone from there a few years ago and it didn't end well.

The thing I like about NextDoor is that you have personal local recommendations. And you can also then ask them to provide you with references from recent jobs at the time of quoting.

I paid £160 for a set of double internal doors to be hung last October. Opening in the other direction to their predecessor if that makes a difference at all.

I just had 3 internal doors hung - £85 each. 2 are glazed doors. Joiner was really polite and helpful and took pride in his work. We would use him again and highly recommend. We're in SE.
PM if you'd like his contact details

It is actually a really fiddly job to do and not easy to do well. It sounds like a fair price to me.

You can also ask on your local Facebook.

the issue is you’re trying to get someone to do it on the cheap and as much as you might find someone who makes a decent crack at it, you might just find they are cheap and available for a reason

Hanging doors is quite s precise job. They need to fit correctly and be balanced right in order not to swing open or shut. Often a lot of fiddly adjustments to be done. And depending on door, there's the drilling and fitting of handles/knobs which is fiddly. It's not a job any odd handyman can do properly

You can’t balance a door when hanging it, the reason they either open or close by themselves is due to the frame being out of plumb one way or the other.

This. Hanging doors is the only thing I don’t do myself (other than boiler services / electrics that are regulated)

I genuinely didn’t think £70 - £80 per door (price I was expecting to pay) was doing it on the cheap. I know this is a specialist job and needs to be done properly hence contacting joiners and not general handymen.

I accept my original budget was too low but I still don’t think £500 to hang 3 doors is reasonable.

It’s probably a steady days work. £500 doesn’t sound too bad. It’s not straightforward to do well, especially with old door frames.
Inflation is running at over 10%, and there is apparently is a shortage of good tradesmen, so prices are toppy.

I have been using an amazing joiner who charges £280 for a day’s work, in which he’ll do a solid 8 hours. He’s done all kinds of work for me including rehanging doors. Surely it will be possibly for you also to find a joiner who will work to a day rate. I’m also in London.