Plastering - feeling a bit ripped off!

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Got a quote from a plasterer.

Room 14ft x 12ft
skim ceiling flat over old artex
board over chimney breast and refit coving around the breast. Skim 3 walls and around large window.

Quoted 4 days to do the job, said it would be tricky due to artex.

Cost £1300

They came and did 5 hours work yesterday and 6 hours today. Have finished and yes, it’s a nice job and they admit it went a bit easier than they expected.

Even though it’s taken 2 whole days less they won’t budge on the price. And they want cash. Well I can’t get cash out so bank transfer it is.

Why do trades lie and make out the job is bigger than it is. I feel pretty mugged off!

You are being a piker.

You were happy with the price before they started so why are you not happy now? £1300 sounds reasonable to me.

How many other quotes did you get- of just the one?
Why wasn't payment method mentioned/asked at the quote stage?
Its a good/average price to include the materials. Also depends which part of the country you are in?

We've just renovated a large, 4 bed house. We had 2 trained plasters and 1 apprentice each day. We have very high ceilings and they used metal stilts to the ceilings! Incredible to watch, but very labour intensive work. Getting enough water in the mix, lifting the stuff up to the ceiling, mixing etc. They'd often just have tiny shorts on with sweat dripping off them, and all fit and thin! (I wasn't watching, really, I wasn't 😳)

Seems a fairly reasonable price. Wallpapering a 5m x 4m ceiling costs around £750.

This is the difference between a quote and an estimate.

If you got a quote - then that's the cost agreed for the job and that's what you should pay regardless of whether it takes more or less work than expected.
If you get an estimate then the price can be adjusted to reflect what occurs on the job.

Agree with posters above - 2 men for 2 days = 4 man days.

My partner is a plaster he charges 140 a day so that dose seem way to much tbh .

I think it must depend somewhat where you are.

That's a labourer or trainee rate around here, fully trained plasterers charge much more in line with a PP below who mentioned £225 a day.

I think that’s not a bad deal, depending of course where you are. In London, you can easily pay more than that for this job.

And travel! I don't think it sounds too bad.

He is falling trained plaster that's how much he charges he been doing it for 19 years now but yeah all depends on where you live so on the person maybe

Seems about right to me and we’ve had our whole house done recently.

Our builder did most of it and we paid day rate of £250-£300 for labour only (him and an apprentice with varying hours). We had to buy all the materials which racked up and the standard of work was…variable. I’ve spent countless hours touching up and sanding down the rooms that aren’t done well.

Now we pay a friend’s brother to do the odd last bits - he charges us between £150 - £300 for half a day’s work depending on the scale of the job and that includes materials. His plastering is superb, smooth as a baby’s bum and never needs touching up.

If the job’s been done well, count your blessings and move on. You were happy with the price before they started and you’ve got the outcome you wanted.

Sounds like a really good price to me

That’s a labourers wage atm. Is he newly qualified ?

Is that nominally an 8 hour day? So £17.50 an hour for skilled work, he's not paying himself enough, you can hardly live on that.

You'd be pissed off if it took them longer and they wanted more money or only did 4 days and didn't finish because you only wanted to pay the amount quoted

You got a quote for the job, the quote was fine
They did the job
Now pay them
He hasn't stiffed you in any way he's done exactly what you wanted

He should have been clear if he had inflexible payment terms though ie only taking cash especially as most people have a daily limit on cash withdrawals from a cash machine. That's a bit daft .

DH is a plasterer and charges £280 daily rate, for labour and materials OP's job would have been at least £2000.

I’ve been to see him and told him it’s a bank transfer only. There was no mention of cash on the ‘texted’ quotation. He wasn’t happy but accepted it when I told him we don’t deal in cash. Simples.

My plasterer with 20 plus years experience charges £250 a day (Yorkshire) and then materials on top. He will always break down a quote into the number of days and how much the materials are before he comes.

He has a plasterer's radio that is pristine, same with the floor and ceilings after he is done, there are never any splat marks on his clothing, if you didn't see him plaster you would think he lied about what his job is. The surface is like glass when he is done so I will have him back time after time.

And I ought to add, he’s not fully plastered the walls, only skimmed where the dado rail was removed

He definitely ought to up his rates. I've been telling my boiler/gas guy this for years and he finally did it :) He'd been charging the same for almost two decades, so it was worth about half in real terms.

I have told him to up it he from a sea side place and I'm from London so he keeps saying London prices are different I dnt know

Ditto

Importantly, the bonus, you like the job and that is priceless

I never hire anyone by the hour- I say give me a price, I want a good finnnish like the rest of our home and I would be happy if they left after 5 mins all done

You got a good deal IMO

When they gave you the price and now this drip feed - did you expect them to stay there for a few days???

My Mum has a quote in from a plasterer for her L shaped lounge/diner - probably twice the size of yours. It includes for loft insulation in part (part ceiling came down to water ingress), re-boarding, skimming over all ceiling and two coats of white paint - this is for all the ceiling, nothing else.

Unless it's been done on a daily rate, then they've done the job they quoted for. Only thing I wouldn't be happy is that they're suddenly asking for cash.

Oh, I forgot to say he quoted £2300+VAT.