I've been done but he's my friends husband

[Mottledhellibore]

My friends husband is a tradesman. I asked if he could cut and screw 3 lengths of planks to a small bedroom, cladded ceiling. I had bought the wood. He took and hour and 20 minutes to do it. I will be painting. He charged me £80. I feel this is excessive and want to ask if he had included the planks in the price
The issue is he is my friends husband and I don't want to cause any awkwardness but equally I feel hurt that I've been taken advantage of. I didn't expect it for free, just not that price. Any thoughts? Thank you

Sounds about right.

That'll teach him.

This.

Both my DBs are tradesmen, one has never ever done mates rates or friends and family discounts, he has always made it very clear this is his livelihood. The other is always skint and tired because he’s constantly doing favours for his mates.

I also never use my DBs I want to make sure I have recourse if anything isn’t what I paid for.

Sounds like a half hour job at most though.

Never use friend’s or their partners as trades people. I have and it ended badly.

£80 for less than 1.3 hours of work with no cost of materials is £61.50 per hour or £492 per day. Tradesmen charge the earth. I know some professionals with PhDs and 20yrs exp in their field who are paid less than this. But I know it's the going rate 😭.

But the job is now done so be thankful it was done properly.

@wishiwasjoking

Sounds like a half hour job at most though.

The OP has said that the job took an hour and 20 minutes.

I'm another who thinks that's in the normal range.

What would you expect to pay?

How much did you want them to charge?

That sounds a bit less than the rate where I live. Self employed do not get annual leave, paid holidays. And tradespeople ard in high demand and have long lists. Great to get somebody promptly to do a professional job.

That’s a perfectly reasonable price.

Yeah but those not doing the job dictate how long it takes

I had a handyman (jack of all trades type) do a few jobs for us before Christmas and it was £30 per hour, up from £25 when he came round a few years ago. I guess it depends on your area and the going rate for that trade.

You'll have to chalk it up to experience. You should always agree on a fixed price up front. Ask for a quote in future.

Seriously??

I charge at least 80 quid an hour for easy freelance work I can do in my jammies.

To pay less than £1 a minute for a skilled tradesman is a bargain.

You are imagining things. It is 100% a reasonable price. YABU.

Definitely get a price before you agree to having work done. He might have added the travel in and rounded it up to 2 hours or may have a minimum charge. Did he do a good job?

I don’t think people always realise how a skilled trade can be much better paid that careers you’d need a degree for. Trade skills are valuable and sought after, even if they make it look easy.

I’d have painted the planks first, only because I hate painting ceilings.

Did he do a good job? My DH is self-employed, and he would never take the piss out of anyone. He is fair, upfront and honest, and his business relies on that. The amount of 'friends' who want friend discounts is amazing. The only 'friends' that really do get discounts are our family, very good friends, and other tradies, who will more than likely return the favour with their skills.

I think that’s a fair price.

My DP is a tradesman with many friends also in the trade. I haven't heard of any that would charge over £60 per hour and expect to work solidly for 8 hours a day.

In an ideal world, it would be amazing to work 8 hours back to back and make almost £500 a day. Unfortunately it doesn't work like that. Travel needs to be factored it and sometimes the timescale is longer or shorter than expected. I imagine the £80 charged is more likely to be a half day rate. Realistically my DP would only arrange 2 jobs a day, so if he charged £80 per job as stated in the OP, he would only make £160 per day. This then needs to cover his tax , NI, private pension obviously no employer contributions so this is quite a high amount. He also pays for public liability insurance and critical illness and injury insurance as he gets no sick pay. He also allows some money for holidays as he has no paid annual leave. He then has travel costs because unfortunately his customers can't come to him. Once you factor all of these additional costs, 2 jobs at £80 per job making £160 a day doesn't leave much.

I think £80 is a fair price to pay for what he had potentially allowed half a day for. My DP actually charges a bit more for a half day as we live in an expensive city. No one has ever argued the price, even if it's a smaller job that doesn't take as much time as expected. We always think that if it's an easy job that someone doesn't want to pay for then they can always do it themselves and buy the tools necessary to do it.

My DP was once given £10 and a bottle of wine by a "friend" as a thank you for being there all day. He was too embarrassed to say that he was there doing his job not a favour. He no longer does jobs for friends without giving a quote first as friends are often the worst at valuing his time and experience.

Probably the best way to proceed. It protects your relationship with your friend.

I dont understand the job, but someone up thread mentioned skilled labour. is this a tricky job requiring skill? Or is it more a handyman job?

I had that with a holiday home - the number of people who came out of the woodwork wanting time away. But funnily enough never to spend time with us in our home. So yes always "friends" rather than friends.

When I say discounts for very good friends, family and other tradies, what I mean is free. He'll charge for materials, but not for his time. I couldn't even imagine him charging my nan, or my 66 year old colleague for his labour 🤣

I don't know if it's reasonable but I'd suck it up in this instance. That's why you often don't use family/ friends of friends. I know someone who hired a work colleague's DH and he completely messed up their house and they then found out he had a track record of it.

For future, I find it best to use people recommended by local community (ask on FB) so you can get a consensus on who's good/ reasonable and be warned against the bad ones.

So did he clad the whole ceiling?