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

That sounds about right. You are not only paying for his time to do the work but his ability to do it. Seems reasonable.

Doctors are on annual salaries, with pensions and other benefits. They don't spend time doing unpaid activities such as quoting, invoicing, their accounts, repairing their tools.

It's just different.

You pay more for an hour of tutoring than a teacher would get for an hour for the same reason.

That's great. But if he drills through your water pipe or something similar, bear in mind that he's probably not insured and you won't see him for dust.

This. Precisely.

Then if it wasn’t a skilled job you should have got a non skilled person to do it. One off jobs are always expensive. If you use a handy man then it’s best to wait until you’ve got at least half a days work for them.

We had a handyman do something for us recently and we've recommended him to everyone as his rates were super cheap and he did a a great job. He charges £45 for the first hour and £25 for every subsequent hour or part of. So 1hr 20mins would have been £70.

Most handymen round here have a half day minimum charge of around £150+ with full days (which will be charged if you go a minute over the half day) of £250+

@Mottledhellibore and yet you didn't want to do this yourself?! It seems to me that you are one of those people who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing

It sounds about right cost wise.

I think where you've gained from the relationship is having someone prepared to come and do a small amount of work as a one off. That's what I've always found difficult, as it isn't worth their while to do an hour or two for one person, and try to fit in another person or more the same day.

We now batch jobs up and pay a handyman a day rate once or twice a year which works out cheaper overall.

I'm not a chef but I'm very good at cooking and I don't charge my friends a penny when I cook them a meal.

I'm not a childminder but I'm very good at looking after children and I don't charge my friends a penny for watching their children for an hour.

I'm not a taxi driver but I'm very good at driving and I wouldn't charge my friends a penny to give them a lift.

Do it yourself if it’s so easy 🙄

Difference being if you need it spelled out that those tasks are not how I make my living

But you can't work consecutive hours at that rate on small jobs. It's often why small jobs are so expensive because you never know quite how long they'll take as simple things often uncover unseen problems.

Then you have to travel to the next job, have the discussion about what the customer wants (not forgetting that you've already been round to price it up, see what needs doing etc).

People forget all these hours, the collection of materials (okay not the case here) the time it takes to load the van because you can't leave tools in it overnight, the invoicing, replying to messages etc.

Those with a PHD wouldn't like to be paid only for the hours they deliver lectures and do all of the prep and marking for free.

So despite you being told by several people this is the going rate for a skilled, insured tradesman who has travelled to do this job, you still think it should have cost a lot less.

It was skilled because you couldn't do it. You didn't have the skill or the tools.

You would have messed it up, possibly gone through a cable or cracked the plaster etc.

Do you normally think tradesman are unskilled?.

Well if it was nothing skilled why didn't you do it?

That sounds like a fair price to me.

You say it was nothing skilled and just screwing planks, but it took him 1hr 20mins.
That does not sound as straight forward as you are making out - sorry.

You can't expect a tradesman to charge by the hour, for a start he's got overheads and also probably charged half a day rate. I don't think you can expect to pay much less than half a day rate as he'll have lost half a day to doing the job as he's going to struggle to find another small job to fill the rest of the morning.

An all day job is often more cost effective as it only requires one lot of travel time to-and from. It might sound counter-intuitive, but small jobs can be more hassle than they are worth. They will be in different locations, they all need travel time, plus the time spent getting the gear out and then cleaning and packing up at the end of the job.

Which is why they need to price in the 'hassle factor' - and then the cost for doing a small job might feel disproportionate. You can get round this by saving up the non-urgent small jobs so that there is a day's work there.

Or in your case OP, if it was as simple as screwing three lengths of wood to a ceiling and not a skilled job, then you could have fired up YouTube and done it yourself and saved 80 quid.

£80? For an hour’s work? He’s done you a favour

Sound reasonable. Nothings cheap nowadays.

Most handymen I use have an hour minimum, so for an hour and 20 mins work it would be 2 hours. £40 an hour seems very fair to me, he has to make a living.

Suggest you do it yourself next time if its that simple.

Nearly two hours work, plus travelling time. I think it is probably going rates. An electrician charged me nearly £70 to replace a bathroom light switch. I think he was in my house for less than 20 minutes, and he used my step ladder!

I actually think that's pretty good. He may have already reduced the price for you.

I think you've had fairly conclusive feedback here. Handymen are like gold dust. Find a good one and hang on to them for dear life. It took us 18 years to find a great one and now 2 years later we are moving and will have to start again. Most people want the bigger jobs as there is more profit to be made. Profit is what pays people's mortgages and bills. Petrol is expensive, materials are expensive and profit margins are lower than in previous time periods. The most cost effective way to get odd jobs done is to save them up and hire someone for 1/2 day to a day to do them all. Sometimes it is worth paying the higher charge to get something done - you need to do a cost / benefit analysis. I'm amazed it didn't occur to you to discuss the price beforehand. Would you have let someone you didn't know into your home to do work before agreeing a price? I'm guessing not, so not sure why you think this is different. The benefit you are getting from using someone you know is that you know them. That is all. If you are lucky, you'll have seen their work (perhaps on their own house) so you know it is quality. A cheap deal is not a benefit you should be expecting, especially in the current climate.

The part about it not being skilled work, frankly is just rude.

Shame the OP doesn’t know you, or your husband. 😊