Electrician day rate £500+

[Intsywintsyspider]

i am moving and was going to test and remove 2 chandelier light fittings & replace them with simple fittings and install a new oven.
i have asked an electrician for a quote and he’s stated £350 + VAT for the light fittings and £120 + VAT to replace fhe oven (in the same place as the old oven).
I live in London and appreciate I’m paying for an expert service but this seems crazy expensive. It’s not even a full days work.
Am I deluded?

I think this its not mad. When sole traders set their rates, they have to factor in all the time they'll need for searching for work, not just delivering it, as well as equipment (even if there aren't many parts in the work for you there's the van and insurance), their accountant, etc. Travelling to and from your house too.

But honestly, you can do the oven yourself. It's really easy. Its also pretty hard to mess up, so if somehow you can't do it, you can always get someone in.

It’s expensive but I don’t find it surprising

I think its pretty standard.

We have just had electrician quotes for several different jobs round our house (moving light fittings, changing switches, adding spotlights etc). We have been told its two days work for all jobs. With parts and labour the price has come to just over 1K. This varied and some were even more than that but the cheapest one was a grand.

Standard however many still think they can get this for around £100.00

Taking the absolute pea...it's two hours work at a push! if you think these are standard prices you are deluded! pure greed.. look elsewhere.

Electricians in particular have to factor in cost of keeping up to date with registration and training costs

In London, you need to pay a congestion charge, a hefty parking fee and drive at 20 mph. A lot of tradesmen won't bother with London jobs unless it's really worth their while.

Does the shop youre buying the oven from offer fitting? Or have you already got it?
Light fittings are usually quite straightforward unless theyre old.

Sadly, tradesmen do have to have high prices as although its only a few hours work, theyre unlikely to be able to fill the rest of the day with work so usually charge a full day's work.

It seems OK to me.

I don’t think it is unreasonable, especially in London. it may well be more than 2 hours work, plus travel time and congestion charge

my very good electrician charges £80/hour for his time, plus all the parts etc on top (Mids)

I’m SE and I think our electrician was charging more like £50 a switch. £120 for an oven is what you’d pay from a shop to install it so I think that’s fair.

Do you expect him to charge £12.71 an hour? It’s expensive but I doubt this electrician is charging this much and all the rest are charging 50 quid

If it's just a case of taking one lot of lights out and replacing them you can do them yourself, if you are not confident doing this have you got a relative that could help. We always replace our own lights.

Assume you have got more than one quote? Minimum of 3, ideally 5. Then you can gage if it’s the going rate for the job. Never take the first/only quote.

I have got an electrician coming soon to do several jobs. He thinks it will take two days and has estimated 1k. I'm in the NW.

We are in the North and needed an oven wiring in. Took about 30 mins and charged us £100 cash. Recently had a plug socket added in our garage (easy as took the supply directly from the 2 year old fuse box also in the garage), charged £150 for about 1.5 hours work. So yes I think that's about right for small one off jobs.

Not done an oven before but the lights sound like a simple job tbh.

When tradesmen charge a lot it’s because they don’t really want the job IME.

Didn’t the oven seller offer installation? I’d expect them to offer it at much less than you’ve been quoted.

Getting small job done at fixed times comes out totally disproportionately expensive because it has to carry all the fixed costs, and bring in enough to make it worth doing instead of a full days work. Realistically, those jobs aren’t going to fit into a time that they can reliably book other work in for the same day. The quote time, the invoicing time, the making arrangements time is the same for this job as a weeks worth of work in one house.

I've just had an electrician out to change one broken chandelier for a working one. DH would normally do this himself but it involved a ladder and he just can't be trusted. It cost £90 and took half an hour. I'm up north so admittedly a bit cheaper but £350+ is taking the piss. Get some handy chap in, it's not a difficult job.

Another Brexit benefit, no cheaper Polish electricians any more.

And this is another reason that tradespeople need to charge higher hourly rates, half their time can be taken up providing free quotes.

My dad used to do ours but when he could no longer do it we initially got a sparks in (paid around £50 per light, ten years ago, SE). DH was always scared to touch electrics, but now happily does them if we're taking any when we move, swapping out for a simple rose/flex etc. If he didn't, I'd do it.

I enquired about having a new light fitting and couldn’t even get a quote, too small a job apparently

I just paid a man to remove our electric oven and install a gas one. That was £140 all in. North Yorkshire.

The chandeliers seem expensive unless they are Only Fools and Horses sized.

Not sure what your problem is but every trader I know TELLS you to get additional quotes to ensure you are happy with theirs. It’s marketing and also the way these businesses operate.

And if they don’t need the business they don’t need to go and give quotes, do they? To paraphrase a stock MN quote: It’s an INVITATION to tender, not a SUMMONS.