Advice on labour costs to lay a deck in the back garden

[Nattynoos]

Hello

My husband and i thought that i would be nice to sort out the garden and put some decking at the bottom to put our table and chairs on.
My cousin is in the building trade so i thought that i would ask him to do it.....he came around and said that he did not want to tackle it alone and would ask he mate to help out, its not a very large area but as he has not been doing this sort of thing very long he thought it would be nice to get some help.
They have come around today with the costs and my cousin is charing £60.00 a day labour and his mate is charging £108.75 a day labour as he is more qualified......am i alone in thinking that this is alot of money to be paying people per day or do i need to move with the times LOL????
Would be really grateful to hear what you all think!
TIA
Nattynoos

8 hours for £60 is £7.50 per hour that is assuming you are offering a paid lunch break to your cousin. Would you work for less than this?

His [skilled] mate is charging 13.50, not much I think.

Alternatively you can ask him to give you a quote for the whole job. Then if you think it could be done in say, two days,then work it out at 20 per hour for the two guys.
The cost would be about £320 in labour.

As any job, get a few quotes.

If you really need to save money do preparation yourself, ie clear the site etc.

If he tells you what you need you can get free delivery from Wickes on orders over £45 so you dont need to pay hours for getting/ delivering materials.

Hope this helps

Yes it does onegiantleap.....never worked it out at an hourly rate and it looks worth it now LOL!

Thanks so much

Nattynoos

We installed a deck in the N facing back yard, 6mx2.4m couple of weeks ago. The quotes we received, were in the £800 range, then again, we live in SE.
My Dad was visiting at the time and thought it was way too much for such a simple job and decided to do it himself.
DH was put to work (he's not a builder-type at all) and two of them built us a most stunning deck in just 2 days.
Daddy, being an engineer( and in this instance, a bona fide slave driver, poor DH ), made sure that every last bit would last at least a century and is absolutely perfect. Daddys are the best!!!

The quotes were for the labour only.