jell36

I like this, it's getting me closer to my 350 posts for my free forum sticker.

I don't care one bit how much you pay your staff. I started this thread to highlight the fact that I personally don't think tradesmen are worth what I've been getting quoted and charged. Then you comment on how much overheads etc you have to pay, therefore justifying what you have to charge your customers. But the point of the thread isn't about what companies charge, it's about what individual tradesmen charge, and in my experience its around £300 a day. Now moving on to my cars, other folk on hear have agreed that "some" individual tradesmen, quote's are based on how affluent there customers look. Now I'm not suggesting I'm affluent but the fact you sacrifice things to have a nice car should not have an impact on it. Finally, I stand by my comment that individual tradesmen are not worth any more than £150 a day. Some are like plumbers and sparkys but £150 is about right for a joiner (can be a bit more but can be a bit less).

My neighbour is a plumber .............. oops, I mean heating engineer..... and he has openly admitted to me that his fees have been (in the past ???) based on the house, the car, the appearance etc of the customer I knew it! A lot do it Stuarty, if they think they can get away with charging more because the customer looks affluent then some will try it, if they loose out on the work because of the price then hard luck but it's the risk people take.

I still agree that £300 a day for a joiner is expensive though.

Stuarty may hate me for this but I would say he may well be an engineer as not many people outside of the industry know all of the IMechE chartership levels or any other engineering council and the technician level is relatively new.

But then the tools allow the job to get done quicker and so saves time So if you had 2 joiners, one with a hammer and chisel (don't know how you spell it) and one with all the latest power tools, the one with the power tools would get the job finised quicker (genrally at least, not always) and so could command a higher day wage because they get more done in a day along with having to cover the cost of the tools. You could argue that the power tools man can get more jobs done in say a week and so earn more money but that's not how business works unfortunately. I think the mentallity (and I don't argue with it) is that there is a finite amount of work and so getting the job done quicker means more free ime to do what they want as opposed to getting more work in.

Interesting and I agree and this is a whole new box of frogs ... the term "Engineer" covers many things in the UK and has, IMO, been severely bastardised and diluted over the years ... for instance, being able to successfully change the spark plugs on a tractor does not make you an engineer, whereas knowing how to design the engine and the best place to put the spark plugs in a tractor probably does Yeah, I'll save the rest of my arguments for another time as they aren't relevant to this thread. I like your example though especially as I studied automotive design and have worked on engine designs for Perkins, I might remember that one for the next time someone says to me "So you're a mechanic?"

Sorry I disagree, if the guy said £300 and would take 2 days fine. If I came home and as you said had a nightmare doing the job, I would honestly give him extra. But I expect the same in return. Then my friend you are in a very small minority and fair play to you Id just like to add not all of us are like that and i don't know about the chap you used but i have over £60k's worth of tools in my lock up which unfortunately need paying for some how £60,000 worth of tools? Are you running a workshop or are they not just joinery tools or do you have multiples? As that seems a little excessive. Granted my dad has about that in tools but £30,000 of that is a big workshop saw thing that cuts, planes, mitres, routersand all the rest of it but that's an industrial unit that runs off a 3 phase power supply. The rest of his stuff like the dewalt drills, paslode nail guns, dewalt mitre saws, dewalt table saws, laser levels, several routers etc are only worht around 30K at the most and I don't think he is missing any tools. Whilst i'm only a mere 39 years of age I directly employ other tradesmen and have the old school mentality that they should only have to supply there hand tools and a cordless so with that in mind i have multiples of the same power tools Ah ok, that's more than fair enough then. So the cost of the tools aren't just covered by the work that you do but also the work that your employees do. Exactly But I still think that the op was over charged just trying to say were not all like it. I'm not trying to say all are like it, as I said my dad is an experienced and highly regarded joiner and he only charges £120 a day, £150 a day is perfectly reasonable to me.

Sorry I disagree, if the guy said £300 and would take 2 days fine. If I came home and as you said had a nightmare doing the job, I would honestly give him extra. But I expect the same in return. Then my friend you are in a very small minority and fair play to you Id just like to add not all of us are like that and i don't know about the chap you used but i have over £60k's worth of tools in my lock up which unfortunately need paying for some how And if I stayed in England, rather than Scotland my education would cost me over £100k I did a 5 year apprenticeship for £27.50 a week yts money and payed for my own college courses aswell whilst being a young married man with children so paid my dues too. Not saying that what you paid was right and agree it was to expensive but just because i haven't got a degree doesn't meen im not entitled to earn a good living. I would be careful with this one as I agree you were on a low wage during your apprenticeship but what do you think students are earning when they are studying at uni. For me it was a part time supermarket job as it could accomodate the hours I could work and I needed the money, I came out with around £80 a week (working evening after a full day at uni, engineering isn't like most uni courses, it's generally 30 hours a week minimum not 6 hours like some other courses), my friends in apprenticeships at the same time were coming out with around £250 a week

Sorry I disagree, if the guy said £300 and would take 2 days fine. If I came home and as you said had a nightmare doing the job, I would honestly give him extra. But I expect the same in return. Then my friend you are in a very small minority and fair play to you Id just like to add not all of us are like that and i don't know about the chap you used but i have over £60k's worth of tools in my lock up which unfortunately need paying for some how £60,000 worth of tools? Are you running a workshop or are they not just joinery tools or do you have multiples? As that seems a little excessive. Granted my dad has about that in tools but £30,000 of that is a big workshop saw thing that cuts, planes, mitres, routersand all the rest of it but that's an industrial unit that runs off a 3 phase power supply. The rest of his stuff like the dewalt drills, paslode nail guns, dewalt mitre saws, dewalt table saws, laser levels, several routers etc are only worht around 30K at the most and I don't think he is missing any tools. Whilst i'm only a mere 39 years of age I directly employ other tradesmen and have the old school mentality that they should only have to supply there hand tools and a cordless so with that in mind i have multiples of the same power tools Ah ok, that's more than fair enough then. So the cost of the tools aren't just covered by the work that you do but also the work that your employees do.

Sorry I disagree, if the guy said £300 and would take 2 days fine. If I came home and as you said had a nightmare doing the job, I would honestly give him extra. But I expect the same in return. Then my friend you are in a very small minority and fair play to you Id just like to add not all of us are like that and i don't know about the chap you used but i have over £60k's worth of tools in my lock up which unfortunately need paying for some how £60,000 worth of tools? Are you running a workshop or are they not just joinery tools or do you have multiples? As that seems a little excessive. Granted my dad has about that in tools but £30,000 of that is a big workshop saw thing that cuts, planes, mitres, routersand all the rest of it but that's an industrial unit that runs off a 3 phase power supply. The rest of his stuff like the dewalt drills, paslode nail guns, dewalt mitre saws, dewalt table saws, laser levels, several routers etc are only worht around 30K at the most and I don't think he is missing any tools.

Also, alhough you didn't, I hate it when plumbers call them selves heating engineers. An engineer is a very different job and in Germany it is illegal to call yourself an engineer unless you have the qualifiactions and in America it is highly frowned upon and considered a lie unless you have the qualifications and are a memeber of an engineering council. In the UK we have highly regarded engineering councils like the Institute of Mechanical Engineers of which I am a chartered member of but the IMechE does sod all to protect the engineering name. Sorry not directed at you specifically stanzed, rant over.

I have no argumants with what you say however it is only plumbers and sparkys that I am aware of who have to keep their qualifications up to date and in my mind both plumbers and sparkys are and should be paid the most out of all tradesman (again I have friends who are plumbers who do site, induatrial and domestic work and electricians who do industrial and domestic work). I would not expect to get a plumber for a full day for £120 however a joiner I would but I would go up to £150. A labourer I wouldn't pay more than £60 a day and no more then £90 for a painter of plasterer. But those prices are my views as I know, and have done in the past, that I can get fully qualified, experienced and highly skilled people in these trades for that money. Going back the the original post, the tradesman was laying a laminate floor, it really doesn't take much skill, a few tools but nothing unusual. Stuarty agreed the job would take 2 days and agreed to the price of the job and so should pay it, as he did. If it had been me I think I would have better estimated the time the job would have taken. As a £150 day rate for a joiner is reasonable to me but then again I wouldn't have gotten a highly skilled joiner in for that job. Fitting doors, making cabinets etc then yes but not for laying a laminate floor that was most likely click lock. I paid a friend to lay my laminate floor that was made of bamboo and so a bit tricky, the room was 6m x 4.5m with a few things that needed to be cut around (fire place half etc), it took him 1.5 days, we agreed on £100 a day but in the end I paid him £250 as he cleaned up after himself and didn't leave sawdust everywhere (he wasn't an experienced and fully trained joiner but he knew what he was doning and had done plenty of joinery work in the past).

To be honest though, from a friend of a friend I wouldn't expect mates rates or anything. I'm not saying the chap wasn't expensive I'm just saying I wouldn't expect him to do you any favours. A direct friend however I would expect a good price.

please don't start on design engineers, service engineers maybe but not design.

Fair enough, to be honest I don't know if they are expensive but they seem it. But then again you may meet with them for an hour and it costs £250 but then I don't know how much time they have had to spend sorting out paperwork and arranging things before hand. And then there's the things that have been mentioned like their overheads, the cost of training etc.

what's wrong with the lawyers apart from being really expensive?

Okay, assuming you're on £350 p/w would you do an extra shift at the weekend for £70 then? On what I earn a week, and I wouldn't work a 6th day for the same amount pro rata. As I said, my spare time is more valuable than work time. Work to live, not live to work. That doesn't mean I don't do the graft when required, but it does mean that I do get to enjoy the time I have off. I think I can understand a differnce here, you can live comfortably and happily on your wages I guess and so working the weekend would have to really be worth your while. Now although I certainly can't speak for all tradesman, most that I know are happy to work the weekend because they could do with the money (not essential to them like they would loose their house or something but a nicety so they don't have to watch every penny or so they could buy themselves something nice like a 350Z)

Most businesses need to set a minimum charge to cover themselves for the jobs that either turn into a nightmare or the ones that get cancelled or you **** up on and lose out. It's about trying to make sure you cover yourself for losses elsewhere in the business. Exactly!! Most people don't understand business and that's why so many go bust that start up. but the OP was not reffering to a business as such, he was reffering to one man bands or at least I think he was. I have no issue with call out charges, not for the same reaosns as Ekona but because it takes time to travel and the customer may not proceed with the work and so that time/cost needs to be covered.

Okay, let me re-phrase it a bit: If you were offered £40 to work one day extra a week, would you? It's all down to what you earn and what you need to earn that decides whether or not you'd charge high for a weekend work, I guess. Percentages, if you will. Why should I work for peanuts at the weekend if I don't need to? Why should anyone? Also, everyone always thinks that all the materials they choose are top quality. They're usually wrong. I'm sure that's not the case with you of course, just a generalisation. I wouldn't work on a day off for less than I earned on a normal work day unless it was for a friend but then I wouldn't charge them more either, I would just say I wasn't interested (too honest for my own good hence I'm not a business man). For the materials I agree with you to a point, if a trades man is sourcing his own materials he wont go for the best and most expensive but also he wont go for the cheapest rubbish he can find unless he has used it before and knows that it wont make a difference to the job. E.g. my dad would never source an IKEA kitchen and he hates fitting them (poor quality, not very sturdy generally, can be bits missing) but at the same time he would not source the most expensive, hardwood kitch units he could find unless he was specifically told to.

Agree that there is nothing worse than supplying your own kit to the tradesman as they know what kit is best and the better kits tend to make their life easier and so the job faster however some put like 30% on the price of the materials for no good reason (it's delivered to the job so they need to make 30% profit from making a phone call?). Yes they pay tax and NI, but wait a minute so do people on PAYE and tax is the same 20% (depending on total income) and NI is around the same. Apart from that they pay nothing more, they do not pay insurance or at least no tradesman I have ever met does and they do not pay business rates. We are not talking about companies that you get in to do the work here, who would pay business rates and employers NI and insurance etc, we are talking about one man bands who don't. Also if you are paying them cash in hand, do you really think it will be declared to the tax man?

I agree with you, tradesman rates these days are extorionate. My dad is an old school joiner/shop fitter he's been doing the job for 35 years and he refuses to charge people more than £120 a day (to me that's fair but to be honest too cheap, around £12.50 an hour labour which includes the cost of tools etc) as otherwise he feels like he is ripping them off even though a full day in his mind is 7:30am - 6:00pm without a lunch break. And then I have friends who will not work for less than £150 a day and they are doing plastering which is much less skilled and requires less tools and they learnt the skill in about a week and a full day to them is about 9:00 am until 5:00pm with an hours lunch break. To add to it my friends will earn around £40,000 a year plus a lot of back handers and I look at myself and think I paid a lot of money to go to uni, worked hard to obtain my education hold down a good engineering design job yet I'm on considerably less money than them, how much of a mug am I? Don't get me wrong some tradesman charge good rates, do good work and care about what they are doing and if it saves me a lot of hassle I will happily pay it but there are a lot with no education/training in the job who aren't very good but think they are the best and they also charge full whack for their services. I'm just relieved that I have many good and close friends in every trade who are happy to help me for free or mates rates when I need it as either I have helped them in the past by labouring, designing something for them, doing structual enigneering calcs for them or my dad has done very cheap work for them at my request to help them out.

Dam, I would come but my car will be in the garage so I would be in a hire car. A little concerned that nobody has agreed this with IKEA and so I suspect the police may turn up, just hope idiots don't turn up and start racing or doing donuts like they used to do at Morrisons in Netherfield as then the police will definetly arrive.

A quote from www.manorcarhire.com We maintain a peerless fleet of high value sports and luxury cars, and offer our clients a smooth and professional service without the need for our client's signing credit hire terms. All hires are agreed with the at-fault insurer prior to the release of the vehicle which removes the client from the potential pitfall of credit hire whereby they could be potentially liable for the charges. In addition (were applicable) we will also arrange for the at-fault insurer to authorise the repairs to the clients vehicle negating the need to pay any insurance excess and the intervention of a solicitor.

Sorry, no, my mistake, I just rang back the number that they called on and it says they are Manor Car Hire (although they have also arranged the car repair??).