Why are tradesmen so expensive

  • Thread starter Thread starter fez
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I think a lot of trades are well worth it. If you say you earn 15 quid an hour (which is averageish), for a tradesman to do 1 day work is going to be what 120 quid for a Day's Work, and that's before materials have even come into it. I think people forget that fact. We had our drive done recently and it came to 6k (block paving ~70 sq m's). There were 3 guys and they did it in 3 days, but they were working flat out, the last day they were working for a full 12 hours. I don't mind paying for that as it's minimal disruption and if I was trying to fit that around working it would take months and probably cost more (not including the loss of sanity).
 
Vern1961 said:
Swindon very hard to find tradespeople and more often than not you need to resort to the call centre based outfits in the Thomsons etc. That's generally £80 before they get out the van. The last time we got a plumber out (when a new tap install went wrong, a story I related on here at the time) the guy came from Newport (Gwent) some 60 miles away.

You pays your money and takes your choice and for anything water, gas or spark related I'd rather pay £200 for a decent job than £60 cash in hand to a member of the "travelling community", who happened to "Just be in your area, sir".
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in staffs and i now dont even get the travelling folk ......getting tradesmen is a pita , ive always worked on the basis that if i cant do the job i dont mind paying to get it right but roofers etc never ever turn up.
 
Depends what tradesman and how big a job. But I find it difficult to justify paying a guy top dollar to paint a few walls or hang a few doors, stuff I can easily do myself. Gas/plumbing though, I'll just pay up.
 
supply and demand, when we were trying to get new apprentices back in 2009, the training company said most school leavers were going into computer fields and not many were heading to the trades. I don't know if that carried on past 2010 since i moved to the U.S. A good tradesman here charges minimum of $100 an hour and they can be earing $300k a year.
 
Just getting door quotes and I'm going to do it myself. The extra cost is not worth it.

Skimming the walls. I'll pay that. But watched the vids for door. Looks not to bad
 
My support worker shopped around for electricians to move a switch for me, the best she found out of 4 different people / companies was £75 per half hour of work.

They will visit tomorrow to price it up before doing it and I can refuse if I don't want it - I want it done but not before my furniture survey next month - if I pay to move the switch tomorrow, then the furniture surveyor says they actually can't fit the units I wanted in that space, that would be money wasted.
 
Fitting one of the those front doors is fairly standard.... until something goes wrong that is and then the knowledge and expertise of the installer comes in handy. Also if going for lots of glazing you need Fensa certificate.
 
200sols said:
Fitting one of the those front doors is fairly standard.... until something goes wrong that is and then the knowledge and expertise of the installer comes in handy. Also if going for lots of glazing you need Fensa certificate.
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Yes. This is the only hesitation. If something goes wrong.. No door!

There's no glass in this. Just a door. And I can see where the existing door is just screwed in like new door would be.

I'll make sure I do my research before
 
413x said:
It looks dead easy. No special tools.
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I'm sure it looks dead easy...
200sols said:
Fitting one of the those front doors is fairly standard.... until something goes wrong that is and then the knowledge and expertise of the installer comes in handy.
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As someone with a background in fine carpentry but not building (3yrs college and 3 yrs working as a guitar maker) plus 15 years of DIY... I decided to fit my own garden door this year and it's been the biggest headache ever. The thing that's been painfully obvious at every step has been that while I own and can use all the tools, there's no teaching the various pitfalls and tricks needed to do a good job. If the frame isn't square, or the bottom isn't level, or the previous install was a bodge... Have fun making good on that.

Lots of trades have special knowledge that in my experience can't be taught in colleges or from books/videos. I always seem to find this knowledge learned firsthand on the job and passed from tradesman to tradesman.
 
Had a plumber quote me £300 a day or 60£ an hour... Seems a bit expensive to me?
(id have thought£200/£250 seems about right?)

This is just to some non gas plumbing.

Including:
shower mixer bar replacement , 2 seperate toilet fixes, pressure surge on boiler when filling unvented cylinder, moving radiators, replacement of microbore pipework, hive or tado thermostat

Regardless, if i find him or someone good ill probably go for it.
 
Our plumber (SE, Surrey) is about £200-£250 a day which I think is more reasonable. For an hourly rate / small jobs I'd expect anything from about £50 (very cheap) up to about £80 an hour.
 
I had a structural engineer in the other day to look at a wall that's got a crack in it - He charged £150 + VAT for the luxury of literally a 10 minute visit and a follow up email saying 'buy and fit these' :eek:

I've got a builder in the family and he charges £250 a day, not cheap :(

I've started doing most electrics, plumbing and general DIY stuff myself now. Gutted and fitted a new bathroom recently, took me significantly longer but saved ~£4k doing it myself, learned a lot too :)
 
Funky-Melon said:
I had a structural engineer in the other day to look at a wall that's got a crack in it - He charged £150 + VAT for the luxury of literally a 10 minute visit and a follow up email saying 'buy and fit these' :eek:

I've got a builder in the family and he charges £250 a day, not cheap :(

I've started doing most electrics, plumbing and general DIY stuff myself now. Gutted and fitted a new bathroom recently, took me significantly longer but saved ~£4k doing it myself, learned a lot too :)
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Out of interest (not that I require it) what did the structural engineer require you to do?

If its £150 to sort a problem doesn't seem to bad. One of those "£1 to hit the hammer and £9,999 to know where to hit it" type jobs :cry:
 
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