Over Charged On Work

[Steve3948]

I have a client who has a primary home in London, he once asked if we would do some work for him at his London address as he was fed up with paying £70.00 + vat per hour to his London electrician and less than half that for work on his country house by us.

Most of our clients have London homes and we are always being asked if we will work on them, obviously at our out of London rate.

Answer NO Thanks.

 

[steptoe]

If I install a socket then that's one item, if I have to move it then that's 2more items, remove existing, fit another, 

So, if your electrician fitted a socket you wakened moved then that's 3 items, I wouldn't be doing 3 items for 100£ and that's cheap NW rates, not London rates. 

 

[M107]

As others have said without seeing the job it is difficult to give a verdict on the price.........sorry.

All you can do is haggle the price I suppose.

 

[SPECIAL LOCATION]

From the limited information given....

Its sounds as though have have had a very good discounted price...

what with the size of the rooms..

Those high ceilings...

Long cable runs back to the CU...

That bit having to get all those cables around that steel RSJ  where the wall was taken down..

All those two-way, three-way and four-way switched lights...

Plus the travel time and distance he had to keep doing for all those repeat visits..

etc....

etc...

etc...

Actually my information is about as useful as your "list" saying £100 per point....

means nothing without more facts...

What do you think is a good price for me to pay for my family holiday next year???????

offers..??

opcorn

 

[Blue Duck]

Just asked a builder to quote me for replacing a window ( I have the replacement but not the time ) and to plaster 4.5m 2 of plasterboard and he wants £650 plus value added tax.

:red card

 

[New Venture!]

Interesting post, as I'm doing the design and install for an extension in Kent. One problem is current building regs insist on so much insulation in roof spaces, leading to heavier cables or alternative routing. Safe zone is my preferred option in my case, but the kitchen section has a cooker hood vent running through the middle of it! So, cable route is much more convoluted than first appears.

Not saying this has happened here, but there can be more issues.

 

[Steve3948]

Ask the builder to keep the insulation up and clip direct below. Safe zone is not safe

 

[New Venture!]

Thing is, his plasterboard has 50mm of insulation glued to it which butts hard against the rafters. Rafter space has been infilled with 200mm of insulation. There is no roof space to run cables where they won't be in insulation. (Might run conduit in stud wall.)

 

[PDG]

Thanks for the response. I hoped that by asking a group of sparks  I would get a feeling for what the job should cost. I fully understand that its hard with the limited information i have supplied. When you have a large group of people working on your house for an extended period of time, the ''good faith syndrome'' can occur, and you forget to follow some golden ''quote first'' rules. Its disappointing if you feel its been  abused but a part of life.When I said work had been altered I  only meant moving one 5 way gang switch 3 feet which he charged £150 and i had no issue with. When I say work added i do mean changing down light plans for say 6 in a room to 10, or double sockets plans from 3 to 5..  all taking time and money but no £k's more i thought...Again, I cant expect a clear rule of thumb answer since you would need to see the job...

I very much take on board some of the good advice pointing out how much extra time it can take to carry out work . I'm going to pay a few credible firms  to come to the site and quote the job, then pay my builder 10-20% more than the highest quote ( if they come in higher than his price, i'll eat my hat.}

As a last resort ill arrange a meeting with the spark and the builder. If the builder has only added the 10% to the bill then he'll have no issue with that....  ( i personally think the spark will burst out laughing).

Many thanks,

 

[SPECIAL LOCATION]

If the spark was employed by the builder and not directly by you....

It may be that the spark has only charged / been paid far less than what the builder claims! 

:C

 

[Steve3948]

We do work for a number of builders who all add a percentage to our tender sum, before building up their package tender price.

We know one adds 12.5% and another adds 17%, they say this is for organising the job, sorting issues between trades and covering their QS costs.

We also often price work form just plans and specification only without seeing anything, over years you start to learn what the worst case will be and allow for it, like block & beam or bare stone walls.

Sometimes there is nothing to look at, it could be fresh out of the ground, you have to use your knowledge and experience.

The final price submitted will take everything into consideration, we add a percentage because we know we will not receive payment for 65 days, yet we know the builder gets payment before each month end.

If we all got paid within 30 days I really think a lot of these jobs would be much cheaper, but with everyone in the chain hanging onto the money for as long as they can it only makes the job more expensive.

 

[Apache]

I'm going to pay a few credible firms  to come to the site and quote the job, then pay my builder 10-20% more than the highest quote ( if they come in higher than his price, i'll eat my hat.}

It doesn't work like that. Different businesses have different costs of operating etc. You can't just decide how much you want to pay. If you agreed to the extra work and didn't ask for a detailed price breakdown you are the fool, not the electrician.

 

[PDG]

Well the safety net I have is that its entirely up to me how much i pay, which doesn't sound that foolish...?

Regards less of that, I will be more than fair and do it the right way...

 

[apprentice87]

Ha Ha!!!! It is NOT up to you what you pay.. It is what you CONTRACTED to pay, and if you do not like it, then you will end up being county court'ed and have a nice charge on your land cert!!

Are you incapable of understanding that to move a socket 5 feet can involve a LOT of work and materials....

Say you had a length of steel 20 feet long. You tell someone to cut it so that you have one piece 8 feet long, and another 12 feet long.

YOU, then change you mind, and say you want a 6 foot piece and a 14 foot piece instead. once the original length has been cut.

What exactly makes you think that providing the 6 and 14 foot pieces will now be cheaper than it was to provide the original 8 and 12 foot pieces????

john....

 

[PDG]

As stated above in the post, i have no issue with the small price of moving the one gang switch for £150..that is not the issue at all...its insignificant to the £k's added onto our bill which is work outside of contract. It seems you haven't read the full post .....

 

[Murdoch]

So, working backwards:

£100 less VAT = £83.33

£83.33 less 10% (builders claimed mark up)

£75.00 per point.

Just makes you think, as this isn't too unreasonable for London, and just imagine the savings if you had paid the sparky direct as most of us aren't VAT registered.

Simples

 

[Steve3948]

I would say thats cheap for London I certainly would not do it for that.

 

[Murdoch]

I would say thats cheap for London I certainly would not do it for that.

Precisely my point

 

[NozSpark]

Just thinking.....

It also depends on when you added all these extra bits.... Was it before or after the floors and ceilings were put in?

 

[Sharpend]

Did you not think to discuss pricing for extras prior to the time of them being done? Could it be that the sparks got so fed up with you changing things about that they have hammered you the only way they know in order that it may teach you to be more thoughtful in the first place, no point in producing plans if you don't intend to stick to them, may as well have a blank piece of paper. I recently did a refurb for a very nice chap, it started as alter a few sockets to being a 98% rewire. Nothing was agreed for a fixed price, how could it the chap would change things almost daily so I charged what I considered to be a very reasonable day rate, this was irrespective if I was on site a whole day or half day. Was the chap annoyed? He may of been, but then he appreciated all the effort and hard work involved by me for him when he changed something, now did I get fed up, almost definitely as I was doing this mainly at weekends and everytime I thought I would be finished something changed, could I have charged him more? Quite possibly, but all things considered I earnt what I was happy with and he paid it regardless of his feeling.

Lesson to be learnt, if money or paying is an issue then make sure you are fully aware of any costs at the outset.