Ripped off by plumbing charges......please help

[tonybhoy]

My procedure is the same as Tony does. I charge to diagnose the fault and if the part is cheaper supplied on a fixed price repair than thats what I advise to the customer.

Recently I was asked to replace a Suprima PCB which costs about £170 so I suggested a BG repair at about £190 would be cheaper for him.

The customer said that he had such bad experiences with BG in the past that he preferred to pay me £254 rather than having them in the house!

Tony

Exactly, I also charge a diagnostic charge which includes an assessment of the cost of the repair/s and then the customer has the option as Tony say's above.

The most I've ever charged for a boiler repair has been about £500 but that included two parts and a boiler breakdown in one of the coldest winters in the last 30 years up here in Glasgow with plumbers in real short supply however the parts cost about £350 and there was no chance of getting a boiler manufacturer's service engineer or indeed even BG out for any sort of repair so the customer wanted me to do the work.

BTW, most of my jobs only take an hour at the most and if the job is going to run into the three, four, five hour mark then I tell the customer this and give them a cost for the work before I do anything else.

In my experience most boiler faults will take no more than two hours labour with the exception of the hell that is the WB 24 CDi divertor valve replacement but these I pass on to WB as a matter of course anyway, so why then did this guy have to charge for five hours or more labour?

 

[Agile]

For he homeowners reading this!

Be aware that a reasonable sounding £69 per hour is no longer reasonable if the job is spun out to five or more hours.

I always give fixed prices for boiler repairs but even so some customers only hear a lower figure.

So I lose a £84 repair to someone who quotes £48 per hour but takes 2-3 hours. The customer ends up paying much more.

Tony

 

[Susiejb]

Thank you for that reply.....the personal comments are maybe to be expected on this obviously male dominated extremely defensive site.
My main objection is to being called whingeing....when I asked a simple question 'am I unreasonable in thinking the charge is too high'. So thank you to those who have at least taken the trouble to answer the question politely.
I have told my father in law to contact me first should the situation arise again and I will arrange a fixed price repair.

Sue.

All of the personal stuff aside of course your father's been overcharged.

£600 to repair a boiler is outrageous. Any decent guy would have put your father onto the manufacturer for a Fixed Price repair if they thought cost of repair was going to be in that region or advised to replace the boiler.

Worcester currently charge about £230 for a FP repair and that includes three main components such as gas valve, fan and PCB.

You can buy a rated combis with two year warranty from about £530 plus of course fitting.

 

[Susiejb]

May I correct you on that one.....I live 250 miles away and the first I heard of the repair was when he phoned me to tell me what he had been charged.
I do 'bother to help' the best I can. In fact I made a 500 mile round trip this weekend just to dig his garden for him.
Whats wrong with half of you on this forum ?
Do you delight in being thoroughly miserable.......

I feel so angry about this......or am I being unreasonable.

Not cheap, but it could well have been a pig of a job.

What I find odd, is that you know your dad is old and apparently feeble, but still you didn't bother to help him find somebody to do the job, but you can find the time to come on here and whinge about it.

 

[scatmanjohn]

It's called looking after your customers and having a conscience.

Its called giving your customers to your competition.

Its a trap they use to take your customers. Most of your "referrals" will have a good experience and cut out the middle man (you).

Once they have got your customer snared thats when they start to milk them.

If people can't be arsed to shop around and find out for themselves that they may get it cheaper elsewhere, thats their fault.

 

[breadnbutter]

the problem is whith the job is ,not that it took him 5 hours,but that he did not take a step back,and advice costomer it would be a long job,and could give a fixed price instead. also did he give u best advice,
if the plate heat ex was blocked,its a good possibility it will block again.
so will they garentee it ,if it blocks again ?

he should of adviced fitting a tf1 filter on return pipe.

whith the big companys,you pay 20 % vat . for a service u can get just as good or better from self employed
for £600 . 00 i could of power flushed the system,flush out the plate.
fitted a tf1 filter, added inhibiter and serviced the boiler,and had change left over.

 

[scatmanjohn]

whith the big companys,you pay 20 % vat . for a service u can get just as good or better from self employed

Or maybe worse (just to balance the argument)

 

[tonybhoy]

If people can't be a***d to shop around and find out for themselves that they may get it cheaper elsewhere, thats their fault.

I hear what your saying mate and fully understand where your coming from I don't however know you from Adam except from your postings on this site where you've been good enough in the past to help me and others out with good advice so I don't for a minute believe you would charge the amount that has been charged for the work described but there is a world of a difference between someone doing a decent job for a fair price for both parties and someone who is clearly at it.

On the face of things this lady's father in law has been over charged.

Don't you agree?

Tony

 

[scatmanjohn]

On the face of things this lady's father in law has been over charged.

Don't you agree?

Tony

I do to be honest.

I just don't think that telling your customers they can get a better deal from your competition is a good business model.

Not trying to be funny Tony, it just seems a strange thing to do.

 

[tonybhoy]

On the face of things this lady's father in law has been over charged.

Don't you agree?

Tony

I do to be honest.

I just don't think that telling your customers they can get a better deal from your competition is a good business model.

Not trying to be funny Tony, it just seems a strange thing to do.

Thanks mate,

I know your not trying to be funny and I respect your comments but we all run our businesses our own way.

I don't for a minute think you would charge someone, especially a 89 year old pensioner, £600 to repair his boiler even if you had psent four or five hours on the job, I think you would be able to repair it for a reasonable amount for you and your customer's benefit I , on the other hand, wouldn't spend four hours or more on a job such as this and reduce my charges so as not to overcharge so I would give the customer the option of a FP repair and advise them to take it based on what I would have to charge them for the same work.

I had a customer last week with a WB CDI conventional boiler that had been flooded with condensate. I had a word with WB tech who told me that it was likely that the GV, fan and fan bearing plate would need replacing now I could have done the work and it would have cost the customer about £350 for parts plus labour with absolutely no gaurantee that something else might need replacing however WB would replace all of those parts for £230 so I advised the customer accordingly so I don't see how that is a flawed business model since the customer paid me to tell her the above.

It's all about balance and fairness IMO.

Tony

 

[scatmanjohn]

I know your not trying to be funny and I respect your comments but we all run our businesses our own way.

True. You can run your business as you see fit.

Lets agree to disagree

 

[PEDANTICVINDICTIVEMAN]

Or maybe it's boiler manufacturers ripping us installers off by doing jobs deliberately cheap, after we have recommended and fitted their pile of junk, I am not going to turn work down just because a manufacturer can purchase the spares dirt cheap and undercut me, maybe if it was law that spare's have to be available to all reg business for the same price, it would level the playing field a bit, lets face it, they dont make most of their own spares anyway, maybe we should be able to purchase direct from the parts manufacturer the same as they do.

No wonder WB gave me crap tech advice over the phone, it's not in their interest to be any help, is it, plus why is it you have to buy a whole gas valve for a WB when all you really need is the solenoid, let me guess, do WB replace the whole gas valve, or just the solenoid, when they come out, why isn't the solenoid available to all.

If I see the same car I have just bought £500.00 cheaper at a garage down the road, tough.

 

[transam]

Exacctly as PVM says , the manu's are the rip off merchants , with there 100% plus mark up on something they do not even make , than try & use the old original part's must be used excuse !

I mean how many makes of pumps do manus use ? Wilo or grundfoss ? every one sells Wilo or grundfoss , so pop down to your local B&Q & buy one ?? simples well not quite particuly when u deal with Mr rip off manu like sbiasi Uk who deliberatly get the impellor design changed so u have to buy it from them at what £140 odd squid ! & by the way Mr MD I am sick & tired off reading your B******t articles in the trade press

reading would not be accurate , seeing ! I don't read em !

 

[minion]

£69 per hour seems a reasonable price to me.

This is one of the reasons I don't do call outs or repairs. We only do boiler swaps, upgrades and complete installations. Of course we service the boilers we install but that's it.

Can't be bothered with the hastle that comes with Landlord certificates or servicing boilers we haven't installed. At lease if we fitted it we know everything is okay.

 

[tonybhoy]

£69 per hour seems a reasonable price to me.

No one's disputing the cost £ per hour mate what is being questioned is the cost of repairing (replacing the plate and HTC) a boiler at £600 and is that cost 'reasonable'?

Clearly on the face of things as described by the OP that charge isn't reasonable.