Is it normal for.....

[CortinaV8]

various trades people to take away your old equipment ?

Had my old CU replaced and the electrician said he would leave the old stuff for me to dispose of, opened up the units and all the Fuses/MCB's had been nicked.

Recently had a plumber fit pretty much a complete new system which involved removing lots of lengths of copper/lead pipework, plus a fairly old copper hot water cylinder. Noticed towards the end of the job it was being loaded into the back of his van, he seemed a bit put out when I asked if i could have it back.

Just wondering if this is the norm, as the builders we have used in the past have no problem with leaving lots of bags of rubble for use to dispose of.

 

[Bilioustrumpstaine]

Scrap metal prices have rocketed so there is the answer to one

 

[CortinaV8]

I know, hence why I wanted to hang onto it

 

[JohnD]

What's the scrap price of broken brick, rusty nails, and plaster dust like?

 

[Rob]

he seemed a bit put out when I asked if i could have it back.

I would have wanted to punch you in the head. No offence.

You might aswell have taken £50 out of his wallet at that point

 

[Deleted member 105431]

it is the norm in the heating trade, keeping scrap metal keeps quote prices down.

 

[noseall]

if a builder quotes to "cart away", and you accept then any salvage is legally his.

it is the same with valuable roofing tiles.

if the homeowner is so concerned about the value of his waste products then he should remove them AND all the rubbish parts too, prior to the builder starting.

 

[Thermo]

or you can spend your time sifting through it all and let him know what he is disposing of before he quotes. cake and eat it springs to mind.

 

[hairyben]

A lot of sparks will have a selection of "reclaimed" MCB's and consumer unit parts, especially some of the rarer and discontinued lines.

Can be right handy getting you out a fix from time to time.

I've seen the old square-D breakers being touted at £40 a pop on ebay.

As for rubbish, I dispose of everything... most customers prefer this.

 

[Paul Barker]

Speaking as a plumber we weigh in your old copper which partially compesates us for the exhaubitant prices we have to pay for the copper we supply you. And it is the norm and it is taken into account when we are pricing the job.

At the end of the day breaking down the whole thing, every man has a price on his time. some men's time will cost you more than others but you ought to get a better reult for those men's labour. We don't really mind how you pay us whether partially in scrap or not, but we do include scrap as being ours in our thinking when we price the job. If you tell use you want the scrap, all good and well, we will get the price in another way.

in case you are thinking, no scrap is not tax evasion, the tax man knows we get cash for scrap so he expects us to declare it regardless of whether we have had it or not.. If we don't declare it and are caught not doing so he will charge us threefold what he thinks we have made in scrap even if all our customers were like minded with you, our tax man will assume all our customers are not and tax us in that way.

 

[CortinaV8]

Ah well, his loss, I am sure he will change his paper quotes in the future. Your argument is a bit weak really, surely you would price for the exact quantity of materials needed, I know my quote did.

Can't think of many jobs where people would get away with it, if i were to go into a big companies server room, upgrade a £100k disk array and just "cart away" the old one there would be hell on.

 

[Paul Barker]

Well your obviously in a totally different situation. We have told you what happens 100% of the time and that 99.999999 pecent of customers are happy with it. There's always one.

 

[Bilioustrumpstaine]

Plumbers/heating contractors will have taken away scrap regardless of value as it is the norm to leave a job clean and tidy. It just so happens that now there is a value to the scrap and the contractor will make a few quid out of it, good luck to him Up until recently he would have had to pay to dump your waste.

If as a client you ask for the rubbish to be left do expect all of it and not just the bits that have any value .

While it is prudent to be pennywise it is also wise to see your actions from the contractors point of view, if you give the impression of being tight you could put some contractors off.

 

[Thermo]

weve done a job over the last few days, which involved removing some large plants from a garden which the customer wanted replaced. Ive carefully removed the plants in one peice and transplanted them to grow them on and sell them on. Am i getting away with something or am i just using a business brain and a bit of extra effort to turn someones unwanted waste into money?

 

[r.bartlett]

I can't honestly believe a plumber will take scrap into account when pricing a job.

Firstly you can't be sure they will let you have it and secondly you don't know how much there is?

We occasionally rip out fridge pipe (much thicker than plumb copper) but I certainly would never make an allowance if a customer said "less scrap value of the copper" If he did I would simply say "Here's my price and you take it to the scrappy"

It's a perk and we just keep it and use it to pay for the Christmas party

Cheers

Richard