plastering

[Stevey]

Hello,

I had a plasterer come and have a look at my attic attic as it needs skiming. It's quite a big attic being a victorian end terrace. He said it would cost £450 including materials, 11 bags of skim and some metal strips for the edges? Do you think this is expensive, and could I get the job done cheaper?

thanks

 

[legs-akimbo]

tell you what I will do it for you and pay "you" for the priveledge ..... would that make you happy... my god what do some people want!

 

[nstreet]

I don't know what line of work you are in but most trades are going to charge you £45 plus an hour. If you had a problem with your washing machine, you would be paying callout + 1hour before your machine had even been looked at.

£450.00 for a good days work sounds quite reasonable, especially as materials are included and if thats inc VAT I dont think you can complain. Try doing it yourself and then you'll see why its reasonable.

 

[legs-akimbo]

Its a mighty man nstreet that can get through 11 bags of skim coat in one day!

 

[ace]

Just get the cheapest bloke you can. You know it makes sense!

Never mind the quality............just get the cheapest. After all, it's only your house, it's not as though it's really something that's too important...............

 

[adamboyse]

11 bags of skim would take me some time to work through!

Plastering is a tough job and £450 inc. materials is *really* cheap for this amount of work.

 

[Porker]

While I agree with the sentiments that this particular instance, I think that sometimes tradesmen don't always look at things from the customers point of view.

1) A lot of people simply don't have the slightest idea what a job entails will it take a couple of hours, a day, a week.
2) When getting a few quotes there can be vast differences. A colleague of mine recently got 3 quotes for damp proofing his house ranging from £180 to £3.5k all of which stated that the previous method was not the way to do it and that theirs was the correct method. How can he possibly know which advice is sound?
3) A bit more transparency would be good. Like what is the labour rate, how much are the materials etc. Often it is just a figure off the top of their head with no more info than that.
4) I think there is little appreciation of the overheads the pros incur and customers look at £45/hr and think that's expensive compared to their rate of £15/hr for an office job. They forget your overheads and that you will be lucky to earn 40 hours worth a week.
5) For a lot of people their money is hard earnt and they want value for money.
6) There appears to be some contempt for people who query anything. (I regularly have to prepare costs for projects of several hundred thousand pounds. If my customers don't query them then I think they are careless.) At a smaller scale personal finances should be managed the same way.

Personally, I would go for a quote with a breakdown every time rather than a single figure.

 

[ace]

Porker,

I would agree with you up to a point.

I have done work for people to their TOTAL satisfaction then come the next job they get half a dozen quotes and pick the cheapest. I'm talking about as little as 50 quid difference here.

Three months later they're on the phone asking if I'd like to come around and put the work right that they saved themselves £50 on!

Of course I refuse only to get insulted and told that I don't really want the work..............

So there are two sides to every story

 

[breezer]

my 2p worth.

all though you get fed up with it i still say its best not to ask how much is...... hence item 9, yes i know the poster wants an idea, but idepends on each job, yes it is hard to choose who yuo will get, always ask to see examples (again mentioned in item 9)

 

[AliasOmega]

Pay the price, make lots of cups of tea / coffee & get on well with the lads.

The guy pricing the job, may not be the man doing the job. You could get other quotes and ring him up asking him to price match.

Get on the good side of them, and you will get a good job done. I would even offer to clean the mess up that they make. Then next time they think your a good lad.