Fair point.
I can see how you could do low cost repairs if you had truckloads of both theoretical and practical knowledge.
I have a local client with a biasi that had an odd intermittent fault last year. It could be any of 3 parts and I could not prove that it was the one I suspected most. As the 3 together came to about 300 for materials alone, I was not keen to gamble so I asked Tony to have a look at it.
Because he knows them inside out, he could eliminate the 2 other suspects.
When you can work like that, you can semi retire and keep very low overheads.
You can not do that for complete installs.
In the case of the work for this op, you either have professional diamond cutters to chase the pipes in the wall, or you spend a week drilling and chiseling. Even using an ee would cost you over 500 quid to do it, and that is just one example.
When I brought this case up when pricing up a job with a mate of mine, fantastic plasterer/kitchenfitter, he brought up a 500 quid cost I had not even thought about.
I don't think mr cheap quoter has thought about that one when he did his 10-minute estimate either.
That leaves 3 options.
1. The professional installer takes responsibility for his shortcoming and takes the "unexpected" cost out of his own profit. Or,
2. He tries to add it to the bill. Or,
3. When op refuses to pay more, he will cut ever more on the quality of the work to make sure he doesn't loose out.
I could be wrong of course and the chaps doing this job are really good and either love their job so much, or are so desperate for work that they are happy to work for a fiver an hour.
I can see how you could do low cost repairs if you had truckloads of both theoretical and practical knowledge.
I have a local client with a biasi that had an odd intermittent fault last year. It could be any of 3 parts and I could not prove that it was the one I suspected most. As the 3 together came to about 300 for materials alone, I was not keen to gamble so I asked Tony to have a look at it.
Because he knows them inside out, he could eliminate the 2 other suspects.
When you can work like that, you can semi retire and keep very low overheads.
You can not do that for complete installs.
In the case of the work for this op, you either have professional diamond cutters to chase the pipes in the wall, or you spend a week drilling and chiseling. Even using an ee would cost you over 500 quid to do it, and that is just one example.
When I brought this case up when pricing up a job with a mate of mine, fantastic plasterer/kitchenfitter, he brought up a 500 quid cost I had not even thought about.
I don't think mr cheap quoter has thought about that one when he did his 10-minute estimate either.
That leaves 3 options.
1. The professional installer takes responsibility for his shortcoming and takes the "unexpected" cost out of his own profit. Or,
2. He tries to add it to the bill. Or,
3. When op refuses to pay more, he will cut ever more on the quality of the work to make sure he doesn't loose out.
I could be wrong of course and the chaps doing this job are really good and either love their job so much, or are so desperate for work that they are happy to work for a fiver an hour.
