Trade rates experience

We get discussions on trade rates quite a lot, thought I'd just post some of my contemporary experience.

I'm renovating a 2 bed flat for my daughter, it's a building site throughout (uninhabited) and so every trade has been brought in at the right time, with the correct amount of preparation done. In most cases it's the easiest domestic job they'll ever do as I have enabled them to get straight on with any work. I deal with all waste management etc, so I just need them to come in, do their job and leave.

I will say that I had no issue at all getting trades in to quote, I got at least 5 for every job, most came around within 2 days of first contact and I got written quotes promptly. It may have helped that all the jobs were a decent size, and fairly precisely specified.

Location is commuter belt SE, so postcode taxes definitely apply.

Central Heating Installation
I ripped out all the old (1970s) storage heaters, so needed a combi boiler and all new pipework run to 5 radiators and the bathroom and kitchen. I chased out the walls for pipe runs and lifted floorboards where necessary, so they just had to come in and lay pipes (I wanted 100% copper). I provided the radiators and valves, all they had to provide was the boiler and gubbins - arrestor, magnaclean etc - and pipework.

Got 5 quotes in, prices ranged from £5750 (no VAT) to £10,500+VAT! Most were in the £6000+VAT range.
I went with the cheapest one as the chap described exactly what he would do.
Took 2 of them 2.5 days so 5 man days total. Materials would have been around £2000 (boiler was £1500).

Day rate: £750

Electrical
I did most of the electrical work myself but I got a sparky in to test existing electrics (rewired but all pre-2006), help disconnect a secondary CU that ran the old storage heaters from the incoming 80A cable, and to do the first and second fix in the kitchen including creating a new ring main and various power points and FCUs, and new lighting circuits including downlight installation.

Cost £990 for 4 shortish days (around 09:00 to 15:00) including some materials like cabling and trunking.

Day rate: £225

Plastering
Had 5 rooms completely plastered, including 2 ceilings and a landing. I estimated it as 5-6 days work.

Got 5 quotes in, the eastern Europeans who responded ranged from £1800+materials, to around £2500 all in. The UK operators wanted £3500+VAT.
I chose one of the eastern Europeans, turned out he was Romanian. He's done the best plastering job I've ever had and used tools and techniques I've not seen British plasterers used before. He spent ages floating off every wall over and over. His activity levels were about double what I've seen plasterers do before - who do first coat on one wall then go off and sit in the van for 20 minutes while it goes off before the second coat. This guy would get another wall coated up instead.

In the end I bought the materials so he got £2100 and it turned out he wanted cash so undoubtedly it won't be declared. He was quite upfront he was over here "for the money".

Took him 5 elapsed days of relatively long hours, two of those were half days but on another 2 days he had his wife with him who cleaned his tools between phases and cleaned up etc and probably made him 50% more productive on those days, so call it 5 days work.

Day rate: £420

Overall the sparky was good value, the plasterer did excellent work but is earning more than £80k tax free, and the plumbers are taking the piss. All the plumbers said it would take a week which felt toppy to me (and turned out to be so) but I couldn't find anyone cheaper.

Don't worry, next year when Labour are in you'll be able to hire foreign trades at £40 per day willing to live six to a bedsit. To hell with these lazy greedy British chaps wanting a living wage to pay their mortgage/tax bill etc. The OP's post proves there's a demand for it.

But anyway, your sparky rates seem to be incredibly cheap. Especially considering the location. Plasterers on the top end even accounting for location.

To put this into a bit more context, in these trades what percentage of time spent working is billable work and what other things such as giving quotes, doing the books, buying materials, getting training etc.

Also the plumber on £150,000 a year, and not vat registered, was the cheapest quote. What's the guy who wanted £10,500 on?

£400,000 a year?

£80k tax free is about what a Romanian captain of an oil tanker gets. If you are looking at the sustained effort and responsibilities involved the plasterer is stealing a living.

The only trade taking the piss was the tax dodging plasterer.

And how much do the companies the "customers" work for charge per day for their services? Not how much you get paid. If it's less then why didn't you become a plaster?

£4k labour for 2 plumbers & 2.5 days, sounds like a pisstake to me.


I suspect they get away with a lot there because it is a short job that you don’t need very often. Calculated as a day rate, labour for boiler fitting is very high but as a job it’s not so bad.

It’s the jobs where it will take ten days that a high day rate starts to sting, or the quotes based on ten days but strangely enough just end up taking five.

My builder's day rate is £320 for him and his labourer/helper. He doesn't seem to make a profit on materials, at least compared to what I would pay if buying myself.
Cornwall.

Same with any business, there are overheads and a hidden cost of bidding for work.
I also don't have an issue with people working hard/well and getting paid for it.

I have an issue with the plumber saying, on bidding for the work, verbatim: "it looks like 5 days work and my mate and I need £400 a day out of it". I thought that was fair, for a day rate. The job actually took them 2.5 days. Now, I know some people will say "but they overestimate on some jobs and underestimate on others and it all comes out in the wash". In my case the job couldn't have been more transparent - floors were up, ceilings were down, pipe runs were easy. So him being 100% inaccurate in his estimation cost me £2000 on his quoted rates.

I don't have an issue with the Romanian who worked literally twice as hard as British plasterers I've seen in the past (subbed through my usual builder in most cases) AND gave me a better finish, and charging a day rate twice as much.

I DO have an issue with him demanding cash (and almost certainly not declaring it) as I don't agree with the principle.

My guys did. I insisted on copper throughout, was prepared to accept pre-soldered fittings but was pleasantly gratified to see them work with flux and solder in the old fashioned way. I still think it's the best way.

The worst that can happen is you get a dry joint embedded in the wall or under a finished floor you find out much later when it leaks...the first time you do something it's always a sub-optimal job and with water you end up with a big exopensive mess.

I do wish I could do it though.