Electrician's labour time

Just my opinion but £45 ph seems a lot but not overly excessive, what they have done though is double the cost of the part. Up in in t'north £25 ph for an electrician is reasonable.
 
Just my opinion but £45 ph seems a lot but not overly excessive, what they have done though is double the cost of the part. Up in in t'north £25 ph for an electrician is reasonable.

We got somebody coming to commission an addressable controller (glorified dimmer switch).

£750 + vat. :D
 
My 2p worth FWIW - no call our fee means they need to cover travel from base to every job and back to base In the hourly charge on every job. The £45 an hour being a bit higher would likely cover that. It wouldn’t cover going via a shop to buy a known smoke alarm (or something else on every job) so turning up and charging to go and get it after the clock is running isn’t unreasonable IMHO. The only question is “is the time charged to get the part reasonable?” If there is no evidence she went to do a bit of shopping for herself or another customer, the charges look fair to me.

I think with all trades most of us look at the quantum (HOW MUCH!!!!) for the bit we see, without looking at the costs to deliver the whole job to every customer with a reasonable profit. Each has different base costs and the different ways each individual or company charges to achieve that same outcome makes it more difficult to understand too.
 
£45 to spend half an hour travelling to a job, doing the job for 20 minutes and then travelling half an hour to get back to where you were isn’t enough IMHO.

Not for a professional tradesman anyway, and certainly not in the south.

£45, to pop in to a job on your way home is perfectly reasonable.
 
I think you should pay the lot tbh.
Personally I would have got a quote up front regardless of the job, then you reduce this wrangling afterwards and can refuse if you don’t like the quote
 
Imagine going to a fish and chips store, and the guy behind the counter says, ok I'll need to go dig up some potatoes and catch a fish, now I know what your order is!

Agreed.... Get a fixed price, and stick to it.
If something crazy happens unexpected, (Dead body found in loft when installing wire) then naturally some additional cost may be mutually agreed upon (getting rid of body etc)
 
Had a sparky over last week from a local company to supply & fit a replacement smoke alarm in my home. She came to my home, spent 2 mins looking and said she would nip out and buy a suitable smoke alarm from the local hardware store and come back. She came back around 1 hour later and spent around 20 mins fitting the new one, no issues there. However I've just received an invoice today from the company, and they charged me 2 hours labour + parts. Surely they should have charged me 1 hour + parts? I was always under the impression that labour time meant actual time spent carrying out the work, not travel time etc? I mean what if the sparky decided to go for a coffee or have a quick bite to eat whilst out shopping for the parts? I've already queried the charge with the company so waiting to hear from them but I suspect they're just going to say that time taken to buy the parts falls under labour time.
Cheers

I agree with the others: if they were asked to fit a new smoke alarm, they should have brought one with them. It's not like there's a myriad of different smoke detectors: they detect smoke and make a loud beeping noise!!!

Recently, the gasket to the small oven/grill on our range cooker broke. We called the repair company and told them the exact model and serial number and part required. When the guy arrived, he got out his tools and the new gasket, but when he opened it the spares people had given him the wrong gasket. He apologised and went away, phoned us a few days later to make a new appointment and then came to replace the gasket. He only charged for the ONE call out fee and for the correct gasket.

So stick to your guns: don't pay for the wasted hour.
 
I'm not saying this applies to the company you used but I always remember watching the Watchdog rogue traders shows on BBC and that used to be a trick of many a dodgy tradesmen, the crew would secretly follow and film them getting the part they needed dragging their heels doing it or sometimes they never bought anything as they already had the part in the van and then charge extra for their 'time'.
 
I remember a couple of years ago I got called to a school to replace a broken door handle. The teacher in the class moaned at me why I didn’t carry the door handles with me in the back of my van.
The amount of different door handles you can get would fill my van 10 times over. I had to order the handles in as they were blue plastic ones.
 
We got somebody coming to commission an addressable controller (glorified dimmer switch).

£750 + vat. :D
Anything to do with Crestron and AMX control comes with big prices as well. There's a limited pool of engineers who know how to program the stuff and have the software to do so. It really is a licence to print money - even at the moment.

If you ever get any work done on these type of systems always insist on a copy of the source code file, as if you ever want a modification, you will need this to give to the programmer, or they will have to start again from scratch. Programmers never like to hand this over, as it otherwise ties them into the job...
 
I agree with the others: if they were asked to fit a new smoke alarm, they should have brought one with them. It's not like there's a myriad of different smoke detectors: they detect smoke and make a loud beeping noise!!!

There are a ‘myriad of different smoke detectors’, and manufacturers will not specify, that there alarms will work with other manufacturers devices.

BS 7671 states that manufacturers instructions should be taken into account. I would even suggest, you might need to check with a manufacturer if their new alarms are backward compatible with their older alarms.
 
Anything to do with Crestron and AMX control comes with big prices as well. There's a limited pool of engineers who know how to program the stuff and have the software to do so. It really is a licence to print money - even at the moment.

If you ever get any work done on these type of systems always insist on a copy of the source code file, as if you ever want a modification, you will need this to give to the programmer, or they will have to start again from scratch. Programmers never like to hand this over, as it otherwise ties them into the job...

Its Honeywell EX-Or, forget the exact model. Been faulty for some time, as the cost has not been approved. Quite frankly, head office have been dragging their feet, so they deserve to be spanked.:)
 
That diesn
There are a ‘myriad of different smoke detectors’, and manufacturers will not specify, that there alarms will work with other manufacturers devices.

BS 7671 states that manufacturers instructions should be taken into account. I would even suggest, you might need to check with a manufacturer if their new alarms are backward compatible with their older alarms.
That doesn't mean they shouldn't take an alarm to fit. If they were concerned about 'compatibility', they only had to ask what type of alarm is to be replaced; a system alarm or stand alone alarm.
 
That diesn

That doesn't mean they shouldn't take an alarm to fit. If they were concerned about 'compatibility', they only had to ask what type of alarm is to be replaced; a system alarm or stand alone alarm.

My wholesalers didn't give freebees. I would of gone and looked myself, to see what make & model alarm was needed, rather than getting the wrong one. As most householders wouldn't have a scobby, what alarms they already have, but even if they did, I'd still wanna verify myself.

The difference being I was a sole trader and had lower overheads to take care of. But even so, if I was doing it as a job for the afternoon, I would of taken into account my time going to get an alarm. If I popped in on the way home for example, that would be FOC. But going to the wholesalers the following day, would still figure in the price.
 
Sounds about right. Had a sparky come to an electric test (fuse box, sockets, light swtiches) and it was a grand.
 
our local fire brigade came round and fitted 2 for free.
They last 10 years. Just give your local fire brigade a call.
 
Thanks everyone. First of all, the company is a large technical company (locally based) and electrical works is just 1 of their divisions along with plumbing, heating, mechanical works etc. I've been using them for many years as I've always had good service from them and they charge fairly reasonable labour rates (£45/h) compared to other electricians in the area - many charge £80+/h !! But anyway I wasn't expecting them to have the smoke alarm in stock, I was expecting them to have a quick look in my property first and come at a later date, as they have previously done for other work - they have no call out charges. Or at the very least, They could have asked me to email them a photo of my existing failed smoke alarm so that they could buy a suitable one in advance of the visit.

They charged me £45/h labour (ex vat) + £42 for parts (ex vat) so £158 in total incl vat. However I've paid them £104 to their bank account (ie just 1 hours labour) and said I'm not paying them for 2 hours. If they kick up a fuss, I'll politely remind them of the time their plumber messed up the install of the immersion heater on my hot water cylinder causiing me huge inconvenience - the tw@t flooded the utility cupboard with water seaping downstairs into the kitchen through the ceiling. They paid for the decorating and repairs but I won't be forgetting that experience...

that company would not happen to start with an H and end anlon by any chance.

in our old flat we ended up having to get them out to do the job we needed which was plumbing for a kitchen, to long a story as to why we had to use a call out instead of it being planned but we ended uo gettinv charged about £800 for the plumbing work for about 4hrs work (x2 for 2 of them) of which an hour was them going to the plumb centre type shop for the parts.

that hurt like buggery. So I would say if you are having someone do a callout job expect it to be expensive. But if it is planned, quoted work at least you know cost in advance.

other alternative is fit it yourself after watching Youtube 😁
 
£45 an hour is a fair rate.
The sparky doesn't just materialise out of thin air at your door. There are many factors involved such as the travelling, cost of van etc etc.
 
Maybe the minimum charge is 2 hours and to be fair it a small job and they charged by the hour. I would charge for a half day + parts, to make it worth while coming out in the first place.
 

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