Gas Work Pricing

[cr0ft]

Hi all. I'm just studying all the extra costs of equipment, FGA servicing, courses and exams plus annual registration fees that go with gas and trying to work out how much more per hour to charge for gas work! I'm curious as to how much more per hour you guys (and gals) charge for gas work over your normal plumbing prices. Not so interested in the hourly rate per say, more the difference (different areas have different hourly rates I'm guessing).

I don't think I can put my first hour price up from £60 plus VAT or I worry it will price me out of boiler servicing but I do think there's scope to charge more than £30 plus VAT per hour after the first for gas work.

Would be interested to hear what other people do!

 

[Ch4 plumbing]

Most of my work is price (sites and install) where I price per day but on the odd occasion I enter into hourly rate it's £60 plus VAT for the 1st hour the £40 plus VAT for the following,

Their are guys round here pricing servicing at £80/90 plus VAT but I think they will be losing lots of work as loads of guys starting out round here and pricing at £40/50 per service.

 

[cr0ft]

I was thinking an extra £10 per hour plus VAT after the first one tbh.

Amazing that people charge £40 to £50 for a service after forking out all the cash on getting gas qualified. You can make £60 plus VAT like you say for hour one on plumbing work easily. Not sure where the business sense is in doing gas work for less than that!

 

[Ch4 plumbing]

I think it's about just getting money in and your name put about, in reality it just cheapens the trade!

 

[plumben]

I was planning on upping my rate when I get registered by between £5-£15 extra PH and see how it goes

Although I'm finding loads of tradesmen working for pennies round my way,

The fella I served my time for is working for between half and 2/3 of what I charge for just plumbing and he's got all the extra overheads for gas

If he's declaring all of his earnings he's got to be taking home less than what you'd get paid to stack shelves in Tesco 4 days a week

 

[Ray Stafford]

Not so interested in the hourly rate per say, more the difference

Hi Keiran

We have been tracking this in our labour rate survey for over a decade. Towards the lower half and mid market - bottom decile through lower quartile to median - the difference is about £5 per hour, occasionally less. At the premium end (upper quartile to upper decile) that can rise to as much as £10 per hour premium for gas over plumbing.

You can see the last 5 years figures for all sectors for both gas and plumbing on this thread.

 

[ShaunCorbs]

same as plumbing work £30 for two men

 

[cr0ft]

Hi Keiran

We have been tracking this in our labour rate survey for over a decade. Towards the lower half and mid market - bottom decile through lower quartile to median - the difference is about £5 per hour, occasionally less. At the premium end (upper quartile to upper decile) that can rise to as much as £10 per hour premium for gas over plumbing.

You can see the last 5 years figures for all sectors for both gas and plumbing on this thread.

Cheers Ray. I am thinking £10 per hour tbh after the first hour. There are only so many hours in the week!

 

[Ray Stafford]

Cheers Ray. I am thinking £10 per hour tbh after the first hour. There are only so many hours in the week!

Much easier to aim high and come down, than to undershoot and then try to trade up.

 

[Leo21]

Just a snippet, hopefully a useful one. Vaillant charge £69 for an in warranty service. Now you can kid yourself as much as you like, but your not going to get more for a service than a manufacturer.
Would you? Say a van service against the manufacturer, against a local garage? Specially under warranty.

 

[solutions]

£80 + parts for a service. No trouble filling my weeks with those all day long.

 

[cr0ft]

Just a snippet, hopefully a useful one. Vaillant charge £69 for an in warranty service. Now you can kid yourself as much as you like, but your not going to get more for a service than a manufacturer.
Would you? Say a van service against the manufacturer, against a local garage? Specially under warranty.

Fair point and an interesting perspective. If you are competing just on price then what you say is right, but that's a fools game imo. If you are competing on service then I do believe a good local engineer can charge more than the manufacturer. People on here certainly are from the posts so far.

 

[hammers4spanner]

I charge £50 for a service mainly because if i went higher i probably wouldn't get much work due to the fact nigh on most around here charge around £50.

 

[village idiot]

I charge betwen £60 & £80 for a service. For those customers who don't want to take up the offer, I'm happy to walk away.
Last week, I was doing a service in Kenly (Surrey), three yrs old WB boiler. I asked the customer where his gas meter was located and he wanted to know why? I said there are tests I need to carry out there. His response: 'In the last 3yrs, no one servicing the boiler has asked where the gas meter is, so I don't see what the meter has to do with the boiler? We just want you to service the boiler''.
So he grudgingly proceeded to empty sink cupbourd where meter was located. In effect, someone charging £40 may decide to ''rush'' the job and just tick the boxes

 

[tomplumb83]

From my experience alot of customers will pay as much if not more than a manufacturer charges for a local company to look after their boiler.
If it means said company looks after them when their boiler breaks down.
People love to deal with 'local' trades

 

[hammers4spanner]

I charge betwen £60 & £80 for a service. For those customers who don't want to take up the offer, I'm happy to walk away.
Last week, I was doing a service in Kenly (Surrey), three yrs old WB boiler. I asked the customer where his gas meter was located and he wanted to know why? I said there are tests I need to carry out there. His response: 'In the last 3yrs, no one servicing the boiler has asked where the gas meter is, so I don't see what the meter has to do with the boiler? We just want you to service the boiler''.
So he grudgingly proceeded to empty sink cupbourd where meter was located. In effect, someone charging £40 may decide to ''rush'' the job and just tick the boxes

They have just been servicing the appliance then .

 

[stevetheplumber]

Service has to Include gas rate to know it's safe

 

[hammers4spanner]

Service has to Include gas rate to know it's safe

Here we go are we talking a BG service or a service service???

 

[AWheating]

gas rate or operating pressure must be checked even if its service by god.......i mean BG.

as for gas work pricing compared to plumbing, for me a good plumber is worth the same as a good htg engineer as a good service engineer.

 

[hammers4spanner]

I find sometimes people will pay more for water works as you can actually see the damage water causes , AR SOMETHING ON A BOILER AND PEOPLE JUST DONT GET IT IMHO.

 

[Ray Stafford]

I charge £50 for a service mainly because if i went higher i probably wouldn't get much work due to the fact nigh on most around here charge around £50.

I was thinking about this today.

The problem with a gas boiler service, is that it has become a commodity. No one differentiates between a good service, and an ordinary service. Or a convenient service vs an inconvenient service. Believe it or not, but there are dozens of books on pricing strategies that help solve problems like this.

In reality, hammers will be half right, and half wrong. Sure, there will be people out there who are very price sensitive, but not all. Others will be sensitive to quality (so long as they understand what quality means in this context) or to convenience or to other things. We all know that some people are very sensitive to "reputation of service provider" - hence using BG.

I don't know enough about the job to define this exactly, but I am guessing that there is a difference between the bare legal minimum and what most responsible engineers would consider "best practice" ?

So create three products:

Basic Service (bare minimum)
Service Plus (best practice)
Deluxe service (best practice, plus some items that are not necessary, but might be useful, or put customers minds at rest)

Given the choice of 3 options, SO LONG AS THEY CAN SEE SOME VALUE DIFFERENCE, most people will take the middle option.

Then price in convenience:

09:00 - 16:00 weekdays. Basic service £50, Service plus £75, Deluxe service £99
07:00 - 09:00 or 16:00 - 18:00 weekdays. Basic service £60, Service plus £85, Deluxe Service £109
Weds evening 18:00 - 21:00 or Sat AM 09:00 - 12:00 Basic service £90, Service Plus £110, Deluxe Service £130.

It doesn't matter what the actual prices are - the important thing is to get differentiation.

Sure, most will still go for the £50 option, but some will trade up. Some will trade up a long way.

If you only offer a cheap option, 100% of your customers will get the cheap option - even those who would have paid more. You have to give them the option to pay you more!

 

[Masood]

I was thinking about this today.

The problem with a gas boiler service, is that it has become a commodity. No one differentiates between a good service, and an ordinary service. Or a convenient service vs an inconvenient service. Believe it or not, but there are dozens of books on pricing strategies that help solve problems like this.

In reality, hammers will be half right, and half wrong. Sure, there will be people out there who are very price sensitive, but not all. Others will be sensitive to quality (so long as they understand what quality means in this context) or to convenience or to other things. We all know that some people are very sensitive to "reputation of service provider" - hence using BG.

I don't know enough about the job to define this exactly, but I am guessing that there is a difference between the bare legal minimum and what most responsible engineers would consider "best practice" ?

So create three products:

Basic Service (bare minimum)
Service Plus (best practice)
Deluxe service (best practice, plus some items that are not necessary, but might be useful, or put customers minds at rest)

Given the choice of 3 options, SO LONG AS THEY CAN SEE SOME VALUE DIFFERENCE, most people will take the middle option.

Then price in convenience:

09:00 - 16:00 weekdays. Basic service £50, Service plus £75, Deluxe service £99
07:00 - 09:00 or 16:00 - 18:00 weekdays. Basic service £60, Service plus £85, Deluxe Service £109
Weds evening 18:00 - 21:00 or Sat AM 09:00 - 12:00 Basic service £90, Service Plus £110, Deluxe Service £130.

It doesn't matter what the actual prices are - the important thing is to get differentiation.

Sure, most will still go for the £50 option, but some will trade up. Some will trade up a long way.

If you only offer a cheap option, 100% of your customers will get the cheap option - even those who would have paid more. You have to give them the option to pay you more!

That's a very interesting persepective Ray. It does hold true in so many areas - people will turn their nose up at supermarket own-brand goods and pay a premium for branded goods that are made in the same factory, to the same recipe and process.

I'm going to adopt this tiered pricing strategy. I will report back!

 

[Masood]

I don't diiferentiate. My rates are:

Mon-Fri:
8:00 - 18:00 £65/hr
18:00 - 08:00 £97.50/hr

Weekends and bank holidays:
08:00 - 18:00 £97.50/hr
18:00 - 08:00 - £130/hr

Boiler service (not back boiler) is £75 + parts
Landlord cert is £75 for boiler and hob / freestanding cooker. Fires additional £25 each.

 

[jtsplumbing]

A lot depends on your location & the amount of completion that you have, makes no difference what you charge someone will always undercut you.