Oh dear.... another DIYer | General DIY Plumbing Forum | Plumbers Forums

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MarkAqua

Plumbers Arms member
Plumber
Gas Engineer
Messages
448
And this ladies and gentlemen will end in tears.

£30 to remove a rad and refit potentially 2 more??
Makes me want to cry

IMG_4422.jpg
 
Cash in hand and not his main source of income?

Yea but it's screwing us on price

You charge let's say 60 to a friend of hers, I'm willing to bet she bad mouths you for being expensive :D

Also it's setting a president
 
Police / Fire / Ambulance crew all of them do jobs on the side, I knew of a police man that used to do gas work, think firemen or the biggest offenders due to the amount of free time they seem to get, + they are on over 30K pay.
 
4 screws
4 plugs
A smear of paste
Maybe a bottle of inhibitor
He could be taking home a cool £15 for an hour or twos work if he's lucky.

Let's hope he isn't wasting any of that money on insurance and doesn't get a callback
 
I'm all for people making their way in life and don't get me wrong, it's better than sat at home on benefits claiming they can't work.....

But people do not appreciate the amount of time, effort and money that goes into starting and keeping a successful business going.

So when Dave from the pub is doing this sort of stuff and not paying any insurance etc it really gets my back up.

Firemen - in my eyes are slightly different, the ones I know were plumbers/electricians before joining the brigade and still continue their public liability memeberships to gas safe or NIC.
 
I'm all for people making their way in life and don't get me wrong, it's better than sat at home on benefits claiming they can't work...

But people do not appreciate the amount of time, effort and money that goes into starting and keeping a successful business going.

So when Dave from the pub is doing this sort of stuff and not paying any insurance etc it really gets my back up.

Firemen - in my eyes are slightly different, the ones I know were plumbers/electricians before joining the brigade and still continue their public liability memeberships to gas safe or NIC.

But what about the Tax ? don't forget these guys have a good income to start off, so they are doing jobs for cash on their days off and undercutting everyone else, thought it was in their contracts that they cant do private work, but could be wrong about that !
 
Yeah I get the tax thing, the guys I know are, in fairness fully legit. A lot won't be - admittedly
To be honest I cant see how that works being Employed & Self-employed at the same time, as the extra tax they would pay the work would not be worth doing, So to be fair if not paying tax on extra part time income , then they are-not fully legit.
 
What? Haha. How does it not work? You just pay class 2 national insurance. You run your business seperately - personal pre tax allowance is around 12k? Most of them have a partnership set up with their other half who doesn't have full time employment(looking after the kids) and she then gets the allowance and stamp duty paid.

I did it for many years like that-
 
What? Haha. How does it not work? You just pay class 2 national insurance. You run your business seperately - personal pre tax allowance is around 12k? Most of them have a partnership set up with their other half who doesn't have full time employment(looking after the kids) and she then gets the allowance and stamp duty paid.

I did it for many years like that-

And I bet you have off shore accounts as well !! :rolleyes:
 
Looking from a different perspective at this scenario.

If the OP said they were a DIY'er and wanted assistance in re-hanging a radiator, there would be double the amount of posts, than on this thread, with everyone offering advice and step by step assistance.

You can't have it both ways - complain when someone does work ridiculously cheap, or, offer free advice on something that you would charge fair money for.
 
You can't have it both ways - complain when someone does work ridiculously cheap, or, offer free advice on something that you would charge fair money for.
Don't know that that's quite a fair comparison. A DIYer may not have the money to pay a professional (though they can afford to redecorate, apparently) and we're trying to help out, on the basis that they do the work and take the risk. This is the sort of job that, quite frankly, I'd rather a customer did DIY if they could.

But, for this money, the work is unlikely to be carried out properly, and if tax is being evaded then it does indeed annoy me (particularly as the person in question is a civil servant and thus paid out of taxation). On the other hand, if the person charging £30 is planning to stay in business, then either the person is very much doing this as an aside and so is not serious competition, or simply won't be in business for very long.

Though I am getting tired of DIYers asking basic questions that they could have Googled first - after all, I designed and built my first heating system using textbook information and websearches without asking a single question on any forum, so if they can't be bothered, why should I?

Having said all of this, I do take your point. Perhaps we shouldn't be giving too much free advice to people who can afford to engage a professional.
 

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