I did a radiator job earlier in the week.
Replace one large radiator, change valves on heated towel rail and refit pipework I'd cut off previously to stop a leak. Fit half a dozen TRVs.
£775.
Sounds a lot, doesn't it? (My original estimate was for £840 and was estimated for 2 days.)
Breakdown:
Call out to fix leak and fit washing machine - arrived within 1 hour of phone call and spent 2 hours there.
Trot into plumbing merchants and sort out sizes (job was going to be for 2 radiators)
Collect radiators and buy 12 trvs (didn't count how many rads there were) and bought a few other bits and pieces (e.g. fittings, inhibitor). It's irrelevant that I have these on the van as before they went into the van I had to buy them from the merchants.
Organise another plumber to help me with the job and get him there to give price for a log burner installation so we'll both probably change that together.
Got to customer at 9am. What did customer have to do? Ask me over to look at the job. Nothing else. I've done all the running around, buying, risking my capital, taking my time, etc.
Started at around 9am and finished leak, replacement of new radiator and four trvs by lunch.
I drained radiators (bungalow so each had to be done separately) and mate fitted most trvs.
Two trvs to fit after lunch. One done in about 5 minutes but other took an hour or so as radiator had to be taken outside and taken to pieces.
Refilled system by about 3:30pm.
Cleared up most things.
4:00pm. Air lock not moving.
20 minutes to find pump buried under 6" of insulation in loft. Bled pump.
Another 10 minutes for us to find a couple of bleed points.
More bleeding.
Air lock still there.
Attack radiator and suck out water.
Finished by 5:00pm.
Phone call in evening - heating locked out - probably an air lock.
Return yesterday for 2 hours and sorted it out.
Cost of radiator, fittings, etc £235.
Cost of other plumber £180.
£360 for me.
Time spent, including travel 12 hours equates to just over £30 an hour. Take off mileage (40p per mile) around 80 miles all told - £32
Insurance, training, accountants fees, website costs (that's where they found me), depreciation on tools, bank charge (for the cheque they gave me), mobile telephone cost (that's how they contacted me), clothing, solder, flux, etc, etc, etc. No idea but got to be around £50 per day.
£360 - £80 (mileage plus other costs) = £280
£280 minus tax and national insurance (say £70) gives me a wage of £210 for a day (about £17.50 an hour for 12 hours).
£210 means £500 a week means £25k a year.
So that £775 job equates to a normal salary - not a huge wage, to be honest when compared to some non jobs out there.
£25k a year?
I wish!!!
Other job I did that day (in the evening) was return to a blocked oil line for another customer. I've spent 8 hours trying to trace this and establish whether it was a small blockage, a tree root, sludge, or the boiler, or the fire valve, etc, etc, etc. There's no way I can charge £30 an hour and still have no boiler working. I now have to find a 50 meter oil line, return to fit it, and so on. If I charge the full price when I complete the job the customer will be looking at £600 or so. I can't charge that - outrageous price!! So my day rate for this is going to be more like £130. Frustrating but that's the nature of the job.
So, some customers pay more per hour/day, some pay less. It depends on the job and the competition and how much you want to get recommendations from other customers.
Easiest way to know how to charge is:
How much do you want to earn a year, assuming you work everyday?
£24,000 before tax?
24000 / 48 (four weeks holiday) = £500 a week or £100 a day.
My charges above guess at £50 a day so I have to charge at least £150 a day or £20 an hour.
Call outs for small jobs: how many can you do in a day? Three?
That means £50 a call out (£150 / 3)
How much you actually charge will depend on your area, how busy you are, how much competition there is in your area and what they charge, etc, etc.
