Me and my wife recently bought our farther in laws barn conversion he started in the 80's and for personal reasons had to finish very quickly to a lower standard of finish than he would of liked. Now forward 30 years me and my wife now have it and are slowly getting it into shape.

No here is the problem it's a large property with alot of land and several other garages and another cottage on the land our farther in law lives. We have a range rover vouge nothing new mabie 10k an old porsche 3.5k.

I recently had a builder give me a price to remove a single internal wall it is 3.2meters long. I told him we will buy the materials as we can claim vat back on them as both self employed. The waste wasn't an issue as we have a massive hole we are filling. He came in at £4400 said it would take 4 days to do the job.

We have had electricians in to and has massive prices again. Soon as I ask for a break down on the price I get blanked. Same again with a joiner and he did brake his price down but wanted 390ish a day.

We are under the impression now that because we look like we have lots of money we are constantly being taken for a ride. I actually work in the building trade so I know when it's going to far cost wise. Fact of the mater is we make an average living. But don't waste our money and have been introduced he right place right time for the past few years and ended up in a good situation.

Anyone have similar problems to this

[Edited on 30/7/15 by mk85]

I work for a busy fabrication business and we have a workshop full of Joiners who cause us nothing but trouble. We have at least three who claim to be VASTLY underpaid and claim to be able to earn £45K - £55K elsewhere. Yet they refuse to go and get this mysteriously well paid work and keep on coming back.

We charge our joiners out at £220-250 per man day. And that is a proper day, 8am until 6pm. Your being taken for a ride on that one at £390. I might expect a proper Cabinet Maker to charge that but not a joiner.

Am a stone Mason by trade. I worked in london for a few years and could get near 1100 in a week but we are talking about 85 - 90 hour weeks.

Am self employed and charge between 175-230 a day depending on the job

We get this problem a lot of the time at work. As I work for a large stately home we have a lot of maintenance work that needs doing to the main house and all the properties we own and a lot of the time too much for our in house staff. When we get contractors to quote, some see the houses we own and rent out then assume that we don't care about money and are loaded so they give hugely inflated prices and think we will pay it. Unfortunately for them I know how much every job should cost and they usually price them selves out of work as I will never ask the person back if I know they are taking the piss. However thankfully there are a lot of good contractors out there who will treat everybody the same and as such they get a lot of work from us and treat us as their primary client which comes in handy if we ever need any emergency work done quickly.

Matt

Yep, all too often price depends on where you live and how much they think they can charge.
I have had the best tradesmen in on personal recommendation. Chippy at £150 a day, Bricky (was) £120 though I could have booked him via a local company and it would have been £250. And so on. Just ask about, and you should find some people at fair rates (I know you don't want cheap, just fair)

Wow! Do tradesmen really earn that much?
Must be in the wrong trade.


I did a job on Jan 6th.
Loaded the welder at 7.30, got there for 8.30.
Worked till 4. Home and unloaded for a 6.30 tea.
Did the invoice that evening for £125.


Three visits, two more invoices, four months...
Finally got payed.

£4300 to knock a wall down? WOW

Is it not a simple as getting a big hammer and a wheelbarrow and doing it yourself?

Had a quote off a builder for a 14 metre trench (foundations) and fill it, three brick walls for single storey

Wanted nearly £8,000. Did as much as poss myself and got job finished (inc decorated) with a brand new d/g front door and electric remote control garage door for same money.

ATB

Simon

The actual job is very simple in terms of access to the wall. With it being internal and stuctual I want someone else to do it who nissan insured for the mortgage and house insurance reasons.

I have already put some internal door ways in with lintels with no issues.

Just hate the idea of being ripped off

The problem is there are people out there naïve enough to pay these amounts. I've a brand new boiler, compliance kit, wireless thermostat, etc. awaiting installation, straight forward swap with like for like with a short 22mm gas pipe run needed. Tried a few plumbers 350 + vat a day, two days work, plus fittings, pipe etc. Until I can find one to do it at a fair and reasonable rate at around 200-250 a day its staying in the box.

I really don't mind paying a fair and reasonable rate, but there's no way I'm going to be shafted.

We had the same with some of the finishing work on our build. £2500 plus materials to tile a kitchen floor. I did it with decent porcelain tiles for £550 all in and it took 2 days to level and tile the floor.

But when neighbours ask would you recommend them you can guess the answer.

A lot depends on how busy they are and how soon you need the work done. I fit bathrooms and charge the same rate for all my clients and have lots of jobs booked in. I know of a guy who wanted to charge £1400 for a days work to fit an unvented cylinder.
He thought the customer was desperate to get it done.
It is annoying when you hear these stories as most of us do a good job for a fair price.