Think that sums it it up; It all depends on the job.

Just had a plumber in to quote moving the mains inlet to our house. He's yet to come back with a price (and only lives 400yards up the road). In truth its a bitch of a job, thats why I don't want to do it myself.....nor does he by the looks of it.

And I suppose that's the crux; easy jobs charge by the hour, and hard jobs charge what you like, or fob off the customer if you have better things to do.

In the end of the day, look at what you need to live off and work around that (petrol money, food, utilities, etc), obviously try to quote above this, but bear in mind qouting too much may mean days sat on your backside doing nothing due to lack of work. :(

Re: pricing
 

Many thanks King! And thanks to all who have offered comments. Might be a bit slack up to Christmas but we'll see. One last thing, does anyone have any thoughts about a feasible call out rate to, for example, board up a vandalised shop or home window in the middle of the night if I advertise emergency call outs among my services?

Cheers all.

im a builder/joiner/roofer and part time god, never mind all the hourly rates, you need to assess the job, know your material prices and think to yourself how much you would be happy with for doing the job, then whack 30% on top for mr tax man and mrs national ins woman, JOB DONE:D

Sorry to hear about the problems.

I cannot tell you what to charge but I would keep it reasonable to build up your clientele initially. You will get the trade by reference and eventually will probably do better than when you were employed by the firm.

Les

Quality work gets you contacts but working for next to nothing gets you endless work wether you are good or bad as people prefer to pay nothing for work :)

door & frame
 

Anyone got any thoughts on how much to charge for remove existing internal door & casing and replace with new? Sounds like the walls could be a bit out from what the customer has said to me, not had chance to have a look yet. 'Up North' rates apply if that's any help!

Cheers all

Fire Door King!!
 

Hiya all

Just want to see what you all think about a claim made by a joiner I spoke to earlier - made me feel inadequate!! He passed some work onto me that he says he hasn't time to do, but he says part of the job he's on involved fitting oak faced fire doors, and this is where I stopped listening, because he says he fitted 17 in 2 days. Am I Captain Slow or does anyone else think this is possible. He says he 'set his router up' - fair enough - but they still need fitting and we all know what they weigh. What does anyone think?

Cheers

It's not impossible, but it depends on what tolerances of fit the customer deems acceptable. I don't believe for a second that he fitted 17 fire doors in two eight-hour days, especially if they had to have a 3mm all-round fit with an intumescent strip. He is talking bollocks in the extreme. Some fitted doors I've seen you could limbo-dance under or sidle through the gaps. It's bull****, plain and simple.

Fire Doors
 

Cheers Bubba! Just what I was thinking - not impossible if everything goes right and you have one (well, 2) of them days but improbable in 2 'normal' days work. But then, every time I see him he's 'made a killing' or 'won't get out of bed for less than £150 a day' (must be developing bedsores just about now i reckon). I definitely don't want to slag off a fellow tradesman but claims like that just make you look an arse I think.