Kitchen Fitter Required

[Good Surname or what ?]

Byron,

My apologies, I made a factual mistake in my jest regarding the contact lenses in my earlier post. I have amended it. I hope I am correct this time.

I can't be bothered to trawl back through other threads to find your reasons for doing this kitchen build yourself, but if was incorrect that you have tried to save money by doing the easier parts of the job yourself I also apologise for that inaccuracy too.

However, I stand by my comments about the economy and the extent of the DIM(Y) culture. My experience of tradesmen is competely at odds with yours. Maybe I just value the skills of others more highly than my own. Whatever, I more than willing to pay the going rate for those skills and don't consider it a rip-off.

I hope you get the necessary help with your kitchen whether from this forum or a reputable tradesman.

I'm now exiting this thread as it is too emotionally charged
Phil

 

[Anonymous]

Mod note

OK, this has probably run it's course. Please refrain from the personal comments and points, or the thread will be locked.

Please just cool it down a bit.

 

[Gary M]

Byron, you too should read over the original postings,
i merely stated that agreed with what tiler99 said, and in turn,

i tryed to show you how much was involved in what you foolishly labeled a very small job,

go to your local hire shop and get a quote for everything you need for a worktop joint
jig up to £30.00 per day, router the same, clamps £5.00 , you cant hire a cutter so another £20.00 to buy one all plus vat
total hire costs for a very small job £99.88 oh and of course the small matter of cutting and fitting the worktop !!

i would be taking the risk of cutting the hole for your sink
fitting your sink,
sealing the worktop edges,
sealing the sink to worktop,
fitting isolating valves (if not already there, normally not)
fitting electrical earth,
fitting waste (they dont always line up with the old )
ect ect ect !!!

plastering the wall (depending on the size) could take up to a day depending on how bad it is
may need bonded first or may just need skimmed.
ect ect ect !!!

as for the shower there is a mulititude of problems you can encounter, although £1200 sounds a bit much!!

drain/toilet jetting is a specialised job, and believe me if you ever seen the mess a blocked drain or toilet can make £90 +vat is well worth it !!

as i said i do not wish to offend, but the general public have no idea how much expenditure a tradesman has to outlay to have all the tools required to do these simple jobs never mind the time and effort put into learning their trade !!

you then in turn retorted with a long post about ridiculous prices apart from the plastering,
which you then edited out 8 mins later !! why was that,
i did see it !!
my good friend and fellow tradesman Scrit posted his views on the matter,
which echoed my own views !!
you have never once accepted all the various statements about a tradesmans expenditure/overheads ( the whole point of my attack on you) until this evening !!
perhaps Byron if you had made you latest statements sooner we would be talking about the recent floods now !!

 

[Scrit]

perhaps.... .....if you had made you latest statements sooner we would be talking about the recent floods now !!

So was there any flooding in NI, then?

Scrit

 

[Dave S]

I think as the thread has gone on, quite a bit that has been written has been mis-attributed.

One thing that I think applies to many businesses, be they trades, professions or whatever, is that when there is plenty of work around, the larger jobs can be more attractive then the small ones. If asked to quote for a small job, a high price is often given - basically it's saying that they'd rather be doing a £5000 job than the £300 job but that they'll do it if you pay £1000.

The mistake is to assume that £1000 is the rate at which they charge for all work.

Dave

 

[Slim]

I think as the thread has gone on, quite a bit that has been written has been mis-attributed.

One thing that I think applies to many businesses, be they trades, professions or whatever, is that when there is plenty of work around, the larger jobs can be more attractive then the small ones. If asked to quote for a small job, a high price is often given - basically it's saying that they'd rather be doing a £5000 job than the £300 job but that they'll do it if you pay £1000.

The mistake is to assume that £1000 is the rate at which they charge for all work.

Dave

Don't agree with that Dave, or at least that is not what I do. Any quotes I give are true reflections on what I think the job is worth. I take on both large landscaping work and half-hour tidy-up jobs. However, I do have a minimum charge for really short jobs.

 

[Dave S]

Don't agree with that Dave, or at least that is not what I do. Any quotes I give are true reflections on what I think the job is worth. I take on both large landscaping work and half-hour tidy-up jobs. However, I do have a minimum charge for really short jobs.

Perhaps I generalised too much, sorry. I know it happens in my own field (software development), though, and a bricklayer friend of mine told me he does it.

I think my main point, though, was that it would be a mistake to assume that someone who quoted £500 for a half day onsite would quote £5000 for a week onsite. I think it's a mistake that has been made during the course of this thread.

Dave

 

[ByronBlack]

Gary, first of, I edited the post because I knew it was out of order - I'm not so harsh that I can't see the errors of my sometime often wrong reaction. Your right, there wasn't an apology by myself, but I did go on to say that my intention wasn't to offend, and wasn't based on the tradesman of this forum - an apology of sorts, basically you and others are accusing me of something that I didn't say, but we can go round and round and round, and I don't need to keep justifying myself, as I already wanted to extract myself from the debate/attack but you so succintly made it personal that I had to defend myself due to all the BS that was spoken about me later in this thread of which others have now apologised.

Slimjim you said "Presumably if you moved to another area, you would think that 90% of tradesmen were rip-off mercants there aswell. "

Again - your are compounding the argument by yet again presuming something that is not factually true. You and others cannot base an argument on what you presume or assume to be true. I don't know how many times I have to make that point!

 

[tim]

C'mon chaps - this actually does have the potential to be an interesting debate without personal attacks and defences irrespective of what has gone before. It would be a pity of the mods locked it after its just got interesting.

Back to the interesting stuff - the size of the job clearly has a bearing on profitability and therefore price. I think that what I do is not hike up prices on small jobs when busy but probably the opposite ie acknowledge that if I am quiet and want some work I may have to take a margin hit and offer a reduced price because of the scale of the job. However if I am busy then the small job has to compete on an even cost footing with the more efficient and therefore higher margin larger jobs.

This has the effect of making a small job appear disproportionately expensive but on an hour by hour basis would only contribute the same amount of profit as the bigger ones.

Its quiet easy to see how quotes from various tradesmen for the same job may vary through the year depending on how busy they are.

Cheers

Tim

 

[Anonymous]

If its any help Byron, I think your original post was poorly worded but I don't think your the type of person to offend on purpose. I think some of the reactions to this post are over the top. Hey, remember thats me talking, gosh I must be losing my edge.

 

[Slim]

Ok Byron, its clear that this is going to get us nowhere, so lets just agree to disagree and let calm return to UKW. :wink: No hard feelings.

 

[Anonymous]

Mod note

I think that's a good place to end it.

The posts have still been personal despite my warning, so this thread is now locked.