should have been an electrican.

C

carol3

Guest
what do electricans charge per hour, had a guy over today to fix a few problems i had, replace a few blubs and fix a faultly socket that kept blowing a switch in the fuse box. he was here for an hour and 15mins and charged me €140 . i taught it was alot for an hours work.
 
what do electricans charge per hour, had a guy over today to fix a few problems i had, replace a few blubs and fix a faultly socket that kept blowing a switch in the fuse box. he was here for an hour and 15mins and charged me €140 . i taught it was alot for an hours work.

First it was not an hours work you said it was an hour and fifteen mins.

If you have this problem again with your electrics you should get someone off the street and let them at it, pay them the minimum wage and leave them to it, they will eventually get it right....or maybe not.

I have no idea what an electrician charges for an hours work.

Questions for you...

Did he do the job properly?

Did he bring materials, bulbs wires fuses stuff, with him because they cost money!

Did he drive over because that costs money.

Does he advertise because that costs money.

Is he insured because that costs money.

I could go on but you get my drift.

There is this illusion people have that every cent that goes into a tradesmans pocket is his (or hers) well its not.
 
what do electricans charge per hour, had a guy over today to fix a few problems i had, replace a few blubs and fix a faultly socket that kept blowing a switch in the fuse box. he was here for an hour and 15mins and charged me €140 . i taught it was alot for an hours work.

Why didn't you replace the bulbs yourself? Think about it, the electrician probably thought to himself: I can charge this person whatever I want. She doesn't even know how to change a light bulb. I don't mean to insult you there. In terms of the cost, €140 is certainly a lot of money to hand over but you could have minimized it. Take it as a tough lesson in unnecessary expense.
 
I agree with SLF, the tradesman who is bona fide has several costs unseen by the customer, you could of course take the risk and get somebody in off the street and let them loose!
 
Why didn't you replace the bulbs yourself? Think about it, the electrician probably thought to himself: I can charge this person whatever I want. She doesn't even know how to change a light bulb. I don't mean to insult you there. In terms of the cost, €140 is certainly a lot of money to hand over but you could have minimized it. Take it as a tough lesson in unnecessary expense.

Try to read the posts!

What the OP actually said was....

, had a guy over today to fix a few problems i had, replace a few blubs and fix a faultly socket that kept blowing a switch in the fuse box.

It was not just the bulbs that needed changing and you were not there so you don't know what was said nor what was going through the sparks mind.
 
It was not just the bulbs that needed changing and you were not there so you don't know what was said nor what was going through the sparks mind.

Whether I was there or not is irrelevant. My point is that the OP was charged a pretty hefty amount for the work done, although I am not saying that she was ripped off. I accept that replacing a faulty socket is a job for an electrician, but changing a few light bulbs is most definitely not. The OP left herself open to the high charge due to the extra time the electrician required to change the bulbs.
I'm all for people saving themselves from unnecessary call-outs by doing the job themselves where possible.
 
Whether I was there or not is irrelevant. My point is that the OP was charged a pretty hefty amount for the work done, although I am not saying that she was ripped off. I accept that replacing a faulty socket is a job for an electrician, but changing a few light bulbs is most definitely not. The OP left herself open to the high charge due to the extra time the electrician required to change the bulbs.
I'm all for people saving themselves from unnecessary call-outs by doing the job themselves where possible.

I think in this case what could have happened is the sparks was asked to fix one thing then since he was there was asked to do other things too ie buy and install bulbs.

We don't know what type of bulb was used or how many, don't know how fast he was or what he had to do. It could be that the main work was fixing the faulty socket and he spent 5 mins instaling new bulbs, we just don't know.

I totally agree with you on the issue of doing things for yourself.

I have no doubt that there are "tradesmen" who will rip people off but they are few and far between, they usually get found out. this is one of the reasons I'm very keen on referrals and asking for a home address from tradesmen.

I don't believe €140 is far too much
 
If he spent 1 hour & 15 minutes with you he had to drive there & go back to bas or his next call, in either case he needs to cover about 3 hours on that call. On top of that he has vat to pay @ 13.5%. I think you got it done very reasonable.
 
If he spent 1 hour & 15 minutes with you he had to drive there & go back to bas or his next call, in either case he needs to cover about 3 hours on that call. On top of that he has vat to pay @ 13.5%. I think you got it done very reasonable.

Is there a basis of you averaging the travel time at 50 minutes each way?
If 100 euro per hour is 'very reasonable', is 150 'reasonable' and 200 standard?
There is no doubt that many customers do not appreciate all the costs that trades people have. The usually look at it as if all the costs would be there for the tradespeople for the other customers and that there is no additional overhead cost to doing the job they want done. They don't accept their share of the overhead.

On the other hand, there is a lot of 'poor-mouthing' from tradespeople. I can't understand why tradespeople do not see that it is in their interest to price jobs and tell the customer either the cost of the job or the cost per hour before carrying out the work.
 
what do electricans charge per hour, had a guy over today to fix a few problems i had, replace a few blubs and fix a faultly socket that kept blowing a switch in the fuse box. he was here for an hour and 15mins and charged me €140 . i taught it was alot for an hours work.


Did he replace any parts?And alot of companies have a standard rate for say half a day as he might have to travel a bit to the next site to do work or it could be a fixed job?If the job is done ok there must be some reason he charged it.Next time get a quote there is plenty of people out of work who are qualified who would do the work for less at the moment.
 
of course there was also 13 1/2 % vat involved, or even 21 1/2 % if a lot of materials were supplied. This also added to the cost.
 
A plug is easily changed, then a socket is easily changed, then an immersion is easily wired and a whole fuse board is easily changed. It's all easily changed, Famous LAST WORDS! It's only easy if you know what you are doing.
 
Carol to get us out of our misery can you tell us how far he had to travel, if you know, and whether he had to supply materials? It would end a lot of the surmising.

Hopefully he didn't just have to reconnect a loose connexion in the socket :(
 
Thanks everyone for your replies.

he replaced 4 downlighter bulbs which i had, wouldn't feel safe changing them myself wouldn't know how. the socket he told me had a fault in it so he changed it he supplied that. im not sure how far he had to travel. he invoiced me €100 labour and €23 materail = €123 + vat @ 13.5% = €140
looking at the replies it sounds like a fair price to have charged me.
 
I don't have any issue with the bill, but would tradesmen grow up a bit with the whole I had to travel there and I had to travel back. If you have a clue on how to manage your day you will be able to move from one job to the next in the sequence that suits you best. Also by traveling to the customer they are the ones that must go by your times (not that tradesmen aren't naturally punctual) and you save on the cost of a 'base'. Noboby wants their job bad mouthed but when you start nit picking at basic requirements to operating a business it doesn't look good.
 
Agree that travel time is irrelevant. It should be charged as general overhead and not on a job by job basis, unless you know someone 100 miles away who insists on hiring you instead of the local guy.

Changing bulbs? (or "blubs" as the OP mentioned). Nice work if you can get it. :)
 
On the other hand, there is a lot of 'poor-mouthing' from tradespeople. I can't understand why tradespeople do not see that it is in their interest to price jobs and tell the customer either the cost of the job or the cost per hour before carrying out the work.

Something I never do is give people by the hour rates, giving a job price fine but not by the hour.

I have a sparks who does work for me from time to time he gives me an approx price before the job starts then if he runs into trouble when doing the job, if he comes across something danerous while he's working then he puts the price up as necessary.

If a guy is doing electrical work for you suddenly comes across something dangerous (minor) and can't get in touch with you what should he do?

Do the work and hope to get paid the extra or not bother.

Me I'd perfer to have someone who has the kop-on to do a job properly

its the same as changing a plug....I would think anyone that can do that should be able to replace a socket

Even my wife was laughing at that one.

I don't have any issue with the bill, but would tradesmen grow up a bit with the whole I had to travel there and I had to travel back. If you have a clue on how to manage your day you will be able to move from one job to the next in the sequence that suits you best. Also by traveling to the customer they are the ones that must go by your times (not that tradesmen aren't naturally punctual) and you save on the cost of a 'base'. Noboby wants their job bad mouthed but when you start nit picking at basic requirements to operating a business it doesn't look good.

MrMan you are assuming that all the customers are in a line and waiting to be called to, you are assuming that all jobs go according to plan.

If us trades and crafts men had the easy life of estate agents it would be great. All estate agents have to do is call to a customer once then they say yes or no then form a queue of people to buy it then sell the house.

Simple isn't it?:rolleyes:
 
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