Plumbers...crooks or an essential ?

[Pugs]

Not having a go at all tradesmen just my observations and experiences...

 

Plumbers, in this area are nightmare. Even a painter and decorator I know said he knows 15 odd plumbers and only 2 do a decent job!

 

I once got qouted £1500 quid because i had a leaking

combo tank and he said that I would be better of getting a COMPLETE new water system installed . Needless to say I said no but went ahead with getting a new combi tank measured up and ordered through him. Couple of weeks later he turned up and it turned out to be the wrong make, model, type etc, and then he tried to charge me £90 squid for his **** up. I ended up nearly in fight with the guy and chucked him out of my house. Bleedin idiot :mad:

 

I know shabby work when I see it and there ARE a lot of cowboys in those trades or is it because I'm too hard on them being from a aircraft technician background when work has to be of the highest standard.

[Sharkbyte]

Sidestepping the 'rogue' aspest for a minute, what most people do not appreciate is the sheer amount of hard work, time and money that goes into building up a decent client base to enable a tradesman to earn an exceptional wage.

 

I suspect many of those rogues featured on the TV have sod all work for a large proportion of their weeks and rip people off to try and make up for their dead time.

[squidlips]

£100,000per year dream on i just manage £30,000 for 6 days a week

[UK-Fishing-Tackle.co.uk]

It's not dreaming it is reality...there has been a lot of press about London (inner M25) plumbers clearing 70 to 100k a year -just- for emergency work.

 

A website (not mentioning which) is quoting £150 per hour for London plumbing work after 6pm. If you worked 2 hours a day, five days a week for 44 weeks a year (8 weeks holiday!) you'd earn 66k. Now, if you worked 6 days a week, and 48 weeks a year thats £87000.

 

That's repairs. Now a new boiler installation in London is topping £3k apparently (inc the boilier), which given they are probably paying £800 for the parts (inc. a half decent Worcester boiler) leaves £2200 profit for what is essential a day to two days work.

 

Plumbers can moan about vans, insurance etc, but like roofers, and other 'emergency' type trades they are generally on to a pretty good thing these days.

 

I live in a very rural area and I doubt many plumbers here earn much under 30k and I suspect most earn a good deal more (you must be too honest squidlips! )

[poledark]

I really don't know why anyone ever employs a plumber, after all, any fool can do that job......I have been hearing that sort of **** for years, and have been known to tell one smarteass to go ahead and fix his own bloomin leak (as I walked out of his door)

 

Den Ex plumber

[squidlips]

i am a sub-contractor for hampshire county council

and work on commercial plumbing installations,schools,old folks homes etc

and i would rather not have all the hastle of working in peoples houses.

i may earn less but at least the work is varied compared to fitting boilers,bathrooms etc (yawn)

and if the weather is nice i can go fishing whenever i want.

i didnt even fit my own central heating system (too fiddly and her indoors cant whinge at me if it goes belly up)lol

i do agree that £125 plus per hour is a rip off though even at night.they must be using gold fittings

[UK-Fishing-Tackle.co.uk]

They'd want to be bloody titanium!

 

I wasn't trying to imply plumbing was an unskilled job Den, BUT it is effectively possible for someone with no plumbing skills (and a bit of common sense) to carry out what would have been fairly major water plumbing tasks (new installations, emergency repairs etc), with a little preparation, forethought and the right parts/tools. Years ago blow-torches, solder, flux and copper pipe put people off (rightly so!).

 

These days you can do the same work (on hot and cold systems, potable and dhw), with poly pipe, a bag of inserts, the fittings and a pipe cutter/hacksaw.

[Keith Finn]

poledark:

I really don't know why anyone ever employs a plumber, after all, any fool can do that job......I have been hearing that sort of **** for years, and have been known to tell one smarteass to go ahead and fix his own bloomin leak (as I walked out of his door)

 

Den Ex plumber

LOL,Know what you mean.

Keith

[Keith Finn]

UK-Fishing-Tackle.co.uk:

They'd want to be bloody titanium!

 

I wasn't trying to imply plumbing was an unskilled job Den, BUT it is effectively possible for someone with no plumbing skills (and a bit of common sense) to carry out what would have been fairly major water plumbing tasks (new installations, emergency repairs etc), with a little preparation, forethought and the right parts/tools. Years ago blow-torches, solder, flux and copper pipe put people off (rightly so!).

 

These days you can do the same work (on hot and cold systems, potable and dhw), with poly pipe, a bag of inserts, the fittings and a pipe cutter/hacksaw.

Ah, But does all that plastic pipe make it look a good job.

Doing the job for speed over appearance is a no no !

Fair enough, there is a time and a place for the use of plastic but copper piping looks miles better!

Keith

[UK-Fishing-Tackle.co.uk]

True Keith, although providing you are not putting the connectors in your visible pipe runs then white piping can be more appropriate than copper at times (after all very few of us have any other copper fixtures/fittings). Secdonly in -most- houses there is very little visible pipework, certainly most in my house are boxed in - and they would be if they were copper as well!

 

Also you can get copper push fit connectors should you wish to have visible copper runs.

 

When we did our CH system I got the floorboards up, piped out the entire house in plastic and just ran some foot long copper lengths from under the floor (connected to a speedfit elbow), up to a compression fit rad valve. You'd never know that the whole system wasn't copper.

 

I hate to throw this in, and I appreciate you did say there is a place for plastic BUT in general I have found (when talking to plumbers) there is a distinct lack of support for plastic plumbing and piping - most of the time they cannot justify it - but they'll often rubbish the idea of using it.

 

[ 15. October 2005, 09:42 AM: Message edited by: UK-Fishing-Tackle.co.uk ]