Tried that, was told that what we wanted couldn't be done. Probably meant couldn't be done in the budget that the cellar company had set Howdens. I did it myself and it was fiddly and awkward but doable by an amateur...
I don't think there anything wrong in that, but what if you decided to change the hydraulic valves because you got a better "deal"? Would you tell the boss, would you pocket the difference and not tell the boss? What if you were the boss?
Of course we would Yep Not possible. the company would benefit and the customer would get a world class machine. Winner, winner, chicken dinner.
@F_Pantos I occasionally get customers who have bought their own items - mainly on bathroom refits. Tbh they are usually poor quality and a pain to fit. I generally charge less than retail price for parts and a bit more than trade. This is fair I think and if a customer wants to research the parts - easy on the WWW, they can do so and source their own if they want to. However, once they’ve spent the amount of money with a Plumbers merchant that I have over the years, plus all the time taken to foster trust and a good relationship so that if I get a dodgy part I can h go o back in and get a replacement immediately or ASAP with no arguments. Also there is the time taken to source and purchase the parts. Especially at the moment where there are shortages and I may have to drive around Sheffield finding things. If I went to a job and then disappeared off for the parts the customer may find their bill is higher than than the cost of parts. I do occasionally go to a job where a customer has had a cheapo boiler fitted when I know the customer is not short of cash and wonder if they’ve been over charged, but tbh they may have just decided that’s all they want to spend. yours, a reputable heating engineer
I suppose regarding then parts thing, if transparency is required and itemising the cost of each component, the time taken to produce the document in that detail will take time and. that will Be passed onto the customer in the final bill - they will however know that they’ve not been ripped off by paying a higher amount to demonstrate that. Blinding result. Looking forward to the customers who can save 7p by supplying the materials compared to the itemised quote and when they haven’t arrived in time, are unsuitable or damaged then I can sit around charging for time idle while they replace the items at their cost and time. Another win for the consumer!! Don’t get done - get Dumb
If you wanted a complete breakdown of any job, detailing every part used to the penny, it's cost, the plumber's mark up, typical punter prices for comparison, every hour accounted for... 1) You are "one of those", you'll be looking trouble throughout, lurking, watching, checking my hours, "You don't want to do it like that mate". After the job you'll moan to anyone who will listen and hunt for anything that could be remotely described as a defect while attempting to extract some money back or repair of non-existent defect... We used to call those "corners" i.e. you fix something on one corner, a day later something completely unconnected on the other corner breaks and it's somehow your fault. 2) Expect to pay through the nose. In my case you'd get a quote so ridiculously high you'd hopefully go elsewhere. A plumber will take an experienced stab at the price and won't be far off but just by doing that has saved you paying for hours of calculating.
In struggling with those discount rates! Thinking back 25 years when I last bought twin and earth, it was probably about £30 retail for a 100metre drum, by then the retail price at places like Wickes was undercutting places like CEF. So to get a 95% discount your supplier was either selling it to trade for £1.50 a drum, which is hard to believe, or their original price was about £250 a drum, possibly bringing it down to about £15 a coil for the trade?
I'm not exaggerating but unfortunately it's past 10 years ago and the receipts are long gone. I particularly remember the twin and earth thing because I was marvelling out loud at the (to me) whopping 95% discount to an experienced contractor I knew (who had very helpfully advised me which supplier to use and what to say to get good discounts) and he laughed and claimed the 98%. I have no reason to disbelieve him and I know I got the 95%...however, the full retail price that was apparently discounted could have been anything, maybe that was 4x a reasonable retail price to begin with...which lets your electrician discount it by 50% and happy customer. This kind of pricing is rife in every sale of everything on earth isn't it? Discounting a recommended retail price that's level was set purely to discount and never represented reality in any way! The whole thing is much more competitive these days I find as a punter. If I use the smaller merchants for plumbing or electrical thing I'm getting the same discount as the traders so that I'll come back. I think wholesalers have born the brunt of rising parts prices and huge discounts that were available just can't happen now.
Example, I wanted a new light bulb for the fridge. Local electric merchants, 20p. Everywhere else two in a pack for £5.99. Some things you get totally done over for at almost all retailers.
How many of us have willingly paid a VW retailer £'s for a 10p part because we couldn't specify it? Knowledge is power but it's been worked for. I'm waffling.
I guess from a wholsaler-contractor to a commercial customer it is likely that a 100m drum of twin and earth could have been costed at a significantly higher rate, especially on an installation running into hundreds of thousands of pounds? Ultimately, unless a commercial customer employs their own Quantity Surveyor then how are they to know if twin and earth costs £30 or £200? Would they even care? I've used the SPONS pricing guides for M&E pricing and the £/m2 rates they provide could easily bump up the perceived cost significantly.
In my case they didn't give a monkeys. More than that I was set up as an electrical contractor and thrown 2x £6-8K jobs specifically so I could make enough money to continue providing other services when that need came back as it was known it would. A working retainer? No quoting - here's your budget, make as much as you can, but no corner cutting - Bev, tell him where to buy the good stuff cheap. They were remote equipment buildings with ladder racking, large cable glands, AC power, 25x3 copper earthing tape everywhere (luckily someone else did that) and some temperature control systems, I didn't actually use twin and earth, I used singles in conduit, the T&E was for a home job. When I say "I" that's a bit loose, I wriggled out of every responsibility with careful planning and did nowt other than visit a shop and have a couple of nice days out. I was designing the installations anyway including the parts lists as a different job so it wasn't exactly difficult.
If your engineering customer is any good they will also want all the certificates of conformity on all of the valves used, showing they are guaranteed to be the items that were quoted for. Like we used to use RadioSpares (RS) for electrical and electronic parts but we were forced to stop using them on some contracts because they could not offer a Certificate of Conformity on any random parts they happened to buy and sell on to us that claimed to be compatible. Other suppliers were able to guarantee the supplier of the parts and provide their certificates. All the mechanisms are there.
I think you are all missing my point, but meanwhile I'll climb back in my box again and see if the rest world catches up, or if the corporate world is just covering it's own big backside and nothing will change.
There's two scenarios - domestic and commercial, they seem to get fudged together nowadays. From a domestic perspective, there's no reason not to expect a detailed quotation (you might never hear from them again mind) but unless you demand to see invoices/receipts you'll never know the actual purchase cost, just the supply cost. Reminds me of the old school double glazing salesmen. Come to your house with the boiler-room sales pitch whilst sitting in your house until midnight. Price starts off somewhere ridiculous, then eventually a price is agreed somewhere below that, based on a gut feel, or even what your best friend paid for theirs.......no science involved really. And every now and then the salesman hooks a customer that pays full price because their priority is getting new windows, not haggling over the cost....
Once went to price a house extension and the guy kept telling me how much he thought everything should cost and how much others were trying to rip him off by. Didn't waste my time pricing it and just walked away.
