Plumbers, arm or a leg?

[NSWinvester]

We recently had a problem with blocked drains and toilets due to a crack in the earthenware pipe all the "yucky stuff" had caught up in it and caused it to stop flowing.

So we had to call a plumber as it was a emergency, he charged me $200, for unblocking it, this was a temporary fix as this was an emergency, it was night and the tenants needed to use the bathroom and toilets. He than informed us that of the situation as described above.

He quoted me $1200! or an arm or a leg? He still would charge me $600 if we dug the hole myself.

Decided to do it ourselves,it took, me, a mate and my dad about 3 hours to fix at a total cost of $60 ($36 parts and $24 for sewer diagram). I don't know how sometimes they justify these prices.

 

[Sez]

Well done but you may run into some issues unless one of you is a plumber......??

 

[handyandy]

Decided to do it ourselves,it took, me, a mate and my dad about 3 hours to fix at a total cost of $60 ($36 parts and $24 for sewer diagram). I don't know how sometimes they justify these prices.

Because they can and most people will not go to the lengths that you have.

I, like you have always done most things myself but will always do some sort of cost/benefit analysis re my time and alternate jobs to be done.

I know it wasn't your intent but it's worth getting some additional quotes for a job like this as you are not obligated to use the same emergency plumber to fix the longer term problem.

Cheers

 

[RumpledElf]

I have plumbers out at the moment for a job quoted at $13,500.

I'm nervously biting my nails that they don't go over, since the bank is taking all our savings and has exactly $13,500 allocated to pay this guy.

This job we can NOT do ourselves, it would take us the best part of a year to dig out 15 or so cubic metres of dirt, they did it in a morning AND filled it all back in.

 

[Aaron_C]

I have plumbers out at the moment for a job quoted at $13,500.

I'm nervously biting my nails that they don't go over, since the bank is taking all our savings and has exactly $13,500 allocated to pay this guy.

This job we can NOT do ourselves, it would take us the best part of a year to dig out 15 or so cubic metres of dirt, they did it in a morning AND filled it all back in.

That is a LOT of dirt for 3 guys to dig out with shovels and wheelbarrows...

 

[NSWinvester]

I know it wasn't your intent but it's worth getting some additional quotes for a job like this as you are not obligated to use the same emergency plumber to fix the longer term problem.

Cheers

We got two quotes, the 2nd one was a little cheaper but not by much. Just happy in the end that I saved myself a lot of money and proud of the fact I did it myself.

Wow $13 500!

 

[jonesy427]

i think i get off easy because my father and father in law are both plumbers. and im a sparky, brother in law is a builder. all i need is an architech/draftsman.

 

[depreciator]

I was having a chat with my daughters the other day - aged 8 and 10. I told them that it would be great for me if one of them became a plumber and the other an electrician. They didn't jump at the idea, but I'll keep working on them.

 

[ugotadollar4me]

We recently had a problem with blocked drains and toilets due to a crack in the earthenware pipe all the "yucky stuff" had caught up in it and caused it to stop flowing.

So we had to call a plumber as it was a emergency, he charged me $200, for unblocking it, this was a temporary fix as this was an emergency, it was night and the tenants needed to use the bathroom and toilets. He than informed us that of the situation as described above.

He quoted me $1200! or an arm or a leg? He still would charge me $600 if we dug the hole myself.

Decided to do it ourselves,it took, me, a mate and my dad about 3 hours to fix at a total cost of $60 ($36 parts and $24 for sewer diagram). I don't know how sometimes they justify these prices.

Well that shows you he was trying to make $120 plus per hour

rip off

 

[RumpledElf]

That is a LOT of dirt for 3 guys to dig out with shovels and wheelbarrows...

Was three guys, a dog, and an absolutely massive backhoe actually

They've been here 3 full days and aren't finished yet. I really don't want the bill. I'm hoping the apprentice is only worth $5 an hour and the dog was free. The bank is only giving us $13,700 for this ...

 

[Dazz]

I have plumbers out at the moment for a job.

This job we can NOT do ourselves, it would take us the best part of a year to dig out 15 or so cubic metres of dirt, they did it in a morning AND filled it all back in.

Hey ya Rumpy, you and I seem to have had a similar day.


We also had our entire backyard ripped up to lay a 100mm sewer pipe to the main sewer running at the back, which was 2.3m below ground.


The hole the plumber dug for the official Water Corp guys was 3m x 3m x 2.3m deep, or about 21 cubic metres of soil.


The trench for the pipe was 2.5m x 26m x 1.4m average depth, or about 91 cubic metres of soil.


The plumber shifted this 112 cubic metres, and with a specific gravity of 2.65, weighing 300 tonnes in total, all before 11am.


Laying of the pipe took literally 15 minutes, then he spent the next hour pushing / sliding / scooping the 300 tonnes of dirt back into place.


I got to run around like a plumber's apprentice finding out exactly what he did, and also taking detailed measurements and drawing a detailed engineering schematic so I finally know where all of the underground fixtures are on my property....which will come in very handy in the future.


Effectively moving 600 tonnes of dirt around our backyard, do the job and have his gear back on his trailing and driving away from the job before 2pm was well worth it.


He got his $ 1,500.00 and I can still walk with my back still intact.


Those mini-excavators are amazing little machines. Cast iron beams for bones and hydraulic rams for muscles - what a fantastic invention !!


A real boy day. No girls allowed - it was absolutely fantastic !!!!

 

[Rolf Latham]

Well that shows you he was trying to make $120 plus per hour

rip off

Based on an employee ideaology of a 38 hr week with zero expenses I can see how 120 an hour looks over the top.

Without having much of an idea of the fixed costs of the business and the "hour per week capacity" , rip off might be a bit offside.

My it guys are cheap at 125, my tax folks at 250, even a decent cleaner or gardener is 40...............and my last water jet plumbing clearance was 200 an hour and I was happy bout it.

ta
rolf

 

[RumpledElf]

Hey ya Rumpy, you and I seem to have had a similar day.

That does sound familiar ... very similar volumes and length, and about what we would have been charged for the same thing but for us it was more than pipe, it included a septic tank that cost a few $1000. We had the same guy move a septic tank last year so we have a cost breakdown from that job, was about $1900 to dig it up, haul it out, dig a new hole, rebury and reconnect it, far more fiddly than just putting in a new one. We didn't stick around to watch that one, new septic tanks are one thing, USED ones are another ...

This week though, after digging up the entire backyard they installed a solar hws, gas pipes, all the underfloor drainage, the mains pipe to the house and still waiting on the oven ... the digging part was quite fast compared to all the fiddly connecting of pipes to things. They used the bucket on the backhoe to lift the hws up to the roof!

And yes, we're jotting all the locations down on our drawings too - the original septic plans that were lodged to council aren't the same as what actually happened, they ripped up the last of our monster chook shed (the guy doing the backhoe was in his 60s and was doing the most amazingly fine movements with that machine, looked like a dinosaur delicately shifting concrete with a single claw) so instead of going around it like in the drawings they went in a dead straight line. Smart people!

Our plumber is quite young and looked a bit like keanu reeves. His apprentice wasn't too bad either. There are definite perks to having a pack of youngish tradies round

*studiously ignores the old backhoe guy*

 

[RumpledElf]

My it guys are cheap at 125, my tax folks at 250, even a decent cleaner or gardener is 40...............and my last water jet plumbing clearance was 200 an hour and I was happy bout it.

I was asking around to find hourly rates for something after we were asked to quote for a subcontract job. Turns out everyone pays $80ph for that type of work in Sydney (the client gets charged $120). The other half wanted to charge $30. And this is why I asked around ...

 

[Nikolina]

Reading all this makes me realise how lucky i am because my dads a plumber! Never costs me anything!

 

[Aaron_C]

Based on an employee ideaology of a 38 hr week with zero expenses I can see how 120 an hour looks over the top.

Without having much of an idea of the fixed costs of the business and the "hour per week capacity" , rip off might be a bit offside.

My it guys are cheap at 125, my tax folks at 250, even a decent cleaner or gardener is 40...............and my last water jet plumbing clearance was 200 an hour and I was happy bout it.

ta
rolf

That is so true. People overlook the difference between being a PAYG employee and a self-employed person who has to pay for all the outgoings.