Thread: Plumbers Quote - Sketchy?

Hi All,

A question I have as I'm new to the DIY game; I had a plumber come over to draw up a quote for some work.

$89 for the callout fee - I can accept that.
$2,800 for the job itself - twice what other plumbers have quoted for the work.

But here's the doozy...

$90 for an hours labour. To note, he didn't DO anything. He merely came to the house, looked at the plumbing (didn't touch anything), went out to his van to write the quote then left. All in all took under 10 minutes.

Is this standard practice, or have I been proper rorted?

If I am reading this correctly, he has charged you $179 total ($89 callout and $90 "labour") to come and give you a quote, but only took him around 10 minutes while at your house.

If it were me, I would be outraged and would refuse to pay it unless he made me aware of the charges beforehand.

Just as a comparison, I have had several roof restorers come to my house to give me quotes. One travelled around 35km to come and quote the job. They all came, climbed on the roof, spent about 10-15 minutes looking around on the roof, then came down and measured the entire perimeter of the house, spent some time talking about options, paints, methods, colour schemes, etc and wrote a detailed quote. Process took about 1 hour on average and cost me nothing in all cases.

Gooner, that's correct. I wasn't going to argue it with him on the spot, namely as he was representing a larger company (and not an independent operator).

I called his company afterwards to argue the point, and their point was they needed to charge a minimum of the plumbers available time. Though isn't that what the call-out fee covers?

I've emailed Small Business Victoria to get their feedback on this.

Were you made aware of the charges before you asked them to quote?

I certainly wouldn't be paying it.

How did u get on?

I would have thought the cost of preparing a quote, particularly in today's economy, was their opportunity cost of doing business and possibly bringing in work.

If they get the job, great, if not they'd better sharpen their pencil for the next quote....

Unless it was clearly explained beforehand the costs involved in getting a quote I would not be paying anything. Did you sign any paperwork agreeing to/acknowledging costs for doing a quote? If not they would be hard pressed to force payment IMHO.

Gooner, that's correct. I wasn't going to argue it with him on the spot, namely as he was representing a larger company (and not an independent operator).

I called his company afterwards to argue the point, and their point was they needed to charge a minimum of the plumbers available time. Though isn't that what the call-out fee covers?
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If they get the job, great, if not they'd better sharpen their pencil for the next quote.
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Plumbers are smart. They don't have to take a chance someone has just watched backyard blitz and in the mood for talkin crap wasting their time.

Potentially he may only get one call for the day. You would assume more. If its big company they still have to pay his wages.
At the end of the day there should have been clarity before they come out. Its standard practice for the plumbers to come out with a call out fee and minimum visitation fee.

I should have been a plumber,

I had a plumber out early last week. Drove from Manly to Taringa in Brisbane (about 30km) for 8:30 am (so through peak hour) and quoted me for free... and was happy and willing to do this.

Granted i gave him the job, he worked for it! When you fork out 180 bucks for a quote... you dont want to give them any more thats for sure.

What a rip off. I understand the call out fee but charging $90 an hour for a quote which took 10 minutes. No wonder why alot of people are doing the work themselves illegally. It's people like this that give other plumbers a bad name.