got two quotes, and really can’t be arsed getting anymore!

one is £500 the other £900, quite a difference!

The job is as follows, overboard and skim two ceilings both around 9m2, a hallway ceiling of about 2m2 plus a wall of about 2m2.

This is in Cheltenham if it matters for pricing, is one cheap, VERY cheap, or is one way OTT?

500 is cheap.
I reckon £150 plus parts for each room, when the room is 10 foot square.

150 for a ceiling!!!! Jesus a decent plasterer will have both them on at once on fresh board. 500 is a very good price and I’d be saying yes get it done. 900 is taking the piss.

£85 for materials and two very easy day’s for one man, so £500 sound’s spot on. Shame I live in Teesside

£500 seems pretty on the money. We’ve had loads of plastering done and that is a little more than we paid but that was a couple of years ago and in a poor Northern town…

I think to do a ceiling boarding they need an assistant, so you’re paying 2 day rates. I’d say £500 seems a bit cheap, is the person recommended by someone you know? I think £900 is a fair to slightly high price. I’d expect £7-800 in Bristol.

I’ve had a crap plasterer in and had to spend 3 days filling gaps, smoothing surfaces before I could whitewash, it’s not worth scrimping.

Deterrent pricing.

If you’re asked to quote for a job you really don’t want to do, whack it up by 50%. Then if you do get it, there’s something to sweeten the blow.

I’ve just paid about £1000 to have 36m2 (open plan) ceiling overboarded and skimmed inc all materials. Two guys travelled 220 miles round trip to the job, arrived at 8am and left at 9pm, job done.

^^ in what, a Porsche van? ^^
Don’t get me wrong that’s a big ceiling and it takes decent skimmers to get it right but some of these fellas are making serious money.

i paid 1000 last week to have 2 x 5x4m rooms (with chimney breast) , a 5×1 upstairs hall(with curved celing – staircase walls and roof and 3 x 4 hall way with only 1 clear wall – all the rest have a door or a wall return in them.

taped where needed , skimmed where needed and made good – few blown out socket/switch holes etc from a rewire

did all the reboarding/insulated plasterboarding where needed my self as thats the easy part imo.

thought i paid a good price tbh based on what others locally have paid.

Paid £200 for a wall 12′ x 9′, including fire-resistant plasterboard around a new fireplace and a load of other patching, and £100 for a ceiling, 12′ x 8′. Near Edinburgh.
£500 sounds reasonable for yours

After that lot, none the wiser! Pain getting two quotes as it was

Bloody hell I’m glad I live up in Newcastle!! Paid 2500 for the whole house (3 bed) including boarding every single ceiling! 500 sounds okay. 900 is having a laugh. Materials are next to nowt

I think they’re both taking the piss but if you want my opinion, go for the £500 quote and take the risk. Being expensive doesn’t guarantee quality in this game I’m afraid

You should be a bit the wiser. Forget what others have said or paid. Jimob above is obviously a plasterer and he like I thinks 500 is a very nice number for what’s involved. Current plaster value on my latest project 50k ish so I also have a rough idea 😉

Don’t get me wrong that’s a big ceiling and it takes decent skimmers to get it right but some of these fellas are making serious money.

It was the same price as I’d had from a local guy but I’ve used these other two before and they’ve always done a good job plus I knew they’d turn up and do the job which is not the case with the locals.
£900 between two of them is £450 for 13 hours work plus 4 hours driving …. thats £26/hr exc materials. Not a that expensive.

My site engineer gets 25/hr his kit cost 16k. Whichever way you want to look at it, i doubt there are many plasterers on 26/hr outside of inner London. If you’re happy paying that and they’ve turned out good work then it’s all good. I wouldn’t pay it.

Sorry sharkbait but it shouldn’t have taken two plasterers that long to overboard and skim one ceiling. 36m2 isn’t that big. No wonder they traveled that distance , easy money.

Site skiming can be as low as £2.50/3.00 m2 where as domestic work is completely different and rates can’t be compared.
First floor/ ground floor? Are the rooms empty of furniture etc? Will carpets have to be sheeted up? Are you re- decorating or will walls /skirtings have to be masked/ covered?
We can comfortably skim a 50m2 ceiling in a morning ( two men) It’s going to be a three hour set regardless of area but over boarding can be a bit more of a fiddle, especially in smaller rooms where there may not be joists where you need them. Talking of joists, has anyone checked the joist condition/ dimensions if an older property? quite a bit of extra weight going up there.
Can you not re-negotiate with the guys whose work your happy with as £900 is definitely too much, but think at the moment anyone of any use is snowed under with work and day rates are creeping up to £20/25 per hour ( Oxford)

Sorry, long winded way of saying, without looking at the job no- one can possibly second guess what’s involved or what it’s worth.,

When comparing quotations and what others have paid it’s always handy to know whether they’re vat registered, non-vat registered or cash in hand.

As £500 cash in hand becomes £650 non-vat which becomes £780 vat.

£500 isnt a bad price, £900 is too much. They are only small areas but will probably take two days, by the time he has overboarded he cant physically mix 3 lots of plaster, spread and finish in one day. So £150 x 2 days = £300 + £30 for boards and fixings, plus £25 for plaster and scrim = £355 bare cost before any overheads, travel, profit etc. Go for it.

Regardless of looking at that 1k ceiling it’s a figure that smacks of we’ll make it worth our while which is fair enough, but they’ve earnt decent money on that as it’s just over 100 quids worth of materials. Get it while you can I suppose as 4 years ago lads were making on site 100/day, many of them jacked in and the industry is now reaping what it sowed.

What br said and singleman.

Fwiw my dad does similar to wrightyson, although he said he wouldnt let any of the site guys(bar the foreman they are largely young lads) he uses in a domestic house as they wouldnt know how to tidy up behind them selves and get stumped by anything thats out of the ordinary for a site.

Took me 3 months to get the guy i used to come give me a price, and 6 more weeks to get him back to do it ( all pre arranged as he was busy i wasnt chasing him)

Left my house as good as he got it – and thats with oak clad stairs and hall floor upstairs/tiled downstairs.

over boarding can be a bit more of a fiddle, especially in smaller rooms where there may not be joists where you need them.

My job was one ceiling but three rooms with a number of fiddly bits. The guys were a little disappointed to find that the joists were set out for imperial sized boards (late ’70’s house).
Rooms where all carpeted so everything covered up – they left the place very tidy indeed.
As you said Wrighty – I was fine with the price. The house is over on the Llyn Peninsula and getting people for ‘small’ jobs can be difficult as they’re mostly working on the many bigger new builds that are currently taking place. I’d had a price from a local guy of £1k and he inferred it would be messy, so I was happy using a team I’d used before, and quoted slightly less, for what was probably a better job.
My price was inc VAT so I’ll claim that back and maybe put the job through he business as well.
A lot depends on where you are and, obviously, what sort of job it is.