[Closed] £70 to change a rad valve seem reasonable?

probably an hours work and I assume they're adding extra inhibitor when it's refilled?

Seems pretty fair to me. There's no point getting to a job for less than £50 - by the time they've got to you, done 30-60min job and got back on the road they might as well call it a half day.

You could of course do it yourself, it is quite an easy job.

no idea, no inhibtions were mentioned. lol

a litre of inhibitor is about £10 and in theory they should test for inhibitor concentration and not mix inhibitors. So they might as well drain the lot and refill with a new inhibitor.

However, if the towel rad valve is high in the house and there's plenty of water below it then cheap and cheerful would be a partial drain and top up.

cheers lads, I've given him the go ahead.

I was about to ring a plumber about a similar job... The thermostatic valve in a room that's not been used seems to have stuck closed - is it a big job to DIY?
I've taken rads off to decorate but always have a bit of fear about plumbing stuff!

shib - unscrew the thermostatic head (the big plastic bit on top of the metal valve body) - you should see a brass pin sticking up. It might be stuck down (closed), give it a gentle tug with fingers, or if neccesary pliers. then push it up and down a few times. reinstall thermostatic valve head. That will be £69.99 please 🙂

Nice one Stoner, please, have a pint of karma, on me 😀

BTW the head will possibly be held on with a ring collar rather than the whole body being unscrewed.

Sounds very reasonable to me, he needs to have a van, tools, insurance, pay tax/NI and other overheads.

As said, it isn't particularly hard but you will need a few basic tools and some know how.

Stoner, you are a gent... Just had a look and it was the collar type you mentioned. Whipped it off, squirt of GT85 and a good wiggle to remove all the green gunk that was holding it down and it works like a good un!

May the karma angels reward you with earthly wealth sir... 🙂

way ahead of them there shibboleth 😉

@Stoner you're a star, have filed that away in the memory banks. That is the type of DIY which is classified as "advanced" for me.

Where abouts are you ? .... Know a few lads at work that would of done this for a fair bit less ! ...
guess the guys just charging you the hr but even so its an easy job and more than doable by ur average bike mechanic !

As Stoner has already said, probably a sticking pin, easy to rectify if u have to change the pin which isnt often .... a nice tap and usually it comes free

If you have a combi. It's simple to shut the flow and return valves at the boiler. Relieve the pressure through a bleed nipple and change the towel rail valve. This will involve little to no water loss as long as the valve on the other side of the rad is off.
There is no need to add inhibitor unless you ask him to.
If you asked him to change the valve, that's what he'll do.
If you asked him to change the valve and check the chemicals, that's what he'll do. And charge you appropriately.
If you have a non pressurised system, he will need to plug the fill pipe and cap the vent at the header tank, then proceed as above, excluding the boiler valves. (There won't be any)
Now, do you think this knowledge, a trip to your house, an hours work, a replacement towel rail valve and a trip back to where he came from with insurance to cover the possibility of a mishap is worth £70 quid? Because I damn well do.
Edit: of course it could just as easily be a she!

What do you earn in a day? Thats Rhetorical, but Getting everything together, travel... Thats probably going to use up best part of the morning. Im a tradesman and get pretty p****d off with people expecting things done for a fiver and a cup of tea.

I got your back [b]sbibby1988[/b]
It gets my goat too, but I think it's mainly down to two things. Times are hard and most people have no idea what's involved.
I forgot to mention collecting the part from the supplier, which may involve an initial site visit to make sure you're collecting the right one. I usually don't charge for that.

I tend to think of these prices in terms of my time, knowing full well my DIY bumbling always turns any job into a big job. £70 to get a pro to do this whilst I spend quality time with my bike and/or my family would be money well spent (in fact I did this only the other day)

Plus lots for sbiby and g-s.

Just because someone chooses to get their hands dirty for a living, doesn't mean their value is any less than a desk jockey.

You're paying someone for their experience, their knowledge, their overheads and that they too want to put food on the table and a roof for their family.

Jeez, some people eh? 🙄 😈

Edit: my particular favourite is being asked to fix or repair something for someone who proceeds to tell me that it will only take a few minutes! Well, in that case, if it's that simple, you can do it yourself! 🙂

Calm down calm down *gesticulates with hands*

The guy was out at 2 yesterday, took 35 mins & we have a working radiator at last. Quite happy to pay a professional to do the work better than I could and in a much shorter time.

Quite happy to pay a professional to do the work better than I could and in a much shorter time.

It is my life's mission to make my wife understand this about me. Unfortunately we have known one or two tradesmen do a poor job which keeps setting my cause back. Finding good,reliable and high quality tradesmen (women) is well worth the money

70 quid more than fair even in cash strapped rochdale.

at this time of year heating repair work is constant so rates are high even here we ve got blokes working 7 days a week charging 89 for the first half hour.

but back to the OP. visit to home asess work, unlikely to have exact replacement for a towle warmer on van so trip to plumbers merchant come back fix test couple of hour s and a lot of potential for cock ups so 70 quid is cheap. VAT alone would add 14 quid to that ..

Just because someone chooses to get their hands dirty for a living, doesn't mean their value is any less than a desk jockey.

What desk jockey do you think gets to charge £70 for 35 minutes work? or £85 for the first 30 minutes? I think they get cross because they are often as well skilled as you if not better and you charge 4 x what they earn - i know there are overheads but folk dont see this do they they just see £70 for 35 mins work

What desk jockey do you think gets to charge £70 for 35 minutes work?

Ahem. 😉

folk dont see this do they they just see £70 for 35 mins work

Then they should think about it a bit harder. It should be obvious there's training, travel, transport, tools, stock etc in the equation.

...because they are often as well skilled as you if not better...

Relevance and context missing there JY 😉

I fitted a boiler for an 85yr old lady and on installation power flushed the heating system in line with the boiler manufacturers instructions. She has a contract for servicing and repairs with British Gas and when they called a year later to service the boiler, she asked the engineer to have a look at one of the radiators which wasn't coming on. He tapped it with the handle of his screwdriver and said "Hear that? That's sludge that is! Your system needs flushing and we can do it for £800". I called the following day, pulled the pin up on the thermostatic valve and hey presto. Charged her £0.00 and she has since cancelled her British gas policy and gives me a call with any problems. Who says honesty doesn't pay!

Nikola Tesla visited Henry Ford at his factory, which was having some kind of difficulty. Ford asked Tesla if he could help identify the problem area. Tesla walked up to a wall of boilerplate and made a small X in chalk on one of the plates. Ford was thrilled, and told him to send an invoice.

The bill arrived, for $10,000. Ford asked for a breakdown. Tesla sent another invoice, indicating a $1 charge for marking the wall with an X, and $9,999 for knowing where to put it.

Read more at http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/where.asp#BRZCWqj9BVLIyi0Y.99