connect our bathroom to the mains supply?
The mains water comes into the bathroom to serve the boiler, but the sink and toilet are supplied from a pipe that comes from the upstairs flat (converted Victorian terrace). The upstairs neighbours are doing a loft conversion and taking out a lot of the pipes so we want to just connect the sink and toilet to the mains supply which is about 1 metre away.

Sounds like a simple job but might they need to empty the system to do it?

We’re getting a quote at lunchtime today so I wouldn’t mind having an idea in my head so if their quote is reasonable I can just tell them to get on with it.
Maybe I’ll offer a prize if anyone gets it spot on!

£95

Do it yourself – its an easy job with push fit connectors.

At least £200.

And Rockhopper is correct, btw.

Rockhopper is correct but I wouldn’t use push fit.

I agree, but the plumber he’s getting a quote from probably will !

I’ve found this out the hard way unfortunately, now that I’m having to replace leaking push fit fittings with compression fit…

The only proper way is copper pipe & soldered fittings, but in my recent experience nobody wants to do that any more, it’s all **** plastic pipe and *** push-fit connections. It looks **** and it is **** but it’s faster to put together, so they charge the same day rate but go home at 2pm. ****.

My disappointing experiences with tradespeople outnumber good by about 10:1 🙁

Pipe work on show should be copper either soldered or crimped, preferably crimped.
Pipe work not seen can be plastic, but I still use a crimp system because of unreliable push fit!

Is the job accessible? I.e. will the plumber need to lift flooring, panels, etc to do the work. If it’s all exposed and ready to connect up it should be a VERY quick job for a plumber. As above, you’ll still be looking at £100 like.. Where are you based?

As has already been said – this should be an easy DIY job. £20 in screwfix for some plastic pipe, a cutter and some fittings, plus an hour of your time. Make sure you put the pipe inserts in though!

Agree with the above comments on any pipework on show, when I did my bathroom for instance the towel rail has copper “tails” although everything behind the scenes is plastic – it really is a doddle. I am not a plumber.

He said £200 (London prices) so I’m going to get him to do it. I doubt he’ll have to lift any flooring as all the pipes leading to the boiler are on show.

But how does he “cut in” to the water pipe in order to have a spur going to the sink and toilet (excuse non-technical language showing complete ignorance of job required)?

“At least £200.“

“He said £200 (London prices)…“

Boom 😀

It’s half a day’s work, tops. Some of us folk on this forum are clearly in the wrong business. And then some of the others aren’t…

I really am in the wrong job!! 1/2 a day and 200 quid to connect a toilet and a sink to a water supply 1 metre away..

To answer your question he’ll isolate the bit he wants to cut, cut it and have wee bucket/tray to catch the water then T off that bit of pipe and run some pipe to the sink and toilet before turning water back on.

Bears a man after my own heart. Mlcp is what I use. Whilst it is plastic its also a composite containing aluminium plus the fittings are crimped and if its on show copper and again crimped. As the motto goes. Dont stress press.

Not all plumbers use pushfit you know. Without seeing atleast a picture, trying to guess on here would be like pissing in the wind.

Ah so he takes home that £200 does he? Doesnt pay tax on it? Van insurance, fuel, public liability insurance, tool calibration, accounts fees, if gas safe registered fees for that, gas qualifications every five years. The list goes on.

Profit must be a dirty word 😉

No he doesn’t but at 200 for 1/2 day rate even if you take off 50% for all that ^^^ it’s still a canny little earner!!

I really am in the wrong job!! 1/2 a day and 200 quid to connect a toilet and a sink to a water supply 1 metre away..

What is a reasonable yearly rate for a plumber?
Then, how much a day do they need to earn?
How much did the tools cost?
How many overheads have they? -staff in office answering the phone etc?
Add on the other expenses he has – 5 yearly exams, renewal of Gassafe registration every year, liability insurance (have you seen what that is for a plumber?

Now, if he got £400 a day, for 47 weeks of the year, he may, with a good wind, earn £70k before tax. But he wont, as he will not be getting £400 a day every day.
He’ll probably be earning £40k before tax, if he is really lucky. Sounds a lot.
But we forgot the times he has off sick, and doesnt get paid for it. Then the 1 hour average each day pricing and invoicing jobs. Then the £1-5k a year that people do not pay him.
Suddenly it doesnt sound so great.
So, yes, train up, become a plumber, and earn great money. But only after you have built up your business for around 7 years, and then you can expect to earn £30-40k if you do a 50 hour week.

Fair play. I hadn’t considered all of those points. Obviously hard without seeing the job but I still think 200 is steep for the work described! Maybe I’m just used to Geordie prices. I’ll get back to disrupting metro services with peodo banners now..

It does sound expensive.
Typical day rate on a site here in the Midlands is £150.
Self employed may get more, especially if fitting boilers, then it may be £350 a day, but, you dont fit boilers every day. One a week would be good, most plumbers dont do that, well, ok, the ones I know maybe do one boiler every 2 weeks.
But even at £200, for a job that may take 2 hours or 6 (we dont know), he isnt going to be a earning more than £70k/yr, and I’d expect it to be a lot less than that.

The question of whether it’s worthwhile getting someone else to do it, I try and equate it to the amount of time I need to work to earn the money to pay them, compared to the time it would take me to do it myself. As a baseline I assume it’ll take me twice as long as a professional. So if two days of my income pay for one day’s labour, we’re at about breakeven.

So, let’s say I’m a typical STWer. I get paid £100k pa. I need to work about 6h20m to take home £200. If someone charges me £200 for half a day’s plumbing, I’m OK with that.

OTOH, one of thomthumb’s mates who lives in London just fine on £18k pa would need to work for 27 hours (nearly 3½ days) to pay the OP’s plumber £200. It doesn’t sound like such a good deal for them. It actually sounds quite unaffordable.

So, let’s say I’m a typical STWer. I get paid £100k pa

Bloody hell… No wonder this place is full of Audi’s and Santa Cruz. I’m definitely in the wrong job. And I work for a bank…

To be fair, when you look at self employed people and see they are on £50k p.a you have to remember that there are none of the things you get from a big employer such as pension contributions etc which can be worth a fair chunk. Although I guess you do get to set yourself up as a Ltd company and pay minimal tax.

alanl has it about right, if you make upwards of 30 then you are doing things about right, but you will have to graft for that.

Bad debts are a nightmare – imagine your wages not being paid for a year, having to ring up constantly to get the latest instalment that is overdue, and then that goes to pay the hired help or the VAT bill. It is tough, 200 for half a day is not what it seems….

My experience of being a tradesman (self employed) is that you end up with about only half of your hourly rate as pre tax profit. Your £35/hour only works for the hours you are actually working away in someone’s house; you don’t always get 8 straight hours on one job in a day. The people who are earning loads are doing 70 hour weeks.