Daily rate for inglenook repair

[tobydog]

We are now looking at our fifth attempt to get someone round to the house to do some restoration work on the inglenook. All the previous four have visited the house but cried off for various reason. The second was our best hope because he came round a second time with the CO but then a hip operation got in the way. The first fired us all up and didn't get back in touch despite being chased. The third and fourth went off chasing bigger lures.

The fifth, in desperation, is not ideal. He's into adding cement with his lime and sandblasting 400 year old beams. I made it perfectly clear that cement does not cross the threshold :evil: .

The issue is that he wants a daily rate of £200 plus VAT and reckons the work should take no more that 4 days. The inglenook is a large ugly patchwork quilt of botched repairs (old and recent) so the intention is to remove the badly crumbling bricks and pointing and try and make it a little more presentable. Even the CO said it wasn't a thing of beauty . The main damage was caused by the back of the inglenook (in another room) being covered in cement render and the resulting damp turned many bricks to dust. We had the cement removed 5 years ago but the damage was done.

Anyway, I digress. Is a daily rate of £200 plus VAT reasonable for sleepy Suffolk? I will need to monitor the work but feel I've run out of options.

Thanks

 

[plasticpigeon]

I think it might be an ok price. I usually expect to pay around £200/day for a plasterer in Brum. Mainly because that is roughly what the only decent plasterer I have found charges. However I think the quality of work is far more important than price. Quoting Sir Henry Royce of Rolls Royce fame, "The quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten", a quote I learned from Ivor on this forum, and in this case if the chap is fond of cement and sand blasting wood, it sounds like he is not the right man even if he didn't charge a penny!

 

[tobydog]

Thanks PP. The boss who came round actually does the carpentry side of things and he has his man who would do the brick and lime stuff. The boss also talked about using new 'old looking' bricks whereas I said I wanted appropriate reclaims. Previous use of new bricks in the repairs is pretty obvious.

 

[plasticpigeon]

I think there is good argument for using new bricks if they are made specifically to match size and colour, but that would be ridiculous for an inglenook as there aren't enough needed to warrant the effort or expense. If he is suggesting artificially weathered 65mm bricks from the local yard then they would stand out a mile. I think the tradesperson has to have a similar vision to the person paying for the work, otherwise there will always be misunderstanding.

 

[noj]

Cement, sandblasting, new bricks - surely there must be other workmen, even in sleepy Suffolk...

 

[tobydog]

PP - I agree. Recent additions are a dark shade of red/purple!! Really odd. The trouble is that even the old repairs done with old bricks and lime have been done in a very haphazard manner. The workmen probably thought that the previous repairer didn't care so it won't notice.

Noj - I'm on number five already and the problem is that most of the good guys don't have time to travel for relatively small work. The money is in the big stuff. There's a great deal of period property in our neck of the woods although it's clearly a national issue.

 

[MikeG]

Which part of Suffolk are you (roughly). I'm near Sudbury, and have a number of good builder contacts.

 

[tobydog]

Hi Mike. I'm a few miles south of Ipswich. Thanks

 

[MikeG]

Ah, right. Then it's probably too small a job to justify the travelling for any of the builders around here.

If I could offer some advice, perhaps?

If employing a builder directly, rather than through a contract administered by an architect, you are in charge. You get to tell the builder what he can and can't do. Specify these things clearly in advance, in a letter or email. If you don't want him using cement, then tell him not to use cement. And sandblasting old beams is a brutal and destructive thing to do to them. If you don't want this to happen, be explicit, in writing. Absolutely do not allow modern bricks to be used, unless they are hand made Imperial sized, and a reasonable colour match. Metric bricks are substantially smaller, and so the mortar joints around them will look huge in comparison with the existing.

£200 per day is a top rate for day work. I would normally expect people to charge £150 to £180 per day. Are you sure this isn't for a builder and labourer combined? Why don't you ask him (and others) for a fixed price for the job? Working on a day rate is a builder's dream.

 

[tobydog]

Thanks Mike. Helpful advice. As far as I can tell from the discussion I had, there would only be one person doing the work so yes, the £200 per day plus VAT is high. Stuck between a rock and a hard place. He wasn't keen to provide a price for all the work because of what he saw as the unknown nature of the work involved and when I wanted him to stop 'tidying'. I'm sure if I pushed him it would £800 plus VAT for the four days he suggested and will finish it in two :roll: .

 

[MikeG]

Is there a crashing rush? Good builders can always be booked up 3,4 or even 6 months in advance. This guy just doesn't sound right to me.

 

[MatthewC]

The last time I used a builder (from Oxfordshire) for a small job, he was £145/day, so your £200 sounds excessive to me.

 

[Zebra]

Surely with all this time you've spent looking for a builder you could have DIY'd it by now?!

 

[tobydog]

I could but I was hoping someone might come along who would make a better job of it than me. At the moment it looks like 20 amateurs have had a go at it already.

 

[Bogart]

As mentioned before a day rate can be an open ended money drain. At the minimum find out how many hours he sees as a day.

 

[88v8]

As mentioned before a day rate can be an open ended money drain. At the minimum find out how many hours he sees as a day.

Hehheh. That's an excellent point. Not everyone works 0800/1600h with a 30 min break.

We had a drystone retaining wall built a couple of years ago, three men on the job at its peak. Old army mates. It went on a few weeks. On Friday of the first week they vanished for a long lunch 'that's all right isn't it, we usually do that on Friday' . The second week they knocked off quite early on Friday...'that's all right isn't it, we usually....' and on some days they came rather late or, depending on the weather knocked off early or came not at all.
Day rate for the head honcho was £165 + cash, his aides de campe were somewhat cheaper.
Nice chaps, and was happy with the end result but the cost doesn't bear thinking about.

And... we used a Welsh builder for a few jobs. They had a 30+ miles each-way commute which unavoidably got involved with the traffic through Gloucester.
Never on the job much before 0900h, often packing up by 1530h.
Didn't bother to ask the day rate, or what things would cost. Just paid the bills.

The quality remains when the price is forgotten. As I've said before.

Ivor