Some charge a lot and some undercharge. That is life.
It is truly amazing how some seem to think that you appear in their home immediately by magic with no travelling time and expenses and often taking hours or even a whole day off the job in hand and then expect you to do it for a pint of beer and a bag of crisps. Indeed to some if they earn for example ten quid for an hour they expect to pay that where for you with running costs you might charge double that to actually earn that, ask them what their boss charges for their time to actually pay them and they have not got a clue either, they think holiday time or sickness pay appears by magic. They think training upgrades take no time and cost no money. They think they can ring a tradesman and get immediate response as if plumbers, electricians etc are hung up on pegs and they can ring up and get one immediately from off the peg.
I am an electrician (now retired) and I got a call from a long established customer (we became friends for many years) and he asked me to ring a bloke who needed an electrician to do a decent job at a decent price.
So I rang the bloke, he told me he had a house that needed a new consumer unit within a week because he was going to rent the property out to a tenant.
He then proceeded to tell me that B & Q sold consumer units for £50 and it only takes about 45 minutes to fit a consumer unit and he had seen one being done!
Being referred by my good customer I patiently advised him rather than giving a curt response.
A/ my lead time for planned jobs for many years was 3 to 4 weeks normally and at busier times would often be double that, indeed for approx 18 months my lead time was around 13 weeks.
B/ I would never just replace a consumer unit and switch on to see if it would go bang as it blew off the wall - I would make a cursory visual inspection throughout the property and note any concerns, then make more detailed inspections and tests of a few items, again noting any concerns . I would then advise of any important defects that existed and required addressing (if any) prior to even considering changing the consumer unit and an estimate of the price range of such, then the price of the consumer unit replacement if additional tests did not flag up any further defects (in effect an EICR/Periodic Inspection and test report) and this procedure was chargeable.
Much in the same way that if he asked a mechanic to put a brand new engine in his car then the mechanic would like to test his car to some extent to ascertain it is fit to be on the road and take a new engine.
I also advised him that if he could find someone who could do his job within his timescale he should be asking why they could attend so quickly - there might be a plausible reason for a prompt response but it is often unlikely so take heed.
I also asked him a few questions about the property and then advised him allow at least £450 - he still wanted me to do the job but I advised him that even if I had a quick look today I could not realistically entertain that job in less than 5 weeks anyway.
What he ended up doing I have no idea but I certainly do not ever want customers like that anyway, he wound me up straight away with his opening comments but I patiently gave him some good advice purely out of respect for my existing good customer.
A couple of times I`ve given estimates for a house rewire/extensive remedials only for the customer to call me months later with a problem and it turns out they got the job done cheaper but the problem is with that job and when I advise them to contact that trader they say "We can not get hold of them!" Oh dear, they do not get me either.
