Hourly / Day Rate Include Breaks ?

[NewToAllOfThis]

Hi All,

 

Hopefully under the correct category, looking for views as to if breaks should be paid for if plumber is working on an hourly rate.

 

He is charging £22.00 an hour and has charged for 8 hours a day so is charging £176.00 per day.

 

He starts at 08:00 and has a 30 minute break around 10:30, lunch is an hour between 13:00 -14:00 and finish time varies between 15:45 and 16:00

 

So how many hours should I be paying him for.

 

So what do you think

 

[dpmiller]

sounds cheap enough for a trade.

[Danny68]

I personally  think  he's having an easy day but the charge rate is not exorbitant and more importantly are you happy with whats being achieved and how accurate is his estimate for time to do the job coming along.

[ProDave]

I never see the point is taking a break as such.  I drink my flask and eat my sandwiches on the go.  Most trades will go and sit in their van for half an hour and read the paper or play on their phone.  I would just rather get the job done and go home.

 

£22 per hour is cheap for a plumber. So you are getting about 7 hours of actual work for £176 that's about £25 per hour.  Still a good rate for a plumber.

 

Is he any good, that is a more important question.

[nod]

That’s a lot of down time per day 

Tgey would be substantially less if he was on a price 

 

There is a massive difference in productivity between all trades 

Even at £22 per hour he can quickly exceed what you would have paid on a fixed price 

Though if he’s getting through the work I would worry about the breaks 

 

[DragsterDriver]

If his work is good and productivity decent there’s no drama. Decent labourers are £150 a day around here.

 

actually most trades charge per day not per hour so breaks are covered.

[Ronan 1]

Personally there's no way I'd pay for some one to spend his time reading the Sun newspaper and eating sandwiches.

 

If I have men on day work and I try to avoid it like the plague they normally take 2 half hour breaks a day tops and I deduct a half hour from their hours for the day. I would pay the half hour break and knock off the hour lunch of his time on site.

 

 

[SteamyTea]

Ask yourself how much you would want to be paid and how much work you would get done.

 

A mate of mine is a production planner, he gets paid well for sitting at home all day.  And as everyone knows, nothing goes to plan.

[PeterW]

@NewToAllOfThis How long has the job been estimated to take, did you get 2 or 3 estimates and was his within the boundaries of the average ..?

 

If he said it would take 4 days and he had an hourly rate of£22/hr, you’ll end up with circa £700. If he’s taken 3 already and says he needs another 3... then I would be starting ask questions as the breaks would add up to one of those “days”... 

 

TBH £22/hr for a plumber is stealing, I struggle £35/hr for part jobs or £250/day now, and some are factoring in travel time too which isn’t unreasonable ..!

[TonyT]

Come on guys, everyone deserves a lunch break!

 

I wouldn’t want to work for some of you, standing over the shoulder ensuring you start at 8am.

what about when they are thinking about your job at night, ordering material, picking up before you get on site. 
 

too many spreadsheet warriors!

[Oz07]

50 minutes ago, Ronan 1 said:

Personally there's no way I'd pay for some one to spend his time reading the Sun newspaper and eating sandwiches.

 

If I have men on day work and I try to avoid it like the plague they normally take 2 half hour breaks a day tops and I deduct a half hour from their hours for the day. I would pay the half hour break and knock off the hour lunch of his time on site.

 

 

Do you think you're better off this way?

Im the opposite 99% of the time try to pay day rate. I'd say if you're fair and the guys you're using are trustworthy its usually cheaper on a day rate. Not many subbies go around under pricing their quotes

Edited April 25, 2021 by Oz07

[Ronan 1]

My experience is the good one won't want day rate, plus it pushes the ownace on them to get outta there as quick as possible, also there taking an element of the risk and you know from the outset what your cost is.

 

I know alot here will disagree with me but I'm talking from a professional view and am hiring small and large subbies every week for along time now and that is my firmly held beliefs for the majority of work obviously if there is something very unusual or unpredictable it can be different but for a plumber plumbing a house I can't see what the benefit to the plumber here is except getting paid to take a large chunk of his day eating sandwiches ...

[Redoctober]

Interesting thread. As always the devil can be in the detail. "Looking at it from a one off self build project" I am of the view that the plumbers approach isn't too far off the trades I used during our build. From my experience, our Plumber didn't spend a whole day on site, he came and went having done what he could in order to move the build on. That said he wasn't paid an hourly rate. He priced up the job and was paid at certain stages -

 

However, our Chippy was paid an hourly rate and spent weeks on site. He took a 30 minute break in the morning and an hour for lunch. All explained beforehand. He even mentioned a bit of travelling time allowance. BUT, and here is the but - his was work was top notch, he was reliable, communicative, offered solutions not problems and pleasant to have on site.

 

As with most things with Self builds, there will be many elements to consider and things aren't always as black and white as we would want them.

 

That said, I do appreciate larger projects beyond a one off self build would require a more robust approach to the trades employed.

 

@NewToAllOfThis what is your situation/circumstances?

Edited April 25, 2021 by Redoctober
typos

[Russell griffiths]

So forgetting about lunch, what are you going to do about materials 

what happens if halfway through the day he needs a fitting, will you go and get it or are you going to pay for him to sit in the traffic for half an hour to go to the merchants, if you are worried about a few quid for a lunch break what will you do if he’s a week over schedule. 

 

If hes good and you value him I would not be nitpicking about £20 here and there. 

 

 

[Mcleod 60]

As a joiner I charge people either an hourly rate or a day rate depending on what the job is. Within that day I dont ever take breaks, I usually start at 7am and work till 7 pm if the job allows. I also never take the mobile phone onto a job as customers hate workers who are constantly looking at their phone and messaging folks. I charge for production only and if Iam at a customers house for ten hours but think I have wasted too much time thinking or pondering over things then I wont charge for that non productive time and will subtract that from the hours for that day. 

In your case I would be paying for working time only but maybe Iam just a bit old fashioned.

[Ralph]

19 minutes ago, Mcleod 60 said:

. I also never take the mobile phone onto a job as customers hate workers who are constantly looking at their phone and messaging folks.

I was genuinely surprised at how long some of the guys on my build spent on their phones. Including in once case while operating a Manitou with their boss in a man cage 8 meters off the deck. They were never pulled up on it by the foreman.