Club 80-90 Forums

Hello again,
I've decided to do a home-brew interior and asked a joiner friend of a friend if he could help with the measuring, scribing & fitting of the units. He has told us he will do as much as he can in 2 days for a fee of £150 per day, we have to pay for materials on top of this too. I don't mean any disrespect but do joiners generally earn more than £150 per day?as this is supposed to be a favour to us but I wasn't really expecting a bill of this size.
As usual any input would be greatly appreciated.
Debbie

Assuming his day is 8hrs.Hes charging you nearly £19 an hour.Garages usually charge a lot more than this.So all things being equal.Hes not that expensive.Still a lot of dosh though.And what happens if the jobs not completed in two days?

Hmmmm :-/ think we will once again be doing it ourselves! Oh well the R n R bed that we were quoted £350 for turned out great & cost us £80! so maybe we will surprise ourselves again!
Thanks Rob

I've done mine myself, took a few weekends..

I can whizz you a few pictures over if you like

Regards

Chris

Thanks Chris, that would be helpful.
I'll message you my email addy

Just Dash wrote:asked a joiner friend of a friend

So he's not an actual mate of yours, then? Just a friend-of-a-friend?

do joiners generally earn more than £150 per day?

Have you asked him what his normal daily invoice is? Or rung up a couple of joiners out the Yellow Pages to ask them?

as this is supposed to be a favour to us

But he's a friend-of-a-friend, right? How much time would you take off work to help somebody similarly distant?

but I wasn't really expecting a bill of this size.

To be perfectly honest, it sounds like a very good price to me.

Thanks but with the cost of materials on top it's just taking us right over budget so we are going to do it ourselves. I'll post pics of end result, which I would like to be next Sunday!

My hubby & I do favours for ppl all the time for nothing or next to nothing but I guess that's our mistake! Can't expect everyone to be like we are I suppose :-/

Just Dash wrote:My hubby & I do favours for ppl all the time for nothing or next to nothing but I guess that's our mistake! Can't expect everyone to be like we are I suppose :-/

Two days of your normal job, for friends-of-friends?

Whatever you do, make sure you have a solid idea of what you want.

The problem with paying £300 for two days, is whether those two days breeze and you get a tidy job exactly as you want it, or they get taken up by problems that hadn't been anticipated, which in my experience is worth anticipating. You don't want to be paying for thinking/discussion time.

If I were you I might be inclined to do try and get hold of either an existing layout + dimensions for units etc to copy and fit around what's already in your van, or go and get some free offcuts or buy the cheapest sheet material or even cardboard, combine them to work out your own layout by making a rough version of what works for you.

An inch here or there can make a big difference to how functional an interior will end up. I'd follow existing interiors regarding heights, widths depth of units etc, they won't vary greately as they should be dictated by ergonomics.

As for £150 a day, without knowing what he earns it's difficult to judge what grade of favour is on offer. I think it may be worth considering, but only if you know you'll get your money's worth and therefore exactly what you want.

Perhaps you could spend an hour or so going over what you want first + double checking measurements, then maybe arrange a fixed price on the completed work. If he wants paying just for doing that, then you'll have your answer, and some refined dimensions.

No disrespect... but the only way you will get a cheaper job, is if you do it yourselves.... What you have to think about, what a joiner can do in two days, will take you 5 to 7 days plus....

Thanks for all the input guys. The guy isn't a joiner he's a kitchen fitter & when he had a look at the van he did a lot of head-scratching, umming & arrring & expressing the difficulty of scribing (ive had a go myself with a compass & bit of plywood (didnt seem like rocket science to me & im a girl & blonde too!) basically he didn't fill us with much confidence. Perhaps if he'd just measured up & said yes that's no problem we would feel confident parting with £300 of our hard-earned money. We will still be getting the materials from our "friend" who owns the kitchen factory so we do have a good deal there. My Hubby is pretty competent at anything he turns his hand to so I am feeling 100% that we've made the right decision. At the end of the day if we havnt got a perfect job at least we didn't pay £300 for it!

P.S I did originally believe he was a fully qualified joiner but I've just found out he's not :-/

AdrianC wrote:

Just Dash wrote:My hubby & I do favours for ppl all the time for nothing or next to nothing but I guess that's our mistake! Can't expect everyone to be like we are I suppose :-/

Two days of your normal job, for friends-of-friends?

yep-proper mental arnt we???!!!

It still might be worth your while seeing if you can get your materials cut to size as a favour (not for much though if not for free) once you've got the dimensions right, that's unless you've got a table saw. This would help make sure you can get a good fit. For an idea of general height + depth measurements, I can take some from my westfalia units if that'll be any use to you.