Gas Cert Work vs Installations?

[rossco]

Hi wondered if I could ask a question about preferences as a registered plumber?

In the process of developing a product for registered plumbers which in a nutshell collates requests for gas safety certificates from our network of customers and estate agents and offers them registered plumbers who are part of our network.

We can provide 5 - 10 certs per plumber per day based on the volume we have and for this volume we normally pay between £30 - £40 per certificate so roughly averages out about £200 - £300 a day plus any work you get out of condemed boilers etc..

I'm a little concerned about reliability of people turning up at time arranged with the client so I just wanted to find out whether there is a preference for certs over installations? And whether this level of work is too much for a single person in a day?

Appreciate any help

 

[ShaunCorbs]

Simple don't do more than 5 a day and increase the prices to around 70-100 a boiler service/ check

 

[Ben-gee]

I think that's what they are charging the customers Shaun, just paying the plumbers 30-40; just another one of those companies I suspect....

 

[ShaunCorbs]

I think that's what they are charging the customers Shaun, just paying the plumbers 30-40; just another one of those companies I suspect..

Your going to get bad service as they would need to do 10 a day no no time for travelling so your not going to guarantee times etc

 

[Ben-gee]

I could be wrong but I think OP wants to sit in an office and make a load of money by paying plumber half rates and then try to make him do twice as much work so he gets a good days money.
Don't know why anyone thinks this is morally acceptable.

 

[rpm]

Hi

In the process of developing a product for registered plumbers which in a nutshell collates requests for gas safety certificates from our network of customers and estate agents and offers them registered plumbers who are part of our network.

Appreciate any help

Load of smoke n mirrors going on here I reckon.
Why you asking about developing this product if you have a network of guys and the customer base already in place.

 

[rossco]

I customer base is for certification on the electrical, EPC, Legionella Risk assessment and Inspections side of things. I think there is more to it than just sitting in an office trying to make a load of money as you put it. These are customers we've spent many thousands of pounds to acquire and maintain a business relationship with let along thousands spent on software to facilitate our current business relationship.

 

[rpm]

These are customers we've spent many thousands of pounds to acquire and maintain a business relationship.

?

 

[SimonG]

???

 

[king of pipes]

You won't get many takers for £30 per service 4 a day is about the norm no more than 5 you need to up that significantly to attract the right candidates. Kop

 

[SimonG]

Top rate service at bottom rate pay is a sure fire recipe for failure.

 

[Last Plumber]

I customer base is for certification on the electrical, EPC, Legionella Risk assessment and Inspections side of things. I think there is more to it than just sitting in an office trying to make a load of money as you put it. These are customers we've spent many thousands of pounds to acquire and maintain a business relationship with let along thousands spent on software to facilitate our current business relationship.

With all due respect, the Engineers you are thinking of sub-contracting work to have spent many thousands of pounds and many years acquiring the qualifications, skills and knowledge it takes to do their job. On top of that they are the ones taking the responsibility. I think that you offering less than half of what the job is actually worth is why the above members think you're another 'give me a slice of your pie' company.
If I'm incorrect then I apologise but you must understand how it looks?
Not only do we hear it a lot on here but in the real world their are many companies (Estate agents are the main ones) who want to take all the profits out of the work involved and none of the responsibility.

 

[AMGasServices]

IMO estate agents or gas work brokers must be gas safe registreted by law then will make sure everything is done right.

 

[Scott_D]

What do you expect to be done at each appointment?
Boiler service?
Gas safety check?
How many appliances?

 

[Last Plumber]

IMO estate agents or gas work brokers must be gas safe registreted by law then will make sure everything is done right.

Good point. If they were responsible for the certificate, maybe they would be more interested in having the job done correctly as opposed to not caring, charging full knacker and paying less than half of it to the individual who does the work and puts their name on it.

 

[Harvest Fields]

I could be wrong but I think OP wants to sit in an office and make a load of money by paying plumber half rates and then try to make him do twice as much work so he gets a good days money.
Don't know why anyone thinks this is morally acceptable.

Why isn’t it? To the OP, I would like to
Say. You will find lots of engineers willing to
Work for 30/50 a cert. However, I doubt it will be on here.

 

[king of pipes]

In reality any small Gas safe business would not even consider your offer, I would charge more than £30 to a landlord to just issue a certificate that's without a service which is £60- £75 + parts to do a through job it takes 2 hours add in travelling time between jobs and revists for replacing parts it not cost effective . Kop

 

[sammathias]

10 'services' a day? Roughly 1.5 hours a service that's without factoring in travel time or problems. Simply you are not servicing a boiler at this point just merely a gas safety check and that's questionable.

 

[AMGasServices]

I know guys who work for liberty gas they do 10 jobs (cp12s) a day I think they’re on £20 per appliance.

They will do a gas fire and boiler in 30mins and away they go.

Me personally your looking at around 2 hours for a cp12 with a fire and boiler.

I would like to be as quick as them I need to ask them what do they have for breakfast.

 

[Scott_D]

I know guys who work for liberty gas they do 10 jobs (cp12s) a day I think they’re on £20 per appliance.

They will do a gas fire and boiler in 30mins and away they go.

Me personally your looking at around 2 hours for a cp12 with a fire and boiler.

I would like to be as quick as them I need to ask them what do they have for breakfast.

The funny thing is that when you do it properly the home owners thinks you are the cowboy.
How much longer will you be, the last guy was only here 10 minutes.
Why are you taking the cover off, the last guy didn't do that.
Why do you need to go in the loft, no body has ever been up there.
I don't know where my gas meter is, never been asked before

 

[Rob Foster]

There are two types of business people hunters and farmers.The Hunter is greedy and kills the cow eats burgers for 3 months and starves to death. The farmer ME and my associates just milk the cow for years. Set ur model up with the gas engineers getting £100 + per visit, then add ur small % then see what the final price is and come back to us then my boys were the best paid in Merseyside and it worked.
Rob Foster aka centralheatking

 

[Last Plumber]

There are two types of business people hunters and farmers.The Hunter is greedy and kills the cow eats burgers for 3 months and starves to death. The farmer ME and my associates just milk the cow for years. Set ur model up with the gas engineers getting £100 + per visit, then add ur small % then see what the final price is and come back to us then my boys were the best paid in Merseyside and it worked.
Rob Foster aka centralheatking

There is something in this, I agree.
If you pay the workforce well, they see that they get good money, job satisfaction and little of the organisation, pricing work, dealing with problems and paperwork etc.
A lot would take that as opposed to being self employed. They also work to keep their jobs because they know they are on a good number.

 

[sammathias]

I know guys who work for liberty gas they do 10 jobs (cp12s) a day I think they’re on £20 per appliance.

They will do a gas fire and boiler in 30mins and away they go.

Me personally your looking at around 2 hours for a cp12 with a fire and boiler.

I would like to be as quick as them I need to ask them what do they have for breakfast.

Half hour to do a boiler at fire. That's ludacris!!

By time I've taken tools out of van, greeted customer, done a let by and tightness test that's probably about 10+ minutes gone already.

 

[AMGasServices]

Half hour to do a boiler at fire. That's ludacris!!

By time I've taken tools out of van, greeted customer, done a let by and tightness test that's probably about 10+ minutes gone already.

I think they have rocket fuel to drink in the morning lol.

In my opinion their trick is tightness test, analyse the boiler, stick a smoke bomb under the fire (air gap), check outside for the smoke and cp12 complete.

A lad I know was approached by liberty gas to work on a social housing contact they expect him to visit 13 houses a day. I told him are you nuts it’s not worth it.

 

[firemant]

TBF, the OP at no point mentioned a service. He said Gas Cert. So, technically, no legal reason to even do a TT, and certainly not a service. I suspect , though, he is not offering £40 for a Poke and Go, which plenty of guys are happy to do for BG for £20.

 

[sammathias]

Raised on different practice then if you don't even do a tightness test for a gas cert....legal or not!

 

[billski]

Raised on different practice then if you don't even do a tightness test for a gas cert....legal or not!

I was surprised recently when I read in the gas safe mag a tightness test wasn't mandatory for a gas safety check!
Always do it my self.

 

[Bibbs118]

WOW! A TT isn't required to issue a cp12? But there's a question on the cert. Very weird .

To the OP, monkeys work for peanuts, Gas Engineers go to prison if we miss something and someone dies.

£30 is an absolute insult, I do them for £50 for customers how have a couple of houses, and in you've got 100s of houses it's still min £50 .

Go and sell you business idea else where, why the Damn would I want to make you rich you muppet? By offering £30 you are actually encouraging people to rush, cut corners and endanger life.

Please be so kind as to take your business idea, shove it up your arse and Damn off while you're doing it.

Regards.

 

[ShaunCorbs]

Yep dont need to tt on a llgsc only gas rate or input pressure and fga basically (on a boiler)

 

[Bibbs118]

I guess it makes sense don't have to do a TT on a service.

Just thinking about the op total cert vs installation. It's like he's saying what you rather do, work like a Japanese beaver all day or do some nice certs. What this clown doesn't realise is, lots of boiler installers aren't even qualified to do certs on fire and cookers.

Maybe if he was asking for 10％ of a cert price he may have some takers, 10％ finders fee is OK in my opinion, but 50 percent, hahahahaha. Get Damned

 

[Bibbs118]

Why would I want to do 10 a day for £30 and make you money, when I can do 5 a day for £60 and be in the pub for 2.30?

 

[Mark K]

Hi wondered if I could ask a question about preferences as a registered plumber?

In the process of developing a product for registered plumbers which in a nutshell collates requests for gas safety certificates from our network of customers and estate agents and offers them registered plumbers who are part of our network.

We can provide 5 - 10 certs per plumber per day based on the volume we have and for this volume we normally pay between £30 - £40 per certificate so roughly averages out about £200 - £300 a day plus any work you get out of condemed boilers etc..

I'm a little concerned about reliability of people turning up at time arranged with the client so I just wanted to find out whether there is a preference for certs over installations? And whether this level of work is too much for a single person in a day?

Appreciate any help

So, to break it down....get in your car/van, drive to the job, find parking, get out tools, walk to the house door, introduce yourself, carry out the checks/service etc, complete a certificate, tidy up, say goodbye and get back to your car/van ready to get in to drive to the next job, for £30.00-£40.00?

 

[Harvest Fields]

As I have said before, there are plenty of engineers out there that will snap your hand off.

 

[shyguy2005]

£60 each Cert all day long for me. No less .

 

[DGT plumbing]

Cert alone £60. Cert and service £80. boiler and hob. other appliances extra £20. I used to do service and cert work for a local letting company in 2012/13. They paid £100 a ticket regardless of appliances. I didn't have to haggle for that price, it was what they offered me. Happy days. They sold there lettings division to another not so generous agent. Good while it lasted.

 

[999]

Intresting thread
With the responsibilty of gas engineers even £60 is a low price. Putting your name on a legal document, we all should be charging way more but then theres competition thats keeps the price too low in my eyes. I charge £60 as thats what everyone else is charging.

Watched a gardener come into my clients garden today, blow away the leaves and left after 10 minutes £40 and not legal document signed......

 

[Bibbs118]

I've been charging £50 for a cert with a hob, am to cheap, it's going up to £65 in the new year .

I bet the OP thought he was onto a winner offering £30, I hope the £1000s he claims he has spent doesn't disappear down the drain.

 

[billski]

£110 for cert and boiler service for up to 2 appliances, 1 not being a fire! £25 extra for a fire. Local letting agency are happy with that and pass me plenty of work so must be about right.

 

[Bibbs118]

London?

 

[Ric2013]

I used to rent my house out. Used to pay around £60 (plus VAT, if the RGI was VAT registered) for a certificate on the boiler and cooker, more if the boiler needed cleaning. Took around 30 minutes IIRC. That, I felt, was a fair price, though to be honest I never shopped around based on price anyway and this was years ago.

Now, as a plumber myself, I won't go out for less than £45 if it's local. Tried working for less but worked out that any less than that and I may as well get a full-time National Living Wage of £7.83 job. No van, no diesel, no insurance, no NI bill at the end of the year, no spending evenings quoting, and no need to worry about anything except remembering to take my lunch in, and money in my account every single Friday.

One customer did find someone 'cheaper' than me, he thinks, but I'm pretty sure the work the other guy did was dangerous and illegal, though I only saw a photo.

Generally, I get repeat custom and recommendations, so I must be doing something right.

As someone who has made significant investment in training, tools, and time, I expect to earn over the Living Wage of £9 an hour, counting all hours and after all expenses at the very least and I'm not even gas registered.

I have plenty of sympathy for those who refuse to cut corners and put others at risk by failing to do their jobs properly just so as to give people a cheap job. Tell your clients that if they want a cheaper Landlord's certificate, they may as well write it out themselves for all it would be worth, but you get the job done properly and it costs ---.

 

[firemant]

Raised on different practice then if you don't even do a tightness test for a gas cert....legal or not!

Presumably, you are qestioning MY training? At what point did I say I did ANY CP12's for commission agents , let alone the cut throat mob? When I do a CP12, any OF appliance is properly serviced, and at a higher rate than is often mentioned here. However, I do kniw the rules, and explain to new clients MY T&C's. I do not lie to them, by incorrectly stating that a TT or a service is REQUIRED on a tenented property. If they want a basic check on a non OF appliance, that is what they get. Their house, their money. A LOT of guys here get basic facts wrong. The fact is that a CP12 does not REQUIRE a TT. This has been discussed countless times, yet you still get it wrong. My point was that the OP will probably not be asking for a service, but a bare bones CP12 - and there are plenty of LL's happy with that, and a lot of RGIs willing to perform. British Gas DO NOT TT even on a "service", except, more recently, when a gas fire is involved.

I was surprised recently when I read in the gas safe mag a tightness test wasn't mandatory for a gas safety check!

Exactly my point. You are, presumably, qualified - and have only recently understood a basic rule.