Charging family for work

[Snowball24]

Originally Posted by Smilesonfaces

Out of interest how many days work is it and is there also a labourer to pay wages to ?

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No labourer dh does it all himself. About 2 weeks work.

[lyn1]

Originally Posted by Snowball24

My husband is a self employed plumber. Last year he created a bathroom from scratch for my brother and sil , was a lot of work and travel. We felt awkward charging but had to, so worked out quote and halved it for them.

My.dh is about to re fit my parents bathroom and we felt so awkward but cant afford to do it for free. Told them a price again halved. Parents are fine but i feel.so bad
Am i a horrible person, is it wrong to charge anything? !

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My personal opinion is that I think you're being really fair about it and I certainly don't think that you or your husband are being horrible. As I said though, that's my personal opinion, others will see it differently.

[Smilesonfaces]

Originally Posted by Snowball24

No labourer dh does it all himself. About 2 weeks work.

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From a family who is also running a one man business dh couldn’t do 2 weeks work for nothing. Its not a small job so don’t feel bad about it. I can’t see many people being able to work for 2 weeks for nothing. Your parents will get a great job done at a bargain price by someone they trust.

[Snowball24]

Thanks. If it was a day or 2 wouldnt charge but its a lot of work and will take usual 2 weeks he allows for the work x

[Mr Tom Morrow]

If the person was a DIY expert and was doing it in his spare time then for Parents I suggest it should be free.
However a Professional whose job it is has to make a living, so it has to be charged but at 'mates rates'
If you don't where do you draw the line? One day free? Two days no?
Charge but keep it as low as you can.

[Snowball24]

Thanks they have all materials with dh trade discount and then labour price halved

[jheaton]

I think its fair that your Dh has halved the labour-in effect he is working for them free for 1 week

I wouldnt ask a family professional to work for nothing

[aajp]

I'm a self employed plumber too. I also can do additional jobs such as decorating, wood flooring, AstroTurf lawns etc. My family and friends always offer to pay me the going price, which incidentally has always been over what I would have charged. However, I always take a lower sum off of them.
At the end of the day you have to earn a living and have bills to pay. more importantly if you were not at their houses then you would be out earning elsewhere.
I recently, last week, had someone try to call my bluff to lower the estimate four days before comencemnent. I would not lower and they cancelled. I have a good reputation for reliability and quality and have subsequently filled my diary for two weeks with smaller jobs earning a bigger profit and at three days notice.
Sometimes you have to be fair with "the circle" prices, yet still earn !

[Mental Minnie]

Yes I think that's fine if its what your hubby does for a living.
My hubbys siblings are all trades men. One is a joiner but makes his living doing a totally different job now days. When he does work for us, we buy the materials and give him a token payment that we think is fair
(as he always says he doesn't want anything). Another one is a plumber but he is always swamped and it is his living, so again we buy materials and he charges us a discounted rate. Sometimes though we don't think we pay him enough, it is his job and we are just happy to have a tradesman that we can trust as I am sure, so are your parents.

[Pumpkin Pie]

Originally Posted by Snowball24

Thanks. If it was a day or 2 wouldnt charge but its a lot of work and will take usual 2 weeks he allows for the work x

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At first i thought no - it's not right to charge parents but when you explained that it's 2 weeks work that's completely different. Don't worry about it - they seem to understand anyway.

We had boiler problems few years ago and my husband asked a friend to fix it (he is qualified). It was fixed but he refused to take payment which made us feel awkward and when we had another problem this year we felt we couldn't ask him again and got a company in.