Urgent work estimate query

[Eve]

Hi, not sure if anyone can help but here goes.

Could anyone give me a rough estimate of a reasonable amount to pay a tradesman for labour and materials (altogether):

Attending property in emergency after crack and leak appearing in small bathroom ceiling - checking out source of leak in loft, releasing small amount of water and getting down wet plasterboard (about a quarter of the room ceiling).

Attending again and rechecking the source of the leak, putting cut off level on boiler back to normal (leak source!) and tightening up to stop leak.

Attending to put plasterboard in (about a quarter of the room ceiling), using one board cut to size and taping then attending again for plastering then again for papering (whole ceiling so it's all the same).

Checking roof of small house (about 15 years old I think) for loose/missing tiles and putting right. Probably only a few odd tiles.

Doesn't include most clearing up and cleaning afterwards.

Thanks for anyone who can help!

[nungate]

Don't know anything about costing a job like yours but according to most sources it's best to get at least three quotes from tradespeople for any work you need done, and if you can also get references and check them out, there's a lot of crooks out there cheating customers and giving good reputable tradespeople a bad name.

[The Builder]

Very difficult to say from here Jenna, but I'll stick my neck out and try ;o)
It rather depends on who does the job. It's really ideal for a local handyman who is able to do some plastering as well. Having to make four visits wouldn't affect his bill too much. I would have thought £350-500 depending on how many tiles, access etc.
With a biggish company, sending out a small works guy, it could be anything up to £1000. They have to charge more for labour including all the running around in the van.

I'm interested to know why a boiler should cause a roofspace leak though. There should be an overflow to deal with this.

[AlBags]

Is that a pressure relief valve with an outlet not going out of the roof-space?
I mad it around £450 .. depends a lot on roof work and access.

[Eve]

Thanks both :) Hello Builder my lovely. That's good to know, my neighbour who is experiened has been sorting it for me (I ran round in a panic when I spotted the crack in the ceiling then leak!). Landlord ok'd paying him so no issue there. His fee is I think very reasonable and he has been brilliant getting it sorted for me but I have no idea about how much things cost. I've seen all the work he has had to do, interesting to watch, and, of course, materials as well and how quick he has sorted it and in the evenings too. I'm interested to know how much it would have cost generally.

Apparently the cut off on the boiler was set too high and was filling to emergency level and the pressure causing it to leak through, looks like it has been for a while and maybe overloading the overflow? Also looks like a loose tile in the roof!

I was quite unsettled seeing how close the hole was to the actual boiler which is sat on a very thin looking piece of chipboard like material.

[Eve]

Oh, and Albags, you snuck in there while I was replying. Oh, I have no idea what that means, I know he got rid of a load through the overflow then reset the cut off thing (he showed me a big ball thing like you get in toilet cisterns) and tightened something up. Sorry that's not very technical! He reckons 3-5 tiles and access to boiler via an entry in the ceiling in the roof to the loft (no stairs or anything, a step ladder and swing up job). Does that make sense?

[AlBags]

Yes .. sort of.
Boilers are usually hung on wall .. so may well be not totally resting on a shelf.

I would revise down a bit in this case .. maybe by as much as £100, if just loose tile.

[Twenty20]

You could try the Forums pages of the Moneysaving Expert website - 'Is This Quote Fair'. You should get an idea from there

http://forums.moneysa...forumdisplay.php?f=94