Boat yard labour prices

[haydude]

For as long as there will be someone accepting to pay those rates, the rates will be going only up and up.

I think that is offensive to charge even £45/hour + VAT which is my yard's asking price.
Most get away with it because it would be hard and expensive to go elsewhere. In practical terms, they do not have competitors!

 

[prv]

Pete, the problem with supplying your own parts (which you probably know) is that you are guaranteeing it. If it fails then you will have to pay someone to take it out, sort out the replacement, and then pay someone to put it back in again. The mark-up on parts is not always pure profit which a lot of folk seem to think it is!

This is a pretty esoteric boiler part; as far as I know there's no such thing as pattern versions. So it would have been the exact same manufacturer's part either way, just one was a tenner and available in ten minutes, the other was £35 and not fitted ( = no hot water or heating) till Tuesday as he had to go back to base to get it and the return trip would be scheduled as a separate visit.

These days I look after that boiler myself rather than calling people out, and have replaced several other parts. Just had to replace the water-demand microswitch for the second time last night (rubbish design). I stay out of the gas parts (which are in a sealed secondary casing) but touch wood they seem reliable compared to the cheapo plastic used for the water side and its switches and sensors. If the gas parts ever go wrong I'll treat that as a trigger to finally get round to having the whole thing replaced with a quality item.

Pete

 

[Spyro]

The difference is that I need to go to the main dealer to keep up the warranty .

No you don't Try googling it. as long as you use genuine parts and stick to the service schedule your warranty is still valid.

 

[Clyde_Wanderer]

None of you see Rip Off Britian on the box two nights ago.
Elderly retired guy called out a drain unblocking company to unblock a drain, said workman had a go with power jet but then reckoned he would have to employ a higher preasure unit but this would cost the customer 2.5k ph, customer agreed under duress.
All he done different was to take a different hose from his van and faf about for a few hours.
Finnal bill to the old guy, £14k which the old guy had to pay.
Thats what I call Rip Off.
And the country is full of them.
C_W

 

[chinita]

This is what you said:

I'm sure the mechanics at a car main dealer don't earn £100 an hour either.

Which is why I queried it.

Regarding my service; yes, the bill was lumped together. No mention of labour. It was only an intermediary oil service so the only parts were oil and filter. The windscreen washer bottle was full and I declined their recommendation for new windscreen wiper blades at £66.00.

 

[prv]

This is what you said:

I'm sure the mechanics at a car main dealer don't earn £100 an hour either.

Which is why I queried it.

I think we must still be talking at cross purposes somehow.

This thread is about what yards charge their customers, not what they pay their workers.

What I was referring to is the fact that car dealers charge their customers £100 an hour, and pay their mechanics maybe £10 an hour (I dunno). I said this in order to emphasise my point that the two figures are almost totally unrelated; the only connection between the two is that the garage owner has to be charging enough to be able to pay the wages bill along with the rent, the gas bill, and so on.

I took your mention (the first in this thread) of the boatbuilder's hourly wage to mean you thought this somehow was related, or ought to be related, or had something to do with, the yard's hourly charge to the customer.

Pete

 

[chinita]

I accept that there may be many mitigating factors to justify a boatyard's published rate. Not least being that it is a rate for hourly activity and not just for a employees labour. Of course, that 'rate' may, of necessity, include premises, insurance, business rates, expensive machinery, consumables, health and safety issues and training, disposal of hazardous materials etc.

My original post was to compare the hourly rate charged by the yard (£85.00 in the case of the OP) with what I know to be the industry standard hourly rate of a skilled and qualified boatbuilder. If the job was labour (and not materials) intensive then clearly the quoted rate is out of kilter.


FWIIW, I wonder if the matter of this emotive 'hourly rate' may in part be solved by yards quoting for the job and amortising all of the costs. To attempt to differentiate labour costs is difficult on all but the simplest of work.

I recently had a quote for a complete job (spray painting) which I considered too expensive - so I walked away. Even so, I preferred that approach to an 'estimate' based on guesswork of the number of hours the job may take multiplied by the 'published rate'.

 

[BobPrell]

For as long as there will be someone accepting to pay those rates, the rates will be going only up and up.

So that explains why there are all those old boats mouldering away in yards and on moorings.

Their owners are boycotting those rates.

 

[Resolution]

Boat yard work labour prices have become ridiculous. A boat yard I used to use on the south coast, (not any more), now charge £85 per hour to work on your boat in their yard.
.

I run the finance side of a marine services business in one of the prime spots in the Solent. We employ several engineers and use a number of other sub-contractors. We aim to do top quality work and mostly work on rather valuable motorboats and yachts, so you would have thought our chargeout rates would be at the higher end. If we could achieve anything like £85 per hour I (and our bank manager) would be absolutley orgasmic!! Start at half the figure and work down.

 

[chinita]

I suppose we should be thankful for small mercies.

My sister is currently paying an insolvency solicitor £282.00 per hour +VAT to try to keep her husband out of bankruptcy.

 

[PhillM]

My old wooden boat had had quite a lot done to her in the last 18 months.

I've been quoted all sorts of rates and costs.

With a little shopping around and being prepared to let suppliers do the work in their own time I have got some very reasonable rates. By letting the guys fit the work in when they have spare time everyone wins.

Mechanic £45 hour
Ship wright £35 hour
Electrician / plumber £25 hour
Painting / varnishing / anti-foul £10 - £15 hour

All of the people involved have let me work with them and have happily taught me what to do.

My top tips:

Pay up promptly
Take their advice
Cooperate on deadlines
Be a nice customer to deal with!

 

[Bobc]

Who mentioned £100.00 an hour?

If you think that £8.00 an hour is a good wage for a skilled and qualified boatbuilder, fine.

As an aside, my last service on my Toyota van cost £265.00. I waited and it was ready 45 minutes later.

The actual labour time was probably only 30 minutes - but of course, that is not itemised on the invoice.

The difference is that I need to go to the main dealer to keep up the warranty and I suppose that somebody has to pay for the coffee machine and plasma screen with Sky TV.

This is what the main dealers (or should it be stealers) want you to think. The reality is that you can take your car anywhere without affecting the warranty. As long as the car is serviced to the manufacturers schedule and the book is stamped, the warranty will be valid. Been there and done it myself, and I now pay £45/hr to a fabulous indepenent garage in Oxford, who do a far better job than the main dealers ever did.

 

[Resolution]

My old wooden boat had had quite a lot done to her in the last 18 months.

I've been quoted all sorts of rates and costs.

With a little shopping around and being prepared to let suppliers do the work in their own time I have got some very reasonable rates. By letting the guys fit the work in when they have spare time everyone wins.

Mechanic £45 hour
Ship wright £35 hour
Electrician / plumber £25 hour
Painting / varnishing / anti-foul £10 - £15 hour

All of the people involved have let me work with them and have happily taught me what to do.

My top tips:

Pay up promptly
Take their advice
Cooperate on deadlines
Be a nice customer to deal with!

Cripes Phil, if you go on talking that much good sense you will be banned from the forum!!

 

[stevensuf]

My thinking , based on what I've seen, is the assumption, boat owner=rich, so lets see what we can get away with! SIMPLES

 

[JayBee]

This is what the main dealers (or should it be stealers) want you to think. The reality is that you can take your car anywhere without affecting the warranty. As long as the car is serviced to the manufacturers schedule and the book is stamped, the warranty will be valid. Been there and done it myself, and I now pay £45/hr to a fabulous indepenent garage in Oxford, who do a far better job than the main dealers ever did.

That's the situation as I understand it, although my independent garage also advised me that they would still need to use the manufacturer's parts. No problem with that.

The garage is free to shop around for the best price on these parts and don't go anywhere near the franchised dealer just down the road.

 

[Bobc]

That's the situation as I understand it, although my independent garage also advised me that they would still need to use the manufacturer's parts. No problem with that.

The garage is free to shop around for the best price on these parts and don't go anywhere near the franchised dealer just down the road.

It's called Block Exemption and it became law a few years ago.

 

[prv]

My old wooden boat had had quite a lot done to her in the last 18 months.

I've been quoted all sorts of rates and costs.

With a little shopping around and being prepared to let suppliers do the work in their own time I have got some very reasonable rates. By letting the guys fit the work in when they have spare time everyone wins.

Mechanic £45 hour
Ship wright £35 hour
Electrician / plumber £25 hour
Painting / varnishing / anti-foul £10 - £15 hour

All of the people involved have let me work with them and have happily taught me what to do.

I think the difference may be that you're contracting with individual tradesmen, rather than simply issuing instructions to a yard.

Among the papers with our boat is a bundle of old invoices from her very first owner. All kinds of jobs both minor and major (mostly minor) from one particular boatyard where he apparently kept her (bills for lifts in and out). The invoices are quite chatty, and clearly show someone who had no interest in doing anything himself, just phoned up the yard on monday with instructions to fix this or that little thing, ready for next weekend if you'd be so kind. Nice way to operate if you can afford it, I guess.

I was looking at jobs done rather than the prices for them when I read this lot, but I'm sure they charged a handsome hourly rate for effectively providing him with step-on, step-off sailing. Again, nowt wrong with it, but a bit different to agreeing a price with a shipwright to do a specific job at a time convenient to him, with you getting involved and helping out.

Pete

 

[Seven Spades]

Some of us live too far from our boats and some of us don't have the time rather than the ability to do our own maintenance. Consequently we have little choice but to pay through the nose. Garages charge book rates so for example a new steering rack might be a book time of 400 minutes so if a mechanic can do it in 360 minutes he is said top be working 110% efficient. mechanics are then given bonuses on their efficiency rates. Hover as far as I can see most garages are charging around £110 an hour, Lawyers charge £180+, gardeners in the home counties charge £20 per hour. So if a boat yard charges £85 per hour for work it is difficult to complain but...

If you are sensible you will engage your own tradesmen and then you will be able to pay £20-45 and build a team of people who know your boat around you. I don't see what there is to complain about, you don't have to pay for a "Full service" it is your choice. This year I have a ton of small jobs that all need doing and I have appointed a project manager to ensure they are all done. I know it is going to cost me more, but it costs me £70 in fuel just to get to my boat, so it is worth it.

 

[FullCircle]

How about £30 an hour.
Seems a typical East Coast rate at reasonable yards.

At £85 an hour, they only need 1/3 of the clients that an East Coast yard does.
Wow.

 

[Dockhead]

I run the finance side of a marine services business in one of the prime spots in the Solent. We employ several engineers and use a number of other sub-contractors. We aim to do top quality work and mostly work on rather valuable motorboats and yachts, so you would have thought our chargeout rates would be at the higher end. If we could achieve anything like £85 per hour I (and our bank manager) would be absolutley orgasmic!! Start at half the figure and work down.

I do most of my own work, but on the odd occasion I have hired someone to do something, it never exceeded 40 per hour. That's on the Hamble and in Cowes. One engineer I used on the Hamble charges 33 inc VAT, and does superb work, taking 1/2 to 1/3 the time it takes me to do it poorly .

I'm not sure the South Coast is worse, from the boat owner's point of view. On the contrary maybe competition means it's better.