Is this reasonable

[Dutch01527]

My recently purchased boat has a newish Standard Horizon vhf with AIS. It also has a newish Raymarine Axiom 9 and I70 repeaters. I wanted to get AIS on the Raymarine set up as well as the vhf. The vhf has a standard output function and Quark make a unit to link it to the Raymarine backbone and also output wifi which I purchased myself.

Being short of time and not having done a similar job before I asked my local marine electrical/electronics engineer to link the two up using the Quark. He had done a job for me before and I was happy with that.

He was very busy and the job stretched out over 6-8 weeks and about 4-6 visits to the boat. He had several failed attempts to get the two to communicate because two of the 5 wires were connected the wrong way around and the baud rate needed to be set to be the same via the menu. The two units are about 1m apart and there was a bit of poking cables about required.

I have just received the invoice. 12 hours work and over £500. I am planning to have a chat with him and ask him to reconsider because doing the job in bits and pieces was his choice and connecting 2 mainstream, modern units with inbuilt inputs and outputs via a mainstream custom made connector should be within the expertise level of a professional and experienced marine electronics engineer without multiple revisits.

I believe in paying a man a fair amount for his work and expertise and do not tend to quibble but this seems way out of line.

Am I being unreasonable?

 

[Pinnacle]

Yes.

 

[Keith 66]

12 hours work works out around £42 per hour, Today that rate should be minimum for a self employed bloke in any trade. Where he went wrong was stretching the job out which shouldnt be acceptable but finding the problem took time. Could you do it?

 

[38mess]

If it all works to your satisfaction then pay up. I had a carpenter only yesterday quote me nearly £1000 for a simple replacement of one sheet of ply. The ply itself is £200 a sheet, and he charges £45 an hour. I'll probably end up doing myself in the winter.
I think it's a reasonable price for your job.

 

[Stemar]

Did he connect the wires the wrong way round or was it a faulty/wrongly supplied cable?

I wouldn't expect to pay for someone to fix their own cock-ups, no matter how long it took. OTOH, a bad cable could take a while to find. I recently paid someone to change a starter motor. The cause of failure was poor connections, but it took a couple of hours to track them down and eliminate them, one by one. Expensive, but not his fault, so I winced and paid up.

Setting a baud rate is standard stuff; OK, it may take a while delving through menus, but it shouldn't take hours.

 

[laika]

I don't think I ever reply to these sorts of threads because we rarely know the full story but if there's not a lot more to this than described I'm struggling to see how this is more than a 2 hour job at worst. Of course we don't know if extensive cabinet work needed removing and reconstructing, or if the OP engaged a local engineer in birmingham for a job in gosport and the chap added on travelling time, but I' assuming neither of these is the case. Setting the baud rate is 5 minute job and an expected part of the operation: if yer man said it added appreciable time I'd be suspicious of competence. A dodgy cable is an expected possible problem and you'd expect a competent engineer to have spare n2k drop cables to test with, maybe not to hand but certainly if he paid more than one visit and could have picked one up from base for the second visit.

If there isn't more to this story, no, the OP isn't being unreasonable. Being charged for double the maximum expected time I'd probably grumble and never use him again but 6 times?

I'm just an amateur though and I'd be interested to know what our resident professional marine electronics installer thinks

 

[bignick]

Ouch.
It might be worth asking for a breakdown of his time, just to make sure that you haven’t been charged 4 lots of travelling time.
I always do these sorts of jobs myself, on the basis that I want to learn how and that I can fix it if something goes wrong later on. It usually takes a lot longer than expected, but that doesn’t bother me.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

I’ve recently done a medium size instrument install. If it had all gone by the book it would have been 4 hours for plotter, speed, depth and wind. As it happened, I had to make a stainless bracket for the masthead, as the wind sender fouled the anchor light, easy, and one of the repeaters wouldn’t display data. I changed every cable, T piece and a 4 way connector and spent several hours on the phone to tech support, before admitting defeat, and sending it all to be checked. The repeater was faulty. Shit happens in the world of marine electronics. Good thing I wasnt paying your guy to do that for me.

 

[Dutch01527]

This was a new connection so no problem to find or errors to correct. He was local to the boat. Initially 50 metres away in the boat yard and then 20mins away at the mooring.

Basically standard preexisting factory 5 strand cable from vhf connected to 5 strand factory cable on Quark. Standard Raymarine plug and play cable to Raymarine backbone. Two screw on panels to remove and replace to gain access.

Problem was the job was done in c. 2 hour pop in visits with the panels removed and replaced each time. He also wrote detailed technical reports that must have taken time but we’re of no value to me and not requested.

Could I have done the job - yes with a bit of trial and error and support from the forum/Quark. Lesson learnt for next time.

I intend to gently dispute the invoice, that is what my customers would do to me. If it can be justified I will pay it. If it was the result of his mistakes, lack of knowledge and timings then we will need further conversations.

 

[PhillM]

I am interested in why he felt the need to write reports and charge you. That would be a good place to start as is smacks of him building a case for over-charging.

 

[steveeasy]

Easier to say than do, but just have a chat. im sure he has the best intentions. Saying that its bloody annoying when you think someone may be taking you for a ride.
Steveeasy

 

[mrangry]

I very rarely pay anyone to do work and do most myself. However on the rare occasion I do, I always get a quote first which eliminates any expensive surprises.

 

[Jodel]

I've got a Standard Horizon GX2400 with AIS and an Axiom plotter on my boat. All you need is a Raymarine STng to Devicenet female adapter cable (about £25) and about 5 minutes labour.

 

[Sandy]

I am always surprised by the amount of time a 'professional' takes to do a job. Several years ago when the mast was down due to another job at the yard while I was out of the country I asked a 'marine electrician' to rewire a mast as the original 35 year old non-tinned wiring was beginning to go black at the ends. It became quite laughable:

• He called to say the antenna did not work, goodness knows how he knew that as he had not tested it;
• Charged for 12 hours work for a job than took me a morning on my last boat with the mast up; and
• Did work not specified on my instructions and had parts delivered by a gold carriage.

A 'quick chat' got the invoice adjusted. I now email a detailed work instruction with the statement that any work undertaken without permission will not be paid and any problems that occur should be communicated promptly.

 

[Dutch01527]

I've got a Standard Horizon GX2400 with AIS and an Axiom plotter on my boat. All you need is a Raymarine STng to Devicenet female adapter cable (about £25) and about 5 minutes labour.

My Standard Horizon VHF outputs NMEA 0183 and the Axiom needs NMEA 2000. I also wanted AIS on WiFi for Navionics on a tablet, hence buying the Quark 0183 to 2000 converter. Still a quick and easy plug and play connection in my view.

 

[Daverw]

Does seem a bit strange, connect two nmea0183 wires to quark, change baud rate, plug in quark, connect power to quark, check AIS settings on plotter etc, mechanically about 1hr and 1to 2 hr messing about with settings. Not sure what is missing