Contractor billing questions

damonl73

I received some great advice recently about my Hyrdokinetix system. I ended up calling in the pros and they did a great job. But, I just received their bill yesterday and the labor portion seems high. I can't call them until tomorrow, but I was hoping to get some answers here about what is reasonable.

The job took about five hours.

2:00 PM The first guy showed up and correctly dianosed the problem pretty quickly. In order to swap the heating coils, we had to drain the water tank, which would take some time. So, I got out my garden hose and we hooked it up and let the water drain.
3:00 He then left for about 30-45 mins.
3:45 Once he returned, the water was still draining, so they hooked up a pump to speed up the process.
4:30 Once the water was drained, another man came to work on removing the old coils, which had been in the tank for 20 years. It took a good deal of work to get them out, but eventually he got them out and inserted two new coils.
6:30 They filled the tank and made sure everthing was working properly.
7:00 Job finished.

To summarize, the first man diagnosed the problem and helped facilitate the draining of the tank, about 2 to 2 and a half hours, including the time no one was present at the job site. The second man worked on the heating coils, another 2 to 2 and a half hours. Finishing up the job by the original man took about another 30 minutes.

I'm being billed for 12 hours. Could that possibly be accurate?

Thanks in advance.

Damon

beenthere

You'll need to call and talk to the service manager, general manager, or company owner.

It does sound like they are billing the second guy as though he was there with the first guy from the original start time.

Probably has some drive time included in it.

I would have drained your tank over night. And came back the next morning, instead of standing and watching it drain.

Since this is not a DIY topic. I'm moving this thread to teh off topic forum.

nap

it does seem to be over charged.

a couple things to consider:

driving time; it is often charged. when you ask about the time charged, you can find that out then and why you would have been charged possibly 4 1/2 hours drive time.


when the guy left, what was he doing? If he was running for parts, fine. If he was eating lunch, checking on another job, or visiting his girlfriend, he should not be charging you for the time.

who brought the parts? If the second guy did, there could be time getting parts before he got to your house that is chargeable.

I did notice one thing. In your list of time, you included this:

that was supposedly during the time only one tech was on the job. Previously you referred to the one worker as "he" and when you assisted, it was "we". Are you sure about when the 2nd tech showed up?

jomama45

Maybe they charged you time & a half after 5PM? and left the hourly rate the same?

nap

now that's a thought. In my area 3:30 would be the end of straight time though.

If that is the case, the company should not bill it like they did and they should definitely confer with the customer before going into overtime charges.

frenchelectrican

I have to depecher the rate of man hours and it sound like came up right as OP stated let me get the OP qoute.,,

Ok as you see I will go 2 1/2 hours per man so total of 5 so far now for 30 minutes finishing up the job includuing clean up that is per man so total of 1 hours and I came up 6* hours but during that person is not there that something you should check with higher up like mangner or owner to verify some case they have to make a quick errand to get the parts as need to or take care of other service call real quick that something they should readjust the rates a little.

But did the first man came back and have two guys working there ?

That will make the diffrence there.

*For overtime rate I do not know what your local " cut off time " on flat rate once you pass that time it will go in overtime effect I am pretty sure that will change the rates a bit and many place it normally they will confirm with the customer a head up if going in overtime rates so if the customer say ok then they will understand it will take long as need to get task done.

I done alot of overtime service call and I give them a benfit if they want me contune me working overtime unless it is emergecy service call that is automatic overtime anyway some case I will waived the overtime if only few minutes left to finish it up.

All it depending on how they wrote the bill so check with them to see how they come up with it.

Merci,Marc