My phone rings. ‘Hi, it’s your editor here. We need an article in a hurry, it’s a bit of an emergency. Can you do it quickly?’. I reply: ‘Yes, but I’ll have to raise my rate by 500 per cent.’
My career at The Spectator would be pretty short-lived if I tried that on. But it’s exactly what plumbers do – and they get away with it.
A new study from Direct Line Home Insurance has revealed the so-called ‘plumber premium’ if you need a tradesperson to fix a leak in an emergency. While the average increase in a plumber’s hourly rate for this kind of work is an imposing 117 per cent, researchers found examples of 500 per cent rises.
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In pounds and pence, that’s an eye-watering amount to plug a leak. One plumber in Caterham has an hourly rate of just £25 plus VAT, but insists on a minimum charge of £150 plus VAT for each job attended, even if it’s just a simple fix taking a couple of minutes.
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