Day rate

[Jaytbaez]

you missed out -

design quote, redesign, talk the customer through it, redesign and requote > sale = advance to next stage / no sale = return to start (via marketing, trying to drum up inquiries etc)

paperword, structural calculations, EPC, equipment order, commission, paperwork, invoice, receipt, talk customer through paperwork...

and then don't forget the ongoing warranty liabilities.

all for £150.

as I say it's poverty wages, and you'd not last 3 months if you tried it unless you were actually just subbing for companies who did everything else and could pretty much guarantee you 3-5 days work a week average, which isn't what you've been suggesting.

I get all that, but if you hadn't drummed up the business, and the customer had done all the research themselves to the point that they had bought the materials themselves and ordered the scaffold, paid the EPC, got a survey done, and just needed the install doing.
£150-200 a day isn't enough for an installer to just turn up, install, do the paperwork and thats that.

 

[Gavin A]

so for every days work you get on a domestic job, you're going to probably have to spend at least a day on average drumming up that business, probably a lot more, and half a day doing paperwork to sign it off, and you want to do that for £150. Frankly either you're having a laugh, or you've not thought this through at all.
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But if you didn't have to drum up the business, someone else had, and was just saying, do the 2 days install and the day paperwork, are you saying that £150-200 per day is not enough? I'm not having a laugh at all mate, and not trying to offend, but given that you've just told me its 2 days to do an install and another to do the paperwork, then previously -- I'm sure some punters if they had looked into it would be thinking that profit was having a laugh.
Except more and more punters are now asking themselves, why is an installer wanting to make so much profit on a 3 day job? They will and are looking at ways of doing it themselves or not at all.


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when prices were at - materials costs weren't -

I've just checked, and a - job from last summer that we did had - of direct equipment costs including VAT, and that was for a relatively standard sharp + SMA 4kW system from last summer.

If you're going to pontificate about this stuff on a public forum could you please try to get your ideas a little closer to reality, because tbh it's coming across as if you're making out that we're all con merchants who're ripping people off. Frankly I resent that sort of accusation especially when it's based on figures that are complete rubbish.

 

[Jaytbaez]

I just copied my own post on the thread (Link included), Your idea can not work, not if the customer wants to claim the FIT, it is against the rules, and rightly so in my opinion.

"It is all about a paper trail.
If you are MCS accredited, you can buy the products and then use subcontractors to complete the whole install, because you will have the paper trail from beginning to end, should there be a problem with any of the install the customer would have one point of contact, who is responsible for the whole install.
But you can not sign off a job that somebody else has sourced the equipment and installed it, who would the customer go to if there was a problem? The person who installed it? The person who supplied the equipment? Or the person who signed it off?

If you think about it it makes sense really.

I hope this helps."

Read more: http://www.electriciansforums.net/p...m/59450-sign-off-pv-system.html#ixzz1z7jrdVqG​

Going to look into this, as you are indeed talking sense Earthstore.
The paper trail therefore is the issue for installers I'm taking it, alot have said there is a days paperwork, and the ongoing issue's of warranty.
But if a customer is that keen to save money, he will know the wholesaler who sells the products will have a returns policy, and panels have warranties, backed up by Chubb etc.
So he would accept that if the materials play up down the line, his case is with the wholesaler, if the install is the issue, he has a case with the company/agency that he paid to do the install.
They would then contact the install guy/s that did the install to correct their work, or the agency would have insurance to cover these problems down the line and re-do/fix problems in the future.

I'm just thinking out loud so to speak.

 

[Jaytbaez]

when prices were at £- materials costs weren't -

I've just checked, and a £- job from last summer that we did had -k of direct equipment costs including VAT, and that was for a relatively standard sharp + SMA 4kW system from last summer.

If you're going to pontificate about this stuff on a public forum could you please try to get your ideas a little closer to reality, because tbh it's coming across as if you're making out that we're all con merchants who're ripping people off. Frankly I resent that sort of accusation especially when it's based on figures that are complete rubbish.

i'm in no way pontificating, sorry it came across like that.
I know these figures are correct, as my two mates are installers, and they work for a firm in the North East, the director of which I've known for 30 years, so I know exactly what a Suntelite 250w mono cost last week, last month and 6 months ago, as I do also know what a Power one 3.6 cost and Shletter mounting kit did and does now.

My two mates are paid £150 a day now, and were then 6 months ago and a year ago when install prices were around this mark.

My mate who is the director grossed 1 million in 6 weeks at one point, so there was big profits, you can't deny that?

But that was not and is not the basis of my original post.

 

[alarm man]

£150 a day labour only is poverty...?? take away the insurances and and van etc how much does that cost per year,the average working man has to pay for cars fuel insurance etc just to get to work without the benefits of claiming it back,poverty i dont think so..

 

[Gavin A]

ok, so some companies were ripping people off, and your mates were working for those companies, and you're also mates with the director of one of those companies who directly did rip people off, and as a result you know it all.

on this forum you'll find almost entirely the other side of the coin - the installers who do their own installs, didn't rip people off, didn't make a million as a result of not being con merchants, and have probably mostly eaten into a lot of what they did make in the last few months since the installation rate nationally dropped right off.

actually sod this. do what you want, but I expect you'll be struck off the MCS register about as quickly as that other sign off company was, and deservedly so if this thread is anything to go by.

 

[jason121]

Just say an installer installs PV supplied by customer. 6weeks in the scaffold is down. A fault appears, could be a number of issues, scaffold has to go back up,
Say installer finds fault within 2hours.
Say its Fault with panel, does customer believe installer, could of been wiring issue, who pays who
With MCS installers all is covered, we stand all costs should there be a fault.
Hope i made myself clear

 

[JulianC]

All depends on whether your £150 per day is your wage or whether it's your wage, profit, overheads, insurance, fuel, blah blah blah...

 

[alarm man]

All depends on whether your £150 per day is your wage or whether it's your wage, profit, overheads, insurance, fuel, blah blah blah...

it could be anything,but being s/e you can claim most of it back,150 a day is not poverty what ever you do.

 

[Gavin A]

£150 a day labour only is poverty...?? take away the insurances and and van etc how much does that cost per year,the average working man has to pay for cars fuel insurance etc just to get to work without the benefits of claiming it back,poverty i dont think so..

£150 isn't poverty wages if you're guaranteed the work every day, or even most days.

it is if your 1 day on site needs a day in the office, which the DIYer isn't going to be too keen to fund, and you have to actually also go out and find that work, and are actually only getting one day a week of actual paid work at that day rate, and have to cover van, tools, MCS, REAL, NAPIT, insurance etc etc out of it and then the warranty issues etc.

this guy now seems to be on about running it as an agency, and finding out what day rates the agency should pay its staff, which is a different question entirely. In answer to that question, maybe £150 day rate isn't too bad if the work's regular, and the agency was handling all the MCS and warranty side of things... but then what rate would the agency need to charge that person out for to make it all worthwhile? certainly not £150 a day.

 

[JulianC]

it could be anything,but being s/e you can claim most of it back,150 a day is not poverty what ever you do.

You're making assumptions. Self-employed one man band with a van and a bag of tools? £150 a day lovely jubbly. Or limited company, with overheads, premises, staff and a not unreasonable desire for growth? Probably not much, if any, of your £150 left to pay yourself a wage. There is a significant difference. Don't assume your own circumstances apply to everyone else.

 

[Earthstore]

As I posted, it does not comply with MCS rules, so no FIT payments, simple as that.

Also system design can be critical to make a system work properly, in most cases you can not just buy some panels and an inverter, plug it in and away you go.

I remember there being a problem with Sanyo/SMA, and I also remember who worked out what to do to rectify this.
Your £150 man for a day will doubtfully have this type of knowledge, there is a new post just come on here about cable runs to a SB1200, many of us know the answer, and the problems if you get it wrong.
Why not hire out plasterers for £150 a day, that is easy, slap the pink stuff on the wall, job done..,

 

[alarm man]

You're making assumptions. Self-employed one man band with a van and a bag of tools? £150 a day lovely jubbly. Or limited company, with overheads, premises, staff and a not unreasonable desire for growth? Probably not much, if any, of your £150 left to pay yourself a wage. There is a significant difference. Don't assume your own circumstances apply to everyone else.

he was talking abourt s/e day rate,most se dont have premises and staff,the fact is 150 a day is worth more being s/e than paye,its certainly not poverty either way

 

[Gavin A]

it could be anything,but being s/e you can claim most of it back,150 a day is not poverty what ever you do.

you can't claim it back, you can offset it against tax, which is different. It still all comes out of that £150 before you get to pay the rent, put food on the table etc.

at that rate you'd need to do 7-8 jobs to cover your liability insurance, 5-6 more for your MCS, CPS, 10-15 more for your van insurance, 10-15 jobs to cover repairs an depreciation on the van, 4-5 jobs to replace / repair / update tools etc.

so if you were able to do 5 days a week on site that'd be in the region of 10 weeks of work just to cover your basic costs, significantly more if you want an office / workshop. But you'd not get 5 days a week on site all year, nothing like it in this market, where there's effectively only installation work in the month or 2 before a cut, then a month of no work etc.

as I said, poverty wages IMO if you're only getting paid it as a day rate on a job by job basis unless maybe someones going to guarantee you 3-4 days a week at it, and even then it's not great for self employed using your own tools / van etc.

 

[jason121]

You cannot install PV for S/E wages only work for a company to gain S/E wages, MCS is to complex,