why do plumbers charge more for coming sooner?

debodun

debodun

SF VIP
Location
way upstate in New York, USA
Call a plumber. He says "I can get there three weeks from this coming Thursday". You say "Well, it's an emergency". He then says "I could come tomorrow, but it will cost you twice as much for labor and parts."

Why should it cost any more for him to come tomorrow as opposed to in three weeks?
 

They always charge more for emergency service. If they're busy with other work, and they can fit you into their schedule in three weeks (which is a looong time to wait), then it's more convenient for their employees. To come right away, means they have to juggle some things around, and possibly have one of their workers paid overtime, which is more expensive for them.

Plumbers are really a rip off in my area, sometimes we need the main sewer line cleared that goes out to the street. The line is clay, and tree roots usually cause some clogging. We've had people come over in the past asking over $300 for the service, we never paid that much and won't. Now there's a lot of $99 plumbers who do those lines for that one price, and the work is the same. Tiny handful of roots always the culprit.
 
debodun said:
Call a plumber. He says "I can get there three weeks from this coming Thursday". You say "Well, it's an emergency". He then says "I could come tomorrow, but it will cost you twice as much for labor and parts."

Why should it cost any more for him to come tomorrow as opposed to in three weeks?
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Exactly the same as dentists and just as rich!
 

Seabreeze.... we have the same problem here with sewage pipes and tree roots. The pipes in my village are made of some sort of fibre, and the roots poke through them.The old fashioned terracotta pipes are the best.
 
I guess like any other service business there's a schedule that is kept. Any disruption to that schedule would demand a higher price for upsetting the apple cart.
 
We had an emergency one New Years Eve with the basement drain almost backing up. That plumber charged 3 times as much and we gladly paid.

When we heard the whoosh sound of the drain being unblocked and the plumber said to flush the toilet to be sure I said "How many people can say they flushed in the New Year?" ....true story too
 
My son in law is a plumber so I get to hear about the other side. Like getting called out in winter in the middle of the night because somebody's septic lines run into problems. Or being in the middle of a lovely afternoon at the park with the family and getting an emergency call because the client is getting company for the weekend and a water line has burst. He always goes and he's always professional and polite about it, but being an on-call plumber can be a real pain. It's not like they're sitting around on a shelf just waiting for someone to call. I don't know how the company he works for does their billing, but let's face it, they're doing work that none of us want to do so we really need them.

In our area, the problem is more usually just not showing up and failing to call and let you know that the appointment they scheduled isn't going to be kept!
 
As with any profession, there are good plumbers and bad. I understand the added cost for quick service. In order to keep your business operating, you have to schedule your staff to stay busy. When someone calls and needs immediate assistance, you have to push someone else back, perhaps alienating and losing that client. If these businesses just had folks standing around waiting on your call, they wouldn't be in business long.

Then, there is the issue of everything being an emergency. "I'm going to my second cousin's brother-in-law's kid's tee ball game and I need you to be here before I go." "The faucet has been leaking for 3 months, but this is the first time I've had a chance to call you." "You're the third plumber I've called. All the others charge too much. If you're cheaper, how soon can you get here!"

There's nothing worse than a sewer backup or a furnace that won't heat. I can do much of that type of work myself. However, when I do need a professional, I have a firm that has treated us quite fairly and we just call them.
 
Okay... It's a boring evening around here. So... I've worked over 40 years in and around other people's poop!! All my career has been spent in engineering and construction of water/wastewater facilities. When the girls were young, they got me a tee shirt that said "Your poop is my bread and butter!" And, your poop has provided a good living as we have raised our family.

I've been sprayed with raw sewage. I've stood in raw sewage, knee deep, making wet tie-ins. (You may not want to go much further!) I've seen the undigested corn and lettuce flow between my legs. On a recent project I watched our contractors cut into a residential sewer that had been plugged for at least two months. When that slug of "peanut butter & jelly" color and consistency waste dumped out into their excavation, one of them lost his lunch right there. Another "bad" experience was when a contractor couldn't get his high powered jetter through a main line. When it finally broke through, a couple of his crew members were in the downstream manhole. Someone had flushed a litter of kittens or puppies. That litter had layed in the sewer line until debris built up behind it and totally closed off the line. One cannot imagine how quickly both of those workers emptied their stomachs when they were hit with that odiforous waste stream!!!

Okay... enough. Dentists may have to smell your bad breath. A doctor may have to look at the boils on your butt. A plumber makes his living playing in your poop so you won't have to. He's worth every penny!!!!
 
Grumpy Ol' Man said:
Okay... It's a boring evening around here. So... I've worked over 40 years in and around other people's poop!! All my career has been spent in engineering and construction of water/wastewater facilities. When the girls were young, they got me a tee shirt that said "Your poop is my bread and butter!" And, your poop has provided a good living as we have raised our family.

I've been sprayed with raw sewage. I've stood in raw sewage, knee deep, making wet tie-ins. (You may not want to go much further!) I've seen the undigested corn and lettuce flow between my legs. On a recent project I watched our contractors cut into a residential sewer that had been plugged for at least two months. When that slug of "peanut butter & jelly" color and consistency waste dumped out into their excavation, one of them lost his lunch right there. Another "bad" experience was when a contractor couldn't get his high powered jetter through a main line. When it finally broke through, a couple of his crew members were in the downstream manhole. Someone had flushed a litter of kittens or puppies. That litter had layed in the sewer line until debris built up behind it and totally closed off the line. One cannot imagine how quickly both of those workers emptied their stomachs when they were hit with that odiforous waste stream!!!

Okay... enough. Dentists may have to smell your bad breath. A doctor may have to look at the boils on your butt. A plumber makes his living playing in your poop so you won't have to. He's worth every penny!!!!
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Everything you said here proves the point I made....plumbers are worth every nickel.
 
debodun said:
Call a plumber. He says "I can get there three weeks from this coming Thursday". You say "Well, it's an emergency". He then says "I could come tomorrow, but it will cost you twice as much for labor and parts."

Why should it cost any more for him to come tomorrow as opposed to in three weeks?
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A. How much do you want to spend your day in sewer pipes?
B. How often do you call a plumber when it's not an emergency?
C. They are well trained, and yet the number 1 problem with sewer pipes are the disgusting things we flush down a toilet.
D. "What the market will bear."
 

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