All posts by Ian
Below are all of Ian's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Yes to an extent.
It does not matter if you are an aerial rigger or a suit in an office, if you have a wife and 3 children in a 3 bedroom house and your monthly mortgage repayments are close to £800 per month, you need to find a job which can fund your outgoings.
If you buy a £140k house in Sheffield, put down a 20% deposit you'll have a mortgage of £112k.
Now down south where I live the same house would be £340k, with a 20% deposit the mortgage would be £272k.
(I've just seen on the web a 3 bed ex-council house for £299,950 just to give you an idea)
Those down South have to pay over £160k for the same thing, a 3 bed house.
How do we pay these extra cost? By charging more for the service we provide. There is no other method.
There is a North / South divide when I dome to property prices.
However, should I move to Sheffield I would be able to purchase a property outright and charge a lot less than you because as such, I'd have no overheads as in a mortgage to pay.
£90 a rig, less material would give me £70 gross, 3 jobs a day = £210, 5 days a week, and I'd gross £1050.00
I could live off that, £54,600 p.a.
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All I can say Keith is move to Guildford from Sheffield, maintain your prices and you will be repossessed or out of business, or both within 24 months.
I couldn't come to Sheffield and charge my prices, because up there the cost of living is cheaper, maybe not bread, butter and a pint of milk but the roof over your head certainly is.
You need to remember that it is not only riggers on higher money, everybody is, plumbers, roofers, chippys, brickies and office workers.
A secretary down here can earn £55K p.a. just for picking up a pen and doing a bit of typing.
I know some riggers who dont earn that.
I learnt today that a local plumbers day rate is £360, and the guy in question always has work.
I was told years ago, go in cheap and people will think that you dont have the knowledge, go in expensive and people think that they are paying for the knowledge.
Guildford and Sheffield are worlds apart.
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Well if that is the 'real' Guildford Aerials, it is/was a 'one man band' run by Neil Knackervitch.
Not sure on how to spell the surname, but as far as I know, he is English.
Doesn't surprise me seeing some of his work that he claims here are differences.
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If you think £30 is the price for the job, then phone around and find somebody willing to do it for £30.
If you can't, you could go and hire a set of ladders and do it yourself.
On the other hand, if you find the cheapest price to be £50, then that is what it seems you will have to pay, or just wait for it to fall to the ground under its own steam.
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I take it Mark that you were never a member of the 'Cowboys and Indians' (CAI) then?
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I received a call on Thursday,
'I've changed my TV stand and now cannot operate Sky from other rooms'
I told him my Service Call charge was £65.00 + parts.
He agreed to this and I visited yesterday (Friday), I immediately went to the back of the Sky HD receiver and saw that he had connected the RF2 lead to RF1, (RF1 not being in use as he was using the HDMI Lead).
I moved the cable over to RF2 and everything was back to normal.
He asked me how much he owed me, I said, just give me a tenner.
He asked me to send him a bill as he did not have any money or cheque book.
I gave him a card and told him to pop it in the post.
Today I received in the post a short note of thanks and a crisp twenty.
Just to show that sometimes there is a fair side to us aerial installers, I know the first person he will call when he wants another job doing.
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I have known Trevor at Broadland Aerials for many years, what you are saying Malcolm just doesn't ring true. This is not the guy that I know and respect. But I do accept Trevor's version of events as to what actually happened. Malcolm if you had used defamatory words against me in a similar vein I would be checking you post, because I would be suing you at this minute. Do not slag somebody off for doing all the right things, when all you wanted to do was spend as little as possible even though you knew it was wrong. Be glad you were not one of my customers, because I would nail you through the Courts.
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Malcolm Martins, you wrote, 'The signal with an amplifier was too strong, and although it was working when the new aerial was fitted, at 70db signal strength,the signal strength is now more.'
How do you know that it is 70dB, (capital 'B' by the way) do you have a meter, and if so, make and model!
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'I do have a decibel meter' from that I take it that it is a bit 'Micky Mouse' and nothing like £4000 worth of Promax Explorer or something similar. 'I also have a City and Guilds in electronics that is irrelevant unless you have sat and passed Course 1687-01 which is the C&G for the aerial industry. I have a driving licence but I cant drive a coach or a HGV.
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Tuesday 13 September 2011 12:22AM
No not so Keith, materials mat be about the same, time taken may be about the same but the actual cost of buying a home is miles apart.
There used to be a guy on here from Aberfan in Wales, he was doing installs for about £75 but the mortgage on a house in Aberfan was meagre compared to where I live in the South East.
He can afford to do them at his price because the price he charged covered his overheads and take home pay.
If I were to charge the same £75 Id have probably been repossessed by now because I wouldnt have been able to cover the inflated cost of living in the South East.
It would seem that a property purchased in your road today would be worth about £140K, that is for a Terraced, Freehold, 4 Beds, 2 Baths, 2 Receps, does this sound familiar?
In 1999 when it was last purchased, it sold for £57K
You would struggle to get a Studio Flat down here for £140K
You would not survive down here charging your prices but having to pay our cost of living.
Far worse in Liverpool where I understand that you can get a full rig for £55