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Has anyone recentley added to their gas skill the LPG module and how much was the course.
It used to be an additional short 1 day course(?) but I believe this has changed now.
National coverage of LPG repairers is poor and not possible by staying within our “whitegoods” industry. I for one will take on the work if the rewards match the costs, with some profit left over. The BIG question is just how much do we need per call to make it pay. An agent I spoke to yesterday said a double fee for every call (£80.00 plus vat) which is an enormous figure for a work provider to accomodate, whilst I agree to the double figure I think it should be nearer £100.00 plus Vat.
Why….? These big range appliances are too big. Mounted on plinths, weighing a ton, customers unwilling to assist yet ready to “sue” if you damage the flooring ect. They actually don’t give a toss about H&S or your back, just repair the appliance, and can you come after 6PM
It’s time these insurance policys were sold at the true cost, one that reflected the real costs to our businesses, and not the costs to the underwriter. As the LPG world is finding out, we are in decline as an industry and more and more of us are unable to invest inwardly on Gas training and qualification.
Kevin
Re: LPG and costs
How true with the insurance industry.
We get calls for Smeg A1’s or Belling farmouse cookers on D&G policies. The amount we get paid is the same as a bottom of the market Parkinson Cowan, yet in some cases we need 2 engineers.
Some of is the fault of the ins. co. as all they look at is the fact it is a cooker, I suspect they don’t differentiate whether lpg or a range. Yet we have to when we get there.
Had one yesterday, the engineer ordered bits and advised they would either have to get the thing out, or someone be there to assist. When we re-booked we reminded her of this, and she commented that we “should be providing a service”, and it wasn’t her problem. Had I been in on this at the time, I would have pointed out that the alternative is we provide a second engineer and charge her accordingly.
Alex
Re: LPG and costs
This is something that we’ve been looking into, but if the pricing that I have thus far holds true and you factor in the “downtime” for the engineer being off the road getting trained then it’s not so rosy looking, even at £80 a call.
For arguments sake let’s assume a base cost of £40 for the call and that the additional £40 is the LPG or Natural Gas “bounty”.
Based on a cost of around £3000 per engineer to get trained it takes a 75 service calls just to recoup the cost alone, not to make a profit!
Now that may not seem a lot, but then you have to factor in volume, which on LPG and a specific range of product or a single manufacturer is not going to be exactly high. Let me put it this way, we cover Smeg and, in the past two years I can recall one instance where we’ve been asked to attend a Smeg hob or cooker hooked up to an LPG supply, ditto for MFI. But on Smeg I would have expected more as this is the type of product that I’d have expected to be in LPG areas.
So, there’s really only one or two ways for me to look at this (with my NWAR hat on) and that’s either that there’s a huge grant of some sort to offset the training costs or that there’s a package that allows me to recoup the costs. Me, I’d be looking for a gaurantee of call volumes with payment if they are not met as well as a broad range of products to allow me to profit in other areas, again offsetting the costs. I would also be looking for a lot better than the usual “three month termination”, forget that if you want me to invest my hard-earned into a venture like this, I’d be looking for a three year minimum contract.
If and when you price this also remember the additional administration costs which include the annual inspections as well as the notification charges, which from 2007 may well apply to all repairs carried out as well as installations. Then remember the thread on bank charges.
The bottom line is that anything with the CORGI logo attached comes at a price, a very substantial price.
K.
Re: LPG and costs
Believe it or not, LPG is on the increase and LPG engineers are in demand. O.K, it is a lot of out lay at first but then taking on new engineers also cost lots of money with training, more stock, vehicle and all the hidden extras ontop.
I myself will be LPG trained again soon as explained to Kevin when he came to see us, and YES it is us who charge £80.00+vat just to turn up for a natural gas appliance. Customers are more than happy to pay us this as they have been given the run around and cannot find anyone to repair the appliances. We have also had the same customers phone us back for other appliances and have even recommended us to their friends and family because of the service we can offer.
LPG will be the same charge as what we charge for natural gas and I do understand I have outlay for the course and the time off the road preparing for the qualification and exams BUT I will not be charging anymore, but please note: I WILL NOT GO TO AN LPG JOB FOR LESS THAN £80.00+VAT. This is our charge and this is how it will stay.
Now, if a work provider, customer or manufacturer give us chargeable work and there is continuity of work, I will bend. They do not charge us for giving us the chargeable work and all the admin for that job they have had to deal with in passing the call over to us, so it is only fair.
I have done my sums and workings out and we are making a proffit on the work we are completing and our work carries a full 12 month guarantee on parts and labour.
Sorry to say it, at the end of the day it’s about customer satisfaction and how well the work is done. This only comes with training and at a price. I have had to turn down 17 calls this week because they were LPG and I was not happy as this is 2 days work lost which we could have earned a lot of money. Manufacturers are pushing us to become LPG either because they have not got the coverage or because they are unhappy with who they are using.
I have given Kevin a price list of a gas training centre right next door to us in Basildon, Essex for the CONGLP 1 upgrade, CKRLP 1 cooking and LAULP 1 laundry. All in all these total to 3 days of the road if you pass first time and at a cost of £510+vat. Now if you charge £80.00+vat per call, you will need 7 calls to break even on the cost of the course but then you have your running costs and admin on top. It will not take long before you start to make a proffit.
So my conclusion to this is you have to move with the times. Training, running costs, engineers and cost of living are not getting cheaper so the right rate has to be charged but what rate is the right rate where appliances are £100 or £1400 upwards to purchase.
I am open to your views on this and on what we are doing but the above paragraph in my eyes says it all as I am responsible for not just my own wages, but my staffs wages too and the running of my company. Please post your replys here or PM me.
Regards
Andy G.
APG(Appliance Service Repairs)LTDRe: LPG and costs
You’re not the only one charging that Andy and it wasn’t you I was referring to, just for the record.
The problem for me is not the charging, no issue there at all, it’s the volume of calls on which I can justify the charges. As I said I need 75 calls per engineer to cover the costs of LPG training over a 3 year period to allow a profit to be had over the life of the qualification and, based on historical evidence that I have, that’s just not possible. Unless of course, although it is entirely unlikely, that someone wants to pay upwards of £300 per call in labour alone or the call volumes are substantially upped to negate the costs and I have an assurance of longevity with the contract to enable me to recoup the costs.
The killer isn’t the the cost of the course at all, it’s the whole package. If you look purely at the bare training costs then it is a very rose-tinted view IMO. You have to account for all the costs, not just the immediately visible ones. That’s just good business sense.
As the old saying goes, you have to speculate to accumulate, but in business you don’t take a risk without reasonable assurance of a return with profit as that is what a business should do, without any shame and, I’m afraid that gainign LPG for me, given the volumes on offer, is tantamount to commercial suicide if I ran the whole business on that same premise.
That said, it depends very much on the whole contract (or contracts) profile on both product and recompence to decide whether or not it’s worth it or not and that includes the call volumes as well. I view all contract work on a case-by-case basis and evaluate the value of it as required. Thus far no LPG work has made it worthwhile for me to bother with the costs and hassle of becoming qualified for it.
There is of course, as ever, a solution to the conundrum. All I need is enough of the right people to ask how.
K.
Re: LPG and costs
Andy,
If we were in the position of turning down 17 LPG calls a week at £80.00 per call, I’d do as you are and go for it. However the point is for most of us, LPG are few and far between, we just don’t have the catchment area for LPG, ie rural, caravan land etc etc…
So whilst you and Kenneth are both correct it’s the volume of work that seperates your circumstances.
I’d like to throw in the pot…….
If I were a manufacturer of expensive range appliances (£1000 and upwards) I’d want to ensure that the product could be supported with after sales care. I’d want the service network trained and stocked to deliver the sort of after care, I would wish to receive. That means investment from the manufacturer into “Service”. I’ll allow a minute for the more seasoned reader to stop laughing………
As we know Sales gets all the support and Service is totally left in the dark by many main stream manufacturers. It’s fundamental and it’s at grass root level, lack of investment, where it’s needed.
LPG, network required = manufacturer investment into Service Provider.
That investment could arrive in many forms, but for the manufacturer it is cash leaving the Sales draw!
Kevin
Re: LPG and costs
LPG, network required = manufacturer investment into Service Provider.
Good point. They will provide product training but you have to qualify first by having LPG certification.
I hope I am not speaking out of turn, but there is a manufacturer who was/is willing to pay part of cost for training??????? so if this is the case, why don’t we take advantage of it for everyones interest. I can’t say too much about it as I am only at the top of the ice burge, but a service provider full of nat and LPG gas engineers are more likely to get and keep the work and charge a reasonable rate.
Everyones patch will differ to someone elses regarding LPG work and the miles travelled between each call, but if you get work on holiday parks (as all caravans there will have a fridge, fire, boiler, cooker) and tie them in to a years maintenance contract for all caravans and out buildings, what more is there to say but go out and look for the work, speak to manufacturers about the demand for LPG on their product or even speak to CORGI. They are always putting people in contact with gas companies.Kevin, what did you think about the LPG price list I gave you. Is there much difference in cost where you are to get trained?
Andy G.
Re: LPG and costs
Exactly Kevin, it comes down to pure volume of calls.
If there was enough work there and the rewards were good enough to reward my investment then I’d be the first one in there, but in my area based on the information that I have, it’s not.
David has been trying to find out the pricing for an LPG course here over the past few days with little success but I will report back when we have the full pricing of the course and cooker module. Turns out that no-one appears to do it in the Glasgow or Greater Glasgow area and that Ayr may be the only option though which, for one engineer, means a 40 mile drive each day just to attend, just another cost.
K.
Re: LPG and costs
Will be able to compare prices on Monday, Andy, and will publish both here……..ie
North v South
Not that I’m presuming there’s competion between us 😉
Kevin
Re: LPG and costs
I have to say that I have found this one of the most interesting discussions I’ve read for quite awhile. As one who doesn’t do gas work but would like to do (and this is a big LPG area being rural) I think in someway Andy has an interesting point. For me the thing is getting into the market without being made bankrupt in the process. Of the six corgi registered engineers on my patch, only 2 do cooker/tumble dryers. The potential is there but whilst Corgi bugger about with training on central heating systems and wont put together a domestic appliance package I just cant see a way forward. I doubt that there is a single engineer on UKW that has a problem with gas safety modules but until Corgi/H&S/Government change their attitude I for one see no way forward. Its ironic that the likes of BG (or whatever they call themselves) can blow up houses and kill people by poor workmanship, those of us with a good safety record can’t even get into the market. Im sure that George Downes is looking in the right direction.
Re: LPG and costs
I’ve looked at this with a great deal of interest. I’ve read the same postings over a couple of times to absorb it fully, and thought how can I sum this up from a humble repairers point of view.
Thanks to Ian Dales and the excellent and succinct posting as above in this thread, it has all been said.
We need a system that is tailored to OUR industry, not to send appliance engineers to courses and be expected to identify Teddington Boiler divertors and whatever as part of a stringent exam.
Just imagine a plumber being expected to identify parts of an appliance he’s never seen before, be able to diagnose/repair from display codes, then perform an earth loop test before leaving.
Alex
Re: LPG and costs
Alex wrote:Just imagine a plumber being expected to identify parts of an appliance he’s never seen before, be able to diagnose/repair from display codes, then perform an earth loop test before leaving.
This is a point that I have made to the HSE Alex.
If you think about it, the situation is thus…
We cannot attend a cooker (let’s say) as it’s connected to NG/LPG and has a fault. Now, is that fault mechanical, electrical or gas and does it matter, the point is that the appliance is faulty and therefore by definition it is potentially unsafe to use.
So the poor customer cannot find a repairer that will attend and is faced with three choices, perhaps four if you include doing nothing and struggling on with it.
They can find a “gas man” that will attend which will undoubtledly be more expensive than we would, in most cases substantially so. Face a longer wait for a repair (and probably an initial visit if they can find a willing capable body) and higher pricing on spares in all likliehood to boot. Further, even when the gas man does attend, what happens if it’s a problem that he’s not familiar with, does he have the knowledge to correctly electrically test the appliance? In most cases probably not. So in effect this may make the appliance gas safe, but is it really the safe option? Irrespective, the chap is not liable to have the experience or technical backup and support to effect a proper repair in good time.
They can replace the item if that is possible, adding to the “replacement problem” and environmental impact of short-termism as well as considerable expense and having to find someone qualified to replace the item.
Or they can attempt a repair or replacement themselves, which is as about as dangerous as it gets when you consider that even kitchen fitters often get it wrong. 99.9{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of supposed gas leaks that we attend inside the warranty are installation issues, not a problem with the appliance as I was informed that every single gas appliance is pressure tested before leaving any factory for sale in the UK.
What you have to wonder is, how many lethal or potentially lethal instances must there be before someone sees sense?
K.
Re: LPG and costs
Thanks to Alex for illuminating it from a company that does the work. The point is where do we go from here. Have we a way forward with this, is it a case of getting to grips with our local MPs and getting things changed from a governmental point of view? Or do we get some training establishment to put together a dedicated course then getting Corgi to except it?
Re: LPG and costs
Ian,
UKW has a meeting lined up with some interesting people for mid January. We are being introduced to a relevent company by a large insurer, who supports us. We will endeavour to put together a report for the February meeting, perhaps this could be added to the agenda for discussion either Friday or Saturday? Sorry to be vague, but you will be able to figure it out 😉
KevinRe: LPG and costs
I hate to be the one to say this, and please folks don’t break off into a tangent; but shouldn’t DASA have a say and active role in this?
I thought that they are supposed to have close ties on the legislation front, and that sort of thing was part of their remit.
Just a thought, as long as they don’t get all the credit of course.
Alex
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