The homeowner hack to cut trade call-out charges

Property maintenance solution provider, Help me Fix, has revealed how homeowners can dramatically cut the cost of out of hours call outs by as much as 150%, for those who find themselves in a tough spot and in need of assistance from a skilled tradesperson.

When something goes wrong in the home, the cost of calling in a qualified tradesperson can be expensive at the best of times. Unfortunately, these mishaps in the home don’t always happen within the traditional nine to five working hours.

While the call out fee alone can vary depending on the trade assistance required, the hourly rate of a tradesperson climbs to two and a half times the cost of a call out within regular working hours.

Help me Fix analysed the average hourly rate of four of the most prominent trades – a locksmith, plumber, heating engineer and electrician – and found that on average, they charge £49 per hour. However, once you apply this out of hours premium, this cost climbs to £123 per hour – an increase of £74 or 150%.

A locksmith, who normally charges an average of £63 per hour for a callout, is likely to set you back £156 per hour for an emergency call out – a £94 increase for every hour worked.

A plumber will cost you £72 per hour more, with a heating engineer (£65) and an electrician (£63) costing.

With many households struggling with the current cost of living crisis, the regular cost of a call out can be hard to stomach, let alone the additional premium outside of business hours.

Unfortunately, most emergency maintenance issues include loss of power to the home, a burst water pipe, lost door keys, or a broken boiler and these issues need instant attention.

So what can we do to avoid an out of hours call out? Ettan Bazil, CEO and Founder of Help me Fix explains…

“Trades people have a very particular set of skills, skills that we’ll all find ourselves in need of at some point in our lives and that we’ll happily pay to benefit from. Unfortunately, as you’d expect in any profession, requiring these skills in the dead of night, or on a Sunday morning, is going to cost you more than it would at midday on a Wednesday.

In some instances, there are ways of avoiding an out of hours call out price premium. Lost your keys after a night out? Then sleeping on a friend’s sofa is probably a more affordable option than a 2am call to a locksmith.

A night spent shivering under a few blankets, or without electricity or water is also going to be more cost effective than calling in a plumber, electrician or heating engineer in the middle of night.
But, when a pipe does burst, for example, you simply might not know how to turn off your mains water supply, or where it’s located. You may also be unaware as to how you make your home safe by turning off your gas supply or flicking the circuit breaker.

In these instances where safety is paramount, we often stomach the additional cost of an emergency or out of hours call out, as the DIY approach of Googling the answer simply doesn’t cut it.

However today, there are a whole host of digital platforms that can bridge the gap, like Help me Fix, allowing you to consult a trained professional via video chat, so they can not only show you how to implement a temporary fix until a tradesperson can attend in person, but they can also provide you with the peace of mind that your home is safe and so are your family.

In doing so, you can say goodbye to expensive out of hours premiums in all but the most pressing of emergencies and save a bundle in the process.”