Fair price or what?

[Wiz]

Big national 'specialist' fire alarm company quotes customer for the addition of 15 No. sounder bases to existing 15 addressable detector positions.

How much? £8,000!

Alternative quote from electrical contractor using input from sub-contracted fire alarm commissioning engineer.

How much? £1,300!

Problem is that customer is told by big national company that electrical contractors don't know anything about fire alarm systems, that most of their own cost is in specialist programming of their control panel which 'only they can do, and, anyway,the big national company has every accreditation to every fire alarm related organisation possible whereas the electrical contractor doesn't.

The site is a publically funded building, so we will all be paying a bit towards the work.

How much should we pay? £8,000 or £1,300?

[Big_Fella]

Working for a large privately owned fire detection company, we too have every accreditation going, including LPS1014 for fire detection and alarm systems, all quality accreditations CHAS etc etc, the list is endless.

Based on this, generally the figure we would be offering would be under the £1,300.00 figure to supply, fit and commission, using our own labour, therefore the figure of £1,300.00 if those guys are subcontracting part of the works would be realistic.

I cannot believe such a figure of £8,000 has been submitted.  If you think, to programme the panel would take an hour or so (including a tea break) and to fit and test the devices you'll be looking at an easy day for an engineer, tops.

What system is currently installed in the premises?

[Allen Higginson]

Even allowing half an hour/base for fitting out and another half days labour for programming/tea breaks this is excessive - I'd say around £1500 or therabouts (definately less than £2000) for us to do it (I work for a multinational european company).

[GregC]

I know what it is, the works can only be carried out between 11.30  and 12.00 on the 31st December so they have to pay 13 of their engineers to be on site all day and night in readiness then another engineer to be ready to download to the panel on the stroke of midnight.

No wait who would be mad enough to arrange that type of work over the xmas break 

The £1300 figure is competitive £8000 is a figure probably agreed on a golf course or in a Brothel

[Graeme]

Wiz

I have heard of a national that charges £900 for a replacement EMS smoke/sounder.

[Big_Fella]

I've come across some silly prices, but these figures been banded about are absolutely crazy.  I just do not understand how they get away with it

[kurnal]

If its a big public building they will be bound by government financial regulations and most likely will need to obtain 3 tenders if its over £5000 anyway.
So our money should be reasonably safe Dr Wiz.  Shall we spend our share and go for a drink?

[Wiz]

Afraid it's not like you are saying Prof. K.

I assure you that it appears they are going to be allowed to charge us 8K for a 1K job despite any supposed financial control regulations.

I can only guess that GregC's golf course/brothel comments are the closest to explaining why it is happening.

Are we now like a corrupt third-world country?

[David Rooney]

Errrrrr.............. yes is the answer.

One job we took over was being charged nearly £500 by a national just to supply an EMS pager....

As always, it's not what you know or even what you charge.....

[Graeme]

Errrrrr.............. yes is the answer.



As always, it's not what you know or even what you charge.....

too true. see things up here frequently that are so obviously dodgy as some companies get away with murder but always get the next job.

[Big_Fella]

Looks like a 2 week family break to the Maldives is included within that quote!

[dark one]

£8000 that seems a bit steep installed by an electrical contractor then 1/2 day commisioning by a fire alarm engineer should not be more than £2000 . But like you say when these companies are in they think they can charge what they like. Even if it is a "managed" protocol system there is usually a selection of agents that would do a days commisioning at a sensible price.

[Big_Fella]

Indeed, even on a closed protocol system there are always ways round this to avoid costs like this.

It's not what you know it's who you know !