Tradesmen.ie Blog

Hi folks,

recently we carried out a gas boiler price survey of some of the gas fitters on Tradesmen.ie.  The lowest price in our survey was €60 but most prices varied between €80 and €100 for a gas boiler service.   We also asked them how long it should take for a gas boiler service.  It seems to average about an hour to do a service as per the RGI guidelines.   So be sure that your boiler gets the proper service that it needs and be sure that your gas fitter is a registered RGI contractor as it is illegal for non-registered gas contractors to work with gas or gas appliances.  Please see replies to our survey below:-

Barry C: Our full service takes close to one hour to carry out as per manufacturers guide lines and costs 100 euro.

Raymond G: 80 euros

Christy W: Bord Gais charge 99 euro.I charge 75euro

Graham B: 80euro with rgi cert.

Barry R: Boiler service 60-100 euro depending on boiler 1-1 1/2 hours full gas pipe work check

Dereck K: we normally do a full gas safety check, even though people ask for a service. call out n/side 20.00 sth/side 30.00 then 40.00 per hour. normally total service/ safety check cost is n/side 60.00., this check determines what else is then required, if full strip additional 20. therefore at best 60.00 at worst 80.00 normally takes 1.hr 30 mins.any time less then you are really not getting a proper service. its just somebody hovering and shining your boiler.

David M: 85 euro and about an hour

Graham D: I charge 70 euros and it takes me anything from an hour and a quarter to 2 hours to complete

Conleth M: e70

Barry D: Service, roughly 1hr, give r take 10mins. We charge E65.00

Zbigniew S: service gas boiler 80 euro

Feargal B: 75 euro

Michael T: Around 80 euro

If you have any comments or suggestions please feel free to comment below and if you would like to get up to 4 prices on gas or oil boiler service in your area please post your job here

Regards Oliver Dempsey

Tradesmen.ie

Hi folks,
we did a quick survey of attic conversion prices with some of our tradesmen in Dublin today.  The question was how much would it cost to add an extra bedroom in the attic.  Here is a sample of the replies below:-

Chris M: Approx 35 k depending on specs.
Cathal S: On average about 12000 to 16000 + vat
Jason W: Around e11,500-e12,500
Derek K: approx cost including heating + wiring done properly to proper speck 12500 + vat
Nicky C: Could be up to 5.000 with the bath, or can exceed
Graham B: Its about 10 to 12 grand but really depends on a survey. Could go up or down
Keith D: 9,900 approx at the moment, regards keith
Kevin B: Average around e12,000 I suppose
Joseph C: Twelve thousand in and around
Stephen L: 15-20K thousand depending on spec
Bob M: it depends on what finishes are required but approx 10k including materials
Jacek K: 12 k
Eddie T: probably around e16,000
Nicky B: About e8000 but would depend on the type of roof, apex or hipped
Aaron G: Between 18k and 21k depending on the stair location which sometimes can mean relocation hotpresses, pipework and electrics.
James B: It would start at around 10k for a basic open plan and it works on from there
Liam D: Estimated e7000 average
Thomas J: 18K
Aidan B: 20k average

As you can see there is a wide variation.  I hope this helps some of you who are considering an attic conversion sometime in the future whether you want to make more room for the children or you want to make money by letting out an extra room.  If you decide to go ahead with it be sure to post your attic conversion job here and get up to 4 quotes from rated tradesmen.

Cheers
Oliver Dempsey

(Oct 2011, prices have changed, please see latest electricity price comparison here)

Last month we did a price comparison between the 3 main electricity suppliers in Ireland
and found that ESB Electric Ireland was the cheapest of the 3 suppliers and Board
Gais was the dearest. There was more talk in the news recently about a hike in
electricity prices by Airtricity starting in September so we decided to carry
out another price comparison on electricity prices in Ireland (well we help to
compare prices for tradesmen and mobile phone plans so why not help you save money on electricity as well!:)). Like last month we based our calculations on the standard rate for each supplier. There are many different prices and although we show only 2 categories in our comparison, the differences were very much the same for all categories. Therefore the most expensive provider in the standard category turns out to be the most expensive
in all of the other categories that we investigated as well.

Table 1

As you can see in table 1 Airtricity is now the most expensive
on both Standard and Saving plans at almost 2cent per unit higher than ESB Electric.

Table 2

As you can see in Table 2 the standing charges are very similar
for all 3 suppliers but Airtricity works out the most expensive in all the examples
above.

Table 3 Table 3 is a summary of the information in Table 1 and Table
2. Again it shows that Airtricity is the most expensive in our September 2011
comparison costing up to €27 more than ESB Electric for 1200 units of electricity
for 2 months which works out at about €162 per annum. You will save €27 if you
swich to ESB Electric this month but I’m sure ESB Electric will put up their prices
next month. There is only €3 of a difference between Board Gais and Airtricity
for 600 units or 1200units. There seems to be little effort made on behalf of
either of them to be competitive. It is important to make the point that nomatter
which provider you are with that you should switch to direct debit and online
billing (ebill) to avail of the maximum savings from all suppliers. For example
you can save up to 14% with ESB Electric where prices fall from 16cent incl VAT
to 14.60cent incl VAT with online billing and direct debit. On the examples above
you can save up to €180 per annum by switching to direct debit and online billing
so don’t delay switch today:)

If anyone has any comments or questions or if you disagree with anything I have said please feel free to submit it below.   To bookmark this page press CTRL+D in Internet Explorer or Firefox and I’ll do another price comparison next month.  Please tweet or share this article if you found it useful.

See you soon!

Cheers
Oliver Dempsey

Tradesmen.ie

References

Data for this article was obtained from the following official websites:-
https://www.esbelectricireland.ie/switchchange/allPricePlansElec.htm#five

http://www.airtricity.com/ie/home/products/current-offers/electricity/home-electricity-saver/

http://www.bordgaisenergy.ie/help-and-questions/home/electricity/price-change/?flash=1

E&OE.  Oliver Dempsey and Tradesmen.ie are not affiliated with any of these companies.  Prices were taken from the supplier websites on 23 August 2011.

This month we’re helping you save money on your mobile phone bill. In today’s earlier article I compared mobile price plans for Irish Pay as You Go plans.  In this article I will have a look at some of the bill pay plans.  You can see the earlier ‘Pay as You Go’ comparison here

€20 Bill Pay

The secret to comparing the offerings here is to understand the individual costs of calls, texts and Internet.  If you look at any of the networks in Ireland they will charge about 9-13cents for texts outside of the bundle and 20 – 30cents for calls outside of the bundle and approximately €5 per 250MBs outside of the bundle.  In order to calculate here I took the ratio of the cost of 1 text message versus 1 call minute versus 10MBs of data and the ratio that I came up with is as follows:- 1:2.5:1.

Mobile Minutes:Texts:Internet Cost Ratio

I based this on the fact that texts outside of bundles are commonly priced at 10cent per text and calls outside of the bundle are commonly charged at 25 – 30 cent per minute.  You can get 1GB Internet as an add on for about €10 so €10/1000MBs = 1cent/MB or 10cent for 10MB.  Therefore 1text=10cent:1minute=25cent:10MBs=10cent.  If you divide across by 10 you get 1:2.5:1.  I then used this ratio to compare price plans and take out or leave in certain components of the price plan based on this ratio.

As a rough rule of thumb you can work out that the bill pay bundles will give you text messages for 4 cent per text, voice for 10 cent per minute and 250MBs for about €2.50.  However you can get texts for as little as 2cent per text and voice for as little as 6cent per minute so keep a close eye on the figures below to see what I mean;)

O2

O2 have a bill pay plan Called Simplicity (looks like a 30 day contract) for €20 per month which gives 150 free calls and 150 free texts and it’s 30cent per minute to call over and above your free minutes and 13cent to text over and above your free texts.

Meteor

Meteor have a sim only bill pay plan called Bill Pay Smart Lite for €25 per month which gives 200 free calls and 200 free texts and 1GB Internet included.  It’s 25 cent per minute to call over and above your free minutes and 10 cent to text over and above your free texts.

Vodafone

Vodafone have a sim only bill pay plan called Simply 100 (30 day contract) for €20 per month which gives 100 free calls and 100 free texts and it’s 30cent per minute to call over and above your free minutes and 11 cent to text over and above your free texts.  This plan includes free anytime calls and texts to the Vodafone network.

Tesco Mobile

I couldn’t see any bill pay options for Tesco Mobile

Three Mobile

Three don’t have a €20 bill pay plan (I will cover their €30 offering in the next article)

Comparing Call and Text Charges on €20 per month Bill Pay

Let’s see what the call charges are above based on our ratio of Call Charges per minute versus Text Charges per text versus Internet Charges per 4MB of 1:2.5:1

O2 Charges

With O2 we can break down the €20 as 150 minutes at 8.5 cents per minute = €12.75 and 150 text messages at 3.4cents each = €5.10 and 250MBs at €2.15.

Meteor Charges

With Meteor we can break down the €25 as 200 minutes at 6.1 cents per minute = €12.20 and 200 text messages at 2.4cents each = €4.80 and 1GBs at €8.

Vodafone Charges

With Vodafone if you make and equal number of calls and texts and you make 49% of calls and texts to Vodafone users and 51% of calls and texts to other networks then the following will happen:-  You will get 100 minutes of chargeable calls and 96 minutes of free calls.  This is a total of  196 minutes of calls at 7.28 cent per minute = €14.28.  You will get 100 chargeable text messages and 96 free text messages so this works out at a total of 196 text messages at 2.9 cent per text = €5.72.  You can see how I calculated ratio of calls made to the Vodafone network based on Mobile Market Share here

Summary Bill Pay €20

Well if you’re making use of the Internet and you make an equal number of calls and texts then Meteor wins this one.  In fact if you even took the Internet on the Meteor plan to be only worth €5 (it’s worth a lot more) then you are still getting more minutes and more texts with the Meteor plan than the Vodafone plan.  If don’t need the Internet then Vodafone is the one to go for.  Meteor’s call charges are only 6.1 cents per minute compared with O2′s 8.5cent per minute and Vodafone’s 7.28 cent per minute.  Meteor text messages are only 2.4cent each compared with O2′s 3.4cent per text and Vodafone’s 2.9 cent per text.  If you use anything like these numbers of texts or minutes per month log onto the Internet as quickly as possible and order the Meteor Bill Pay Smart Lite plan and save yourself a lot of money.

If anyone has any comments or questions or if you disagree with anything I have said please feel free to submit it below.  To bookmark this page press CTRL+D in Internet Explorer or Firefox and I’ll add more price plan comparisons over the coming week.  Please tweet or share this article if you found it useful.

See you soon!

Cheers

Oliver Dempsey

Tradesmen.ie

References

I got the data for the above article on the following pages:-

http://www.o2online.ie/o2/shop/plans/

http://www.vodafone.ie/planscosts/paymonthly/simply/100

http://www.meteor.ie/plans/bill_pay/lite_sim_card/#plans-tab

http://www.tescomobile.ie/OurPricePlans.aspx

http://www.three.ie/products_services/priceplans/billpay/flex_plans.html

Please note that Oliver Dempsey and Tradesmen.ie are not affiliated with any of these companies.

This month we’ll try to help you save money on your mobile phone bill.

The key to comparing the mobile phone prices was to understand the cost of calls, texts and Internet within each of the bundles first of all so then we could easily add or subtract them from the bundle later.

I won’t cover all of the bundles but I will cover what I consider to be the most popular ones and if anyone wants me to compare more afterwards just ask me and I’ll do it.

Mobile Market Share in Ireland
The first thing we need to do is find out the statistics on what percentage of the Irish market each of the mobile networks have so that we can work out how much it costs to make calls and send texts using their free bundles. I did this by taking a sample 10,000 jobs that were posted on Tradesmen.ie over the last 12 months and added up how many mobile numbers were 087, how many were 086, how many were 085, 083 and 089. The results were as follows: O2 (39%), Vodafone (49%), Meteor (<10%), Three (<1%), Tesco Mobile (<1%).

€20 Pay as you Go
Today we’ll look at Pay as you Go plans for all of the Irish Networks.  Here are the range of plans that fall into the €20 top up category below:-

O2
Let’s start first with o2, they have a pay as you go plan for €20 per month which gives free 02 to 02 calls and texts and it’s 30cent per minute to call other networks and 13cent to text other networks.

Meteor
Meteor have a pay as you go plan for €20 per month which gives free Meteor to Meteor calls and texts and it’s 29 cent per minute to call other networks and 12cent to text other networks.

Vodafone
Vodafone have a pay as you go plan for €20 per month which gives free Vodafone to Vodafone calls and texts and it’s 29 cent per minute to call other networks and 13cent to text other networks.

Tesco Mobile
Tesco Mobile have a pay as you go plan for €20 per month which gives free Tesco to Tesco calls and texts and it’s 20 cent per minute to call other networks and 9cent to text other networks.

Three Mobile
Three Mobile have a pay as you go plan for €20 per month which gives free Three to Three calls and free texts to any network and it’s 29 cent per minute to call other networks and you have free unlimited Internet usage.

Let’s see what the call charges are above based on our survey of mobile phone usage on Tradesmen.ie:-

O2 Charges
With O2 if you make and equal number of calls and texts and you make 39% of calls and texts to O2 users and 61% of calls and texts to other networks then the following will happen:- You will get 33 minutes of chargeable calls and 21 minutes of free calls. This is a total of 54 minutes of calls for €10 or an average of 18.5 cents per minute. You will get 77 chargeable text messages and 49 free text messages so this works out at a total of 126 text messages for €10 or an average of 7.9 cent per text message.

Meteor Charges
With Meteor if you make and equal number of calls and texts and you make 10% of calls and texts to Meteor users and 90% of calls and texts to other networks then the following will happen:- You will get 34.5 minutes of chargeable calls and 3.8 minutes of free calls. This is a total of 38.3 minutes of calls for €10 or an average of 26 cents per minute. You will get 83 chargeable text messages and 9 free text messages so this works out at a total of 92 text messages for €10 or an average of 10.9 cent per text message.

Tesco Mobile Charges
With Tesco if you make and equal number of calls and texts and you make 1% of calls and texts to Tesco users and 99% of calls and texts to other networks then the following will happen:- You will get 50 minutes of chargeable calls and 0.5 minutes of free calls. This is a total of 50.5 minutes of calls for €10 or an average of 19.8 cents per minute. You will get 111 chargeable text messages and 1.1 free text messages so this works out at a total of 112 text messages for €10 or an average of 8.9 cent per text message.

Three Mobile Charges
You have free unlimited Internet usage and free unlimited text messages to any network with Three so for example if you use 1GB of data I am going to subtract €10 from the price plan and let’s say you send 250 text messages so I will deduct another €1 for this. The remaining calls will be used from the €10 that’s left. If you are going to use the Internet and text messages a lot I would recommend Three for sure. Therefore with Three and our remaining €9 worth of credit, if you make make 1% of calls to Three users and 99% of calls to other networks then the following will happen:- You will get 31 minutes of chargeable calls and 0.3 minutes of free calls. This is a total of 31.3 minutes of calls for €9 or an average of 28.7 cents per minute. You will get unlimited free text messages to any network.

Vodafone Charges
With Vodafone if you make and equal number of calls and texts and you make 49% of calls and texts to Vodafone users and 51% of calls and texts to other networks then the following will happen:- You will get 34.5 minutes of chargeable calls and 33 minutes of free calls. This is a total of 67.5 minutes of calls for €10 or an average of 15 cents per minute. You will get 77 chargeable text messages and 74 free text messages so this works out at a total of 151 text messages for €10 or an average of 6.62cent per text message.

Summary for €20 Pay as you Go
As you can see from the above examples if you make most calls and texts to the Vodafone network it’s best to go with Vodafone but if a lot of your friends use one network more than the others then go with that one that most of your friends use. If you mostly send text messages and use the Internet then Three would be the one to go for as it has free texts to any network and unlimited Internet Browsing. I will cover Bill pay options over the next few days, there’s a huge lot of money to be saved on Bill Pay and of course Bill Pay is a lot cheaper than pay as you go.

If anyone has any comments or questions or if you disagree with anything I have said please feel free to submit it below.   To bookmark this page press CTRL+D in Internet Explorer or Firefox and I’ll add more price plan comparisons over the coming week.  Please tweet or share this article if you found it useful.

See you soon!

Cheers
Oliver Dempsey
Tradesmen.ie

You can find Compare Mobile Plans II here

All information for the above article was found on the following URLs:-
http://www.vodafone.ie/planscosts/prepay/current/

http://www.o2online.ie/o2/shop/plans/

http://www.meteor.ie/pay-as-you-go/

http://www.tescomobile.ie/OurPricePlans.aspx

http://www.three.ie/products_services/priceplans/prepay/index.html