Pricing
How we price our work
No call-out fee, no charge to quote, and a fixed price agreed before anything starts. Here’s what actually drives the number, and why you won’t find a price list on this site.
- No call-out fee, ever
- Free diagnosis and quote
- Fixed price before we start
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What you can count on
Four commitments on every job
These apply whether it’s a dripping tap on a Tuesday or a burst main at 2am.
No call-out fee
Not during the day, not after hours, not on a weekend. You’re not paying for the van to arrive.
No charge to quote
We’ll come and look at the job, tell you what’s wrong and what it will cost, and you’re free to say no.
A fixed price before we start
You approve a number before any work begins. Not an hourly rate with an open end, and not an estimate.
The price doesn’t move
If the job turns out to be bigger than it looked, we stop and talk to you. Nothing gets added to an invoice you haven’t seen.
Straight answer
Why there’s no price list on this site
Because we’d have to make it up. Two blocked drains in the same street can be a fifteen-minute clear and a full day with a camera, a jetter and a root cutter — same symptom, same suburb, completely different job.
A price list that covered both honestly would be a range so wide it tells you nothing. A single low figure would be marketing, and we’d have to walk it back the moment we saw the job. Neither is much use to someone standing over a leak trying to work out what they’re in for.
So we do it the other way round. Ring us, describe what’s happening, and we’ll give you a range that’s actually true before anyone gets in a van. Then we look at it for free and give you a fixed price. If the number doesn’t suit you, you’ve spent a phone call.
The one thing we’ll say about where we sit: we’re not the cheapest quote you’ll get, and we’re not trying to be. What we are is the quote that doesn’t change halfway through the job.
What moves the price
Six things that decide what a job costs
When we quote, these are what we’re looking at. It’s also what to tell us on the phone if you want a useful number quickly.
What has actually failed
The single biggest factor, and the reason a diagnosis comes first. A hot water unit with a dead element and a hot water unit with a corroded tank look identical from the outside and are completely different jobs.
How hard it is to get to
A pipe under a suspended timber floor is easy. The same pipe under a slab, behind tiles, or below a paved driveway is the same repair with several hours of getting to it in front. Access is often more of the price than the repair.
How much of it needs doing
Relining is priced by the metre, repiping by the run, drain clearing by what’s in the line and how far along it sits. Two metres and twenty metres are not the same job.
What the parts are
A standard tap washer and an imported mixer cartridge that has to be ordered in sit at opposite ends. Where there’s a choice between a premium and a standard part, we’ll price both and let you pick.
Whether it’s an emergency
After-hours labour is charged at a higher rate than standard work. We tell you what that rate is on the phone, before we come out — never afterwards.
What it takes to put things back
Reinstating a lawn is not the same as reinstating stamped concrete or a tiled bathroom floor. This is why we quote relining against excavation rather than just quoting excavation.
Each service page goes into what this means for that particular kind of work — blocked drains, hot water systems, pipe relining and the rest.
Just as important
What we won’t do
Most complaints about plumbers are about the bill, not the plumbing. This is the list we hold ourselves to.
- Charge you to turn up, or to quote
- Give you a price after the work instead of before it
- Add anything to the bill you haven’t agreed to
- Quote a replacement when a repair will genuinely do
- Use an emergency rate for a job that isn’t an emergency
- Ask you to decide on the spot to hold a price
How it works
From phone call to fixed price
- 1
Tell us what’s happening
Symptoms, the age of the thing, and a photo if you can. Most jobs can be narrowed down on the phone.
- 2
We give you a realistic range
Over the phone, before anyone travels. If it’s out of your budget, you’ve lost a phone call and nothing else.
- 3
We diagnose on site, free
Camera, test or inspection as the job needs. You see what we see.
- 4
Fixed price, then the work
You approve the number first, and that’s the number on the invoice.
Common questions
Pricing, quotes and call-out fees
Because a published price is either wrong or padded. Plumbing jobs that share a name — 'clear a blocked drain', 'replace a hot water system' — vary enormously depending on what has failed, where it sits and what’s above it. A price list that’s honest about that would have to be so wide it tells you nothing, and a single low figure would be a number we’d have to walk back once we’d seen the job. We’d rather ask you three questions on the phone and give you a range that’s actually true, then a fixed price once we’ve looked.
No. There’s no call-out fee at any hour, and no charge to come and quote. If you decide not to go ahead, you owe us nothing.
No. Diagnosis and quoting are free, including the camera inspection on a drain job where we need one to know what we’re dealing with. The exception is specialist investigation work that’s a service in its own right — leak detection on a concealed leak, for example, is the job you’re hiring us for rather than a step on the way to a quote, so it’s priced as one.
Not for ordinary work. You get a fixed price for the job, agreed before we start, so an hourly rate isn’t something you have to watch. Emergency and after-hours work is the exception — that’s charged at an after-hours labour rate, and we tell you what the rate is on the phone before we come out.
We can usually give you a realistic range, and we’d rather do that than have you waste an afternoon. Tell us what’s happening, how old the fixture or system is, and where it sits — under the house, in a wall, under a driveway. For some jobs, like a straight hot water swap where you can read us the make and model, we can be very close. For a drain that keeps blocking, the honest answer is that a camera has to go down it first.
We stop and talk to you. You’ll get told what we’ve found, what it means and what it changes, and you decide before anything else happens. Finding something unexpected is not unusual in older housing — quietly adding it to the invoice is what we won’t do.
After-hours labour is charged at a higher rate than standard hours, which is normal across the trade. What’s different is that there’s still no call-out fee, and you’re told the rate before we’re dispatched rather than when the invoice arrives. If the job can safely wait until standard hours, we’ll tell you that too.
On completion, once you’re satisfied the work is done. We take card and bank transfer. For larger planned jobs — a full reline or a system replacement — we’ll set out any staging in the written quote before you commit.
Want a number before anyone gets in a van?
Call 0406 711 214 and describe what’s happening. We’ll give you a realistic range on the phone, free.