Revealed: The real cost of tradies
Getting a good tradie can be tough in the first place. But the cost of plumbers, painters and carpenters varies wildly depending on where you live, new figures show.
So, how much should you really be paying someone to carry out home renovations, paint the house or a plumber to fix the kitchen sink?
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The more skilled the tradie – the higher the price, figures from ServiceSeeking.com show. Also, homeowners in smaller states including South Australia and Tasmania enjoy lower charges than high density states like New South Wales and Victoria.
Plumbers are the costliest tradie to hire – charging anything between $80-$100 per hour, while landscapers and plasters can be found at the lower end of the charging scale.
Carpenters are the most volatile when it comes to pricing – charging anything between $50-$70 an hour on average, but there can also be huge price spikes during the summer holidays when home owners are more prone to building timber decks and other home improvements.
The greatest change in tradie prices over the last 12 months was carpenters and house painters, whose prices jumped by 23% and 20%, respectively.