Ronnie Sullivan
Member
I have seen so many varied salaries for basically the same job to make me realise there is no standard.
So out of interest, I would like to give you a real world scenario that actually happened and for you to give a genuine honest price.
Lets see how it varies.
The back story; A machine had broken down in a huge scrapyard.
It chopped steel girders into tiny pieces.
They have their own maintenance staff including an electrician but none could make it run.
Things were getting desperate - when my name was mentioned.
I'd never been or even heard of the place but turned up at 08:30 (40 mile round trip)
The boss, a surly man in a greasy suit walked me to the machine telling me it would be a cash job so expected a 'bit knocked off the bill'
The maintenance staff then told me all they had done and what they thought the problem might be. (this took up to 09:00 without even starting)
We were starting from scratch here - no luxury of drawings or anything helpful.
Inside the panel was a Siemens S200 plc.
I have the software for these and plugged in.
I went online and pressed the start and stop to try find the starting sequence in the logic.
There is it was and 1 input was missing.
I physically traced the input wire from the plc to it's source.
It was a N/C aux contact on a contactor with common 24Vdc on the other end.
It had failed but there was a working spare right next to it.
I swapped the wires over and as if by magic it started.
Time 09:30
I go see the boss and tell him how much.
He blows up on me saying 'how much' and 'you have only been here half an hour' etc
I gave an honest price - not inflated in any way. He had no clue what I had done to repair it but there it was chopping girders up again.
How much would you honestly charge?
So out of interest, I would like to give you a real world scenario that actually happened and for you to give a genuine honest price.
Lets see how it varies.
The back story; A machine had broken down in a huge scrapyard.
It chopped steel girders into tiny pieces.
They have their own maintenance staff including an electrician but none could make it run.
Things were getting desperate - when my name was mentioned.
I'd never been or even heard of the place but turned up at 08:30 (40 mile round trip)
The boss, a surly man in a greasy suit walked me to the machine telling me it would be a cash job so expected a 'bit knocked off the bill'
The maintenance staff then told me all they had done and what they thought the problem might be. (this took up to 09:00 without even starting)
We were starting from scratch here - no luxury of drawings or anything helpful.
Inside the panel was a Siemens S200 plc.
I have the software for these and plugged in.
I went online and pressed the start and stop to try find the starting sequence in the logic.
There is it was and 1 input was missing.
I physically traced the input wire from the plc to it's source.
It was a N/C aux contact on a contactor with common 24Vdc on the other end.
It had failed but there was a working spare right next to it.
I swapped the wires over and as if by magic it started.
Time 09:30
I go see the boss and tell him how much.
He blows up on me saying 'how much' and 'you have only been here half an hour' etc
I gave an honest price - not inflated in any way. He had no clue what I had done to repair it but there it was chopping girders up again.
How much would you honestly charge?