Buying materials yourself or letting the tradesman source them

What the handling fee on materials actually means

When we buy materials for a job, a 10 % handling fee is added to what we paid. That covers the time spent choosing the right item, driving to the shop or builders' merchant, checking it against the job, and being the one who deals with a return if it turns out wrong. It is not a mark-up dressed up as a fee; it is the cost of us doing that legwork instead of you.

The alternative is that you buy the materials yourself and we charge nothing on top, only the labour. For a 40 € tap, 10 % is 4 €. For a full set of bathroom tiles running into hundreds of euros, it is worth doing the sum before you decide, because the fee scales with the price of what is bought, not with how simple the item is.

Either way, the choice is yours to make per job, not a fixed policy. On a flat renovation quoted from 180 €, for instance, it is entirely normal to buy the taps and light fittings yourself while leaving screws, sealant, and fixings to us.

When it makes sense to buy the material yourself

If you already know exactly what you want — a specific tile pattern, a tap in a particular finish, door handles that match the rest of the flat — buying it yourself is usually the better route. You get to see colour and texture in person, compare shops, and take your time, none of which a tradesman working to an hourly rate can do on your behalf without it costing you.

It also suits anyone who wants control over the budget. If you buy the materials, you know exactly what they cost, and the invoice for the work covers labour only, at 39 € per hour for general odd jobs or from 45 € per hour for plumbing.

This is the natural choice for items with a strong personal preference attached: bathroom tiles, kitchen worktops, taps, light fittings, wallpaper. Get the measurements right first — a tradesman can tell you what to measure, but the buying itself is straightforward once you know the numbers.

When it is worth leaving the sourcing to the tradesman

For anything technical, where the wrong part means a wasted trip and a delayed job, it is usually easier to let us buy it. Fittings for a specific pipe diameter, the right screws for a particular wall type, sealant or adhesive matched to the material — these are decisions that come from experience on site, not from a shop shelf description.

It also makes sense when the job is urgent. If a tap is leaking and needs replacing that day, waiting for you to source a part is slower than us bringing one from a supplier we already know stocks it. For emergency and same-day work this is often the difference between fixing something in one visit or two.

And it suits jobs where you genuinely have no preference: skirting board fixings, backing materials, standard plumbing parts. Paying the handling fee here is usually cheaper overall than a second call-out because the wrong item was bought.

• Buy it yourself: tiles, taps, worktops, light fittings, anything with a look you care about
• Leave it to us: pipe fittings, screws and fixings, sealants, adhesives matched to the surface
• Urgent repairs: let us source the part, it is usually faster than you finding the right one
• Large renovations: mix the two — you choose the visible items, we handle the rest

What marketing language around materials tends to hide

Terms like «premium», «designer», or «professional-grade» on a tile or tap box tell you almost nothing about whether the product suits your bathroom or your budget. They are chosen to justify a price, not to describe performance, and a tradesman fitting the item cannot make a cheap tap behave like an expensive one, or the reverse.

The same applies to claims that a product is maintenance-free or will last indefinitely. No fitting or surface is immune to wear, and anyone promising that outcome is speaking marketing, not experience. What matters far more than the label is whether the item is the correct size, rated for its use — a tap rated for the water pressure in your building, a tile suited to a wet room — and installed properly.

If you are choosing between two similarly priced products and unsure which matters, ask whoever is doing the installation rather than trusting the packaging. A tradesman who has fitted dozens of the same type of tap or tile knows which ones cause problems on site, regardless of what the box says.

How to actually make the decision

Start with how much you care about the look of the finished item. If you have a clear idea of what you want, buy it yourself and save the handling fee. If you have no strong opinion, or the item is something nobody ever sees once it is installed, let it be sourced for you.

Then weigh urgency. A same-day repair is not the moment to be comparing three shops for the best tap; call for the job and let the fittings be handled as part of it. For planned work, such as a flat renovation, there is time to buy the visible items yourself and leave the rest to the quote.

When in doubt, ask before the job starts. Describing what you need, or sending photos of the space, lets us give a fixed quote that makes clear which materials are included and which you are expected to bring, so there are no surprises on the invoice.