How to Write a Professional Plumbing Quote

Plumbing quotes get compared harder than most trades. Bathrooms are big spends, boilers are bigger, and customers ring round. The quote that wins usually isn't the cheapest — it's the one that shows the customer what they're actually buying, from someone who looks like they'll turn up.

What to include in a plumbing quote

• Your business details — trading name, address, contact, VAT number if registered.
• Your registrations — Gas Safe if there's any gas work, plus APHC, CIPHE or WaterSafe membership. Put the numbers on.
• Customer and site address — often different for landlords and letting agents.
• A clear description of works, including what you're reusing versus replacing.
• Itemised materials and labour, separated.
• Who's supplying the sanitaryware — this is the single biggest source of plumbing disputes.
• Call-out or minimum charge, if one applies.
• VAT as its own line, and payment terms.
• A validity period — copper and boiler prices move.

What a bathroom fit quote looks like

A straight suite swap, reusing the existing soil and supply positions. These are Larzo's starting prices — yours will differ, and every line is editable:

• Bath, standard — £180
• Toilet suite — £150
• Shower enclosure — £280
• Taps, 2 pairs at £65 — £130
• Copper pipe, 15m at £5 — £75
• Labour, 16 hours at £60 — £960

That's £1,775 before VAT, £2,130 including it. The labour line being visible matters here: a customer looking at £2,130 for "a bathroom" thinks about the bath. A customer looking at 16 hours of labour understands they're buying two days of your working life.

How to price plumbing work

Labour

Domestic plumbing rates in the UK commonly sit around £50–£70 an hour, with day rates roughly £300–£450 and higher in London and the South East. Emergency and out-of-hours work is priced separately and should say so on the quote.

The sanitaryware question

Decide and write down whether you're supplying or the customer is. If they supply, state that you're not responsible for parts that arrive damaged, wrong, or missing fixings — and that a return visit caused by that is chargeable. Nearly every bathroom job that goes wrong goes wrong here.

What you can't see yet

Behind an old bath there is often rotten floorboard, a leaking waste, or pipework that hasn't been touched since the seventies. Don't absorb that silently. Put a line on the quote: concealed defects found once the suite is removed will be reported and priced before any further work.

Multiple visits

A bathroom is rarely one continuous stint — there's first fix, the tiler or plasterer, then second fix. If the job needs you back twice, price both visits. Travel and setup time is real time.

Regulations worth naming on the quote

Plumbing work in England and Wales falls under the Water Supply (Water Fittings) Regulations 1999; Scotland has its own Byelaws. Saying you work to them signals competence to a customer who's been burned before.

Two specifics worth flagging because they carry legal weight:

• Any gas work requires Gas Safe registration. If your quote includes a boiler or a gas cooker connection and you're not registered for it, that part needs a registered engineer — name who's doing it.
• Unvented hot water cylinders are notifiable work and require the relevant qualification. If the job involves one, say so and say you hold it.

Bathroom electrics — a shower circuit, an extractor, a heated towel rail — fall under Part P of the Building Regulations and need a registered electrician or Building Control notification. If that's excluded from your price, write "excluded" rather than leaving it unmentioned.

Common mistakes

• Not saying who supplies what. The number one cause of a job going sour.
• No allowance for making good. Removing an old suite damages tiles and flooring. Say whether repair is included.
• Quoting a boiler without a survey. Flue routes, gas supply size and system type all change the price.
• Forgetting isolation. If there's no serviceable stopcock, that's a job in itself — find it before you quote, not on the day.
• No photos. A picture of the corroded pipework under the basin justifies the price far better than a sentence.

Getting paid

For bathrooms, a deposit covering materials before you start is entirely normal — you're fronting hundreds of pounds of sanitaryware. Balance due within 14 days of completion, and say that late payment may attract statutory interest.

Get the acceptance in writing. A typed name and date against the quote is a basic electronic signature and settles later arguments about what was agreed.

Quote plumbing jobs in 2 minutes

Larzo builds the quote on site — itemised lines, your Gas Safe and WaterSafe badges, VAT, terms, and photos of the existing pipework — and sends it as a PDF on WhatsApp before you've packed up. Accepted quotes become invoices in one tap. See it built for plumbers →