Understanding plumbing pricing principles has been identified as a critical factor in failure or success. The Institute of Plumbing South Africa (IOPSA) is a leading industry support body which focuses on advising, protecting, and promoting its members; and are often asked to assist or even mediate on pricing. Due to a lack of information, many members in the plumbing sector are undervaluing their services, because they simply don’t know how to calculate their fees, labour or bill of quantities. IOPSA is proud to announce that it has published an in-depth 2016/2017 Plumbing Industry Pricing Guideline.

What to expect in this guide:

• ·      Legislation, regulations and standards
• ·      Principles of maintenance rates
• ·      Per point installation principles
• ·      Bill of Quantities principles and exclusions
• ·      Principles of Preliminaries & General

Within this framework, members can make informed decisions on how to calculate their pricing, taking into account their local requirements, pricing and availability. It is available to the industry, and invaluable to plumbers, suppliers, manufacturers, professional specifiers and building and drainage authorities. The aim of this guideline is to create awareness of these principles of pricing and items included or excluded from costing a plumbing job.

Along with an in-depth look at the legislation, regulations and standards that govern the plumbing industry, the guide takes a detailed look at the principles of maintenance rates; primarily based on time, travel, and the cost of being in business, with separated hourly service rates and call out rates.

 

IOPSA’s Pricing Guideline also covers construction rates: defines plumbing designation levels, employee benefits to accurately calculated labour rates, nationally and regionally. There is a detailed per point section which provides a comprehensive breakdown of pricing per component, giving plumbers a base to work off when planning the pricing of an installation or project.

 

The Institute has sourced plumbing principals, items, quantities, labour and product pricing to compile a Bill of Quantities (BoQ) and per point framework. This framework was distributed to plumbing industry merchants to submit retail pricing. An average of these received prices has been published in this guide and will be updated annually.

 

 

Gary Macnamara, Executive Director of IOPSA, stated “The Plumbing Industry Pricing Guide is exactly that; a guide. Users must ensure they continue to do their own research on pricing at their local manufacturers/merchants at the time of quoting/tendering”.

 

 “It is strongly advised to refer to SANS (South African National Standards) standards for product performance and installation requirements”, he continued.

 

IOPSA extends its gratitude to the maintenance and construction working groups and volunteers for their valuable input and contributions to the 2016/2017 Plumbing Industry Pricing Guide.

IOPSA’s Plumbing Industry Pricing Guide is available online at: http://buildersshop.co.za/collections/frontpage/products/plumbing-pricing-guide. To become an IOPSA member, please visit www.iopsa.org.