What should a plumbing quote include?
A plumbing or heating quote needs one line per thing the customer can point at, the registration that applies to this job — Gas Safe, OFTEC, G3 — what will be commissioned, notified and certified at the end, VAT shown the way the invoice will show it, a valid-until date, the exclusions, and payment terms. And one thing an electrical quote rarely needs: a stated position on what you find when you open the system up.
One line per thing they can point at
A boiler is the largest single purchase most households make after the house itself, and the customer has been told what to check before they say yes. A quote reading “supply and fit new combi — £3,700” gives them nothing to check. The boiler, the flue, the filter, the flush, each radiator and each valve are separate lines with their own price.
That is not bureaucracy, it is how you keep the job. A customer looking at one number can only say yes or no; a customer looking at a flush on its own line can decide about the flush, and the rest of the quote survives the conversation.
Put the location on a line whenever there is more than one of something: two identical radiator lines at the same price look like a mistake, and “kitchen” against “back bedroom” does not.
Name the registration that applies to this job
Gas work in the UK must be done by someone on the Gas Safe Register, and customers are told to check the register and ask to see the card. Put the number in the header of the quote rather than in the small print — it is a claim they can verify in half a minute, and a quote carrying it reads differently from one that does not.
Which one matters depends on the job, so name the one that fits rather than listing everything you hold: OFTEC for oil, G3 for an unvented cylinder, WaterSafe for water-regulations work. On a job spanning two, name both.
Say what gets commissioned, notified and certified
A boiler installation does not end when the boiler fires. It ends with the Benchmark checklist completed in the log book and the installation notified to building control. Both matter to the customer for reasons they may not yet know about: the manufacturer’s warranty usually depends on the commissioning record, and the compliance certificate is the paperwork a buyer’s solicitor will ask for years later.
One line covers it: what gets commissioned, who notifies, and what document they end up holding. It is also what separates your quote from the cheapest number they were given, without you saying anything about the competition.
Price what you cannot see yet
This is what makes a plumbing quote different from an electrical one. You are pricing work on a system that is already there and largely hidden — pipework under floors, valves that may or may not turn — and some of what you find will change the job.
The wrong answers are both common. Absorbing it means paying out of your own pocket for somebody else’s old pipework. Adding it silently to the final bill means asking a customer to pay for work they never agreed to buy — which, as the guide on whether a quote is legally binding explains, they are entitled to refuse.
The answer is to quote what you can see and state, on the document, what happens if you find something else. Name the likely ones for the job in front of you:
- Existing pipework not up to the job — undersized gas supply, microbore that will not take the new output, dead legs.
- Seized or failed valves found when the system is drained.
- A system that will not flush clean, or leaks that appear once pressure comes back up.
- Hidden damage revealed when the old unit comes off the wall.
Then say how you will handle it: stop, tell them, and price it as a separate quote before carrying on. Written on the quote in advance, that reads as professional. Said for the first time on the day, it reads as a surprise bill.
Show VAT the way the invoice will
If you are VAT-registered, show the subtotal, the VAT as its own line, and the total the customer actually pays — on a four-figure boiler job the difference is not a rounding error. If you are not registered, one line saying so stops the question.
Heating work is also the trade most likely to meet a rate other than the standard one: the treatment of energy-saving materials and their installation has changed more than once, and what qualifies is narrower than people assume. Check the current position on gov.uk or with your accountant before you quote it rather than after. The guide on showing VAT on a quote covers the general cases.
Put a date on it, and say what is excluded
Boiler prices follow the manufacturer’s list, which moves. Thirty days is the usual validity; print whichever figure you choose, and re-quote rather than honouring a lapsed one — see how long a quote should be valid for. Then the exclusions, which on plumbing and heating work usually come down to:
- Making good, tiling and decoration beyond filling the holes you made.
- Lifting and refitting fitted flooring, laminate or tiles.
- Electrical work by others — if the boiler needs a fused spur, say whose job it is.
- Scaffolding or access equipment for a flue or an external run.
- Asbestos found in situ, which stops the job regardless of what the quote says.
Payment terms, in one line each
A deposit if you take one and what it covers — on a boiler job, usually the unit itself — when the balance is due, and how to pay. On heating work the natural milestone is commissioning, so say so: “balance due on commissioning” is unambiguous in a way that “on completion” is not.
A structure to copy
Top to bottom, a plumbing or heating quote carrying all of the above reads like this:
- Your business name, address, phone, email, and the registration number for this job.
- The word Quote, a quote number, the date, and the valid-until date.
- The customer’s name and the address of the work.
- A one-line description of the job.
- The line items: item, location, quantity, unit price, line total.
- Subtotal, VAT (or “not subject to VAT”), total.
- Commissioning and notification: Benchmark, building control, what they receive.
- What happens if the system turns out to need more than the quote covers.
- Exclusions.
- Payment terms.
Speak to Quote builds that document from a dictated description: say the job standing in the airing cupboard and the line items come back with quantities and locations, your registrations and terms already in place, and the VAT right because you set it once. The plumbing and heating page shows a worked example — a combi swap with a filter, a flush, a moved radiator and two valves. If you have not been round the system yet, build it as an estimate and turn it into a firm quote once you have.