As I recall, Sears charged me about $150 to install and haul away old.
I live in an upscale area of Phila, and I have seen enormous inflation
in all services. Plumbers who want $900 to replace 4 feet of waste
pipe, painters who want $1400 to paint one bedroom 16'x16', an
electrician who tried to charge $900 to replace one of my mom's curcuit
breaker switches (not the box, the one switch!). They aren't stupid:
they see the money flowing to the top echelon of society, and death of
the Do-it-yourselfers (ore even people who cut their own grass!), and
they charge what they can get away with. Did you ever wonder why they
ask you for your zip code first, before any estimate? It ain't to mail
you a Christmas card . . . it's to see what rate structure to impose
based on the wealth of your area. So if you are elderly, or happen to
be poor in a good area, you are screwed!

At least Sears tells you up front what the charge will be (and they
usually have a sale on some installation service component. It's a
good starting point for then negotiating with a private installer if
you wish to do so.

Alex





Phisherman wrote:
On 11 Oct 2006 16:52:16 -0700, wrote:

Hi,

My wife had a plumber come out to hook up a new gas dryer. We have an
old one that broke, so all the lines are in place, it is just a matter
of disconnecting the old one and connnecting the new. No extras, like
hauling away the old dryer. The cost blew me away:

Disconnect dryer: $164.24
Install gas dryer: $282.25
Total: $446.49

This seems absoutely insane to me. I would've done it myself, but
unlike water or electricity, gas scares me. Is this anywhere close to
reasonable, or should I make a stink?

We live in suburban Washington DC, Bethesda MD to be exact, if locality
matters for this sort of thing.

Thanks,

Mike.

I would think about $150 is about right as there is not much to the
installation and it should take less than an hour. I can't expect a
service call to be less than $100, then labor $50 an hour. I use
pipe dope, channel locks, soapy water. There should be a cut-off
valve near each gas appliance. At those prices maybe I should have
been a plumber!