My mate's 16-year old son is going to do some work for us before he starts
at college. We're going to hire a skip and he's going to do a general garage
tidy-up (and believe me it needs doing )) and clear the area behind the
garage. The biggest job however, will be the front "garden".

The previous owners got rid of the lawn (not very well, I might add), laid
visqueen, and then put on about 2 to 3 tons of pea gravel. We want to get
rid of the pea gravel, level the ground properly, lay landscape fabric and
then put down a couple of tons of 20mm Golden Gravel.

He's a good strong lad and well up for doing the work for us (I can't
because of a back injury) but we haven't got a clue what to pay him, and he
doesn't know what to ask for because he's never done a job like this for
money before. We obviously want to pay him a fair price for his hard graft
so has anyone got any ideas as to what we should be paying him, and should
we say so much per hour or give him a lump sum for the job?

TIA,

Steve.