How much to charge for water pipe/ kollel families

supermom

Mon, Jan 14 2008, 4:13 am

We live in a small community and the weather was so called on shabbos that most of the communities water pipes busted. My husband charged 35 shekals for each pipe he fixed. His sister thought we should have charged 100 shekals shock

and a friend of his said 50 shekals each pipe I thought it was a bit outragous. THese are kollel families that really don't have money and really need water in their houses. He did it as a chessed (which almost took his life. He slipped on ice on someones roof and fell with his wrench in his hands. THank goodness there was a tree that he caught on that was wet and not dry. He smashed is forehead against something.)

Why is it that people say yes it is his time and no one has money and so do we need the money. But isn't 35 shekals enough to charge? Like my sil says in town they charge 200 just to come see. Rolling Eyes

. Why become greedy on others chesbons?

P.s. like this one woman put it when someone complained about the extra expenses that the school system wanted this year. She says people are getting spoiled. The whole world pays this and that. People will just have to come up with the money that that is that. But funny this woman is one of the people that REALLY don't have money. Is it spoiled or we just don't have money?
Okay hopefully I make somewhat sense....

I know if he is satisfied then that should be the main thing but something inside me is saying maybe he should charge more since he works really hard and would jump for anyone in need even in the middle of the night. Okay maybe this is the yetzer hara talking now.

Just this past week I told my husband we really need money desperatly and here Hashem makes it really cold and gives him a job. I thought it was interesting.

hila

Mon, Jan 14 2008, 4:54 am

Since he was probably replacing the "pkak" on teh dud shemesh (yeah it happened in Efrat too) and that costs about 25 - and the rate in Efrat is much higher, I think 35 was too low.
Hope he charged 35 + parts !

BH ours has a pkak that repaired itself by motsash, but we had our water turned off from 8:30 am shabbat morning till after shabbat.

Our whole row except about 3 houses had teh burst. Mostly it was the koltim inlet pipe.

My dh told me our neighbour's just went today - and his was fine on shabbat.

Make sure to leave a tap (faucet) running a little and keep the water in the dud warm all night (use the timer ever hour for 15 mins) to help prevent this.

BRRRRRRR it is cold today

supermom

Mon, Jan 14 2008, 5:00 am

hila wrote:

We did just that with ours and both of our pipes busted this morning. Mad

He charged 30 for the job and 5 for the pekak since they were old ones that he had around. If they were new then they only cost 8 shekals in the store nothing major.

shalhevet

Mon, Jan 14 2008, 6:00 am

I think it was very nice of your dh, and you shouldn't feel regrets. If people asked for non-necessities then of course he should charge the going rate, but since this is a necessity, then you can look at it as giving to tzedaka without embarrassing people. I know someone very well who is an electrician and he often does emergency jobs for poor/kolel families at a simli (symbolic) price. OTOH, there is no reason for someone who also needs the money to take a below-the-market price for something like putting in new light fixtures or installing a new bathroom, even if the family is badly off - that is their choice, to spend the money on that.