Gardening Costs(spain)

For anything to do with the garden and pool
mario
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Gardening Costs(spain)

Post by mario »

For those that rent out your property what do you pay your gardener to maintain your garden,including setting irrigation and all the chemicals I am paying about 280 euros a month which I feel is too much,this is for approx 250-300 sq meters of garden and does not include pool maint.
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pepsipuss
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Post by pepsipuss »

Sorry, only just picked this up, Mario. That sounds like mega-money to me for a small garden. How many hours do you reckcon they spend? €15 an hour should be more than enough. Is this a private individual or a big company? The best bet for garden and pool is to find a retired person who loves to garden and who is living in an apartment and is willing to do both. Anyone can learn to look after a pool, it really isn't rocket science. If we didn't have plenty of garden of our own to look after it is what the OH would do and he wouldn't charge any more than that.
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KathyG
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Post by KathyG »

We pay €15 an hour too (SMIC rate) and that's for pool maintenance as well.

Paolo - great to see a gardening/pool section! :D
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cc
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Post by cc »

What is SMIC?
In Andalucia wages are very low, even compared to the rest of Spain. Normally labourers, cleaners etc get 8-10 euros per hour, cash in hand. so unless you are employing specialists, 15 an hour is excessive.
Of course one always runs the risk of being ripped off by friendly Brits who exploit either ones lack of local knowledge or lack of Spanish.
You don't have to write something on every thread, do you?
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pepsipuss
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Post by pepsipuss »

Glad someone asked about SMIC! Assume it is some sort of minimum wage?
Agree with you 100%, cc, about wages in Andalucia, and when I said that €15/hour should be more than enough it was bearing in mind that the chemicals are included and assuming it is someone who has some expertise. It was just to give Mario an idea how many hours he could expect to be getting as a minimum and then he can assess if there is enough work being done to justify it.

Hourly rates are a licence to print money if you are not present to witness how many hours have actually been worked, and how much is actually accomplished in that time. Otherwise it is essential to agree what will be done and how much it will be per month, and if you think it is a fair rate for the job it is up to the worker how long they spend doing it.

We have had a huge amount of work done in the last few years, mostly in construction and related businesses. We have employed just about every nationality available round here, from local Spanish, through Romanian, Algerian, Moroccan and Ecuadorian, not forgetting of course the odd Brit. Our experience has been that most of them, even with a relatively low hourly rate, are actually very expensive workers because they do not work efficiently. We have witnessed too many inefficient work practices to even begin to list them, but almost without exception (the Romanians) they did not understand (or want to understand) when we asked them to do it differently because it would be easier and quicker and also less wasteful of materials that we had paid for in a lot of cases. Not only that but they were often asking to borrow equipment they did not have. The Brits are a bit better but most tend to have far too many tea and fag breaks to make them efficient on an hourly basis. :roll: We now refuse to pay anyone by the hour and if they are not willing to work for a fixed rate for the job (or per metre for tiling etc) they don't get the work.
Our first experience was Pedro, who every time we asked him to do something differently would lecture us on his 50 years' experience in the building trade (he was all of 56 at the time) :? . The OH asked me to please tell him that it is possible spend 50 years working at the same thing but have only one year's experience if one does not continue to learn!

Someone who has real experience, knowledge and the right equipment can charge top whack and still give much better value for your euros. Before we left the UK and the OH was at a loose end, he was asked by someone in our village if he would look after their garden because he was an enthusiastic gardener and had got ours well under control, no longer needing to spend too much time on it. They agreed on an hourly rate which was at the mid to top end of local expectation, but it wasn't long before he had people clamouring for his services because, for the same (or even less) money than they were previously paying, they had gardens which had never looked so good. :)
NO REQUESTS PLEASE WE HAVE TOO MANY ACRES ALREADY HERE!! :roll: :roll:
For true domestic harmony it is essential that dogs know their place, which is below all cats

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