How much does it cost to change a light bulb? Cost efficiency, Boris Johnson style

During the London Mayor elections, Boris Johnson and his campaign had to get the bulbs changed in five lamps in their office.

No surprise there really.

But you might be a little surprised at how much they paid.

Changing five lamps required someone to be paid for two hours of work, at £28.98 per hour. (That’s 24 minutes per lamp.)

Plus 10% administration fee.

Plus VAT.

Add in the cost of material and the total bill came to £88.81.

Nothing like a bit of value for money is there? (Copy of invoice here.)

P.S. I’m now off to become an electrician.

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This entry was posted in London.
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10 Comments

  • dreamingspire 6th Aug '08 - 10:26am

    It probably cost £20 to issue the invoice and another £50 to process and pay it.

  • Justin Hinchcliffe 6th Aug '08 - 10:28am

    Bye, bye, Mark. I hope you are more useful as an electrician than Head of the Innovations unit (-:

    And you could start up Electricians’ Voice. Stories to include, Watchdog finds leading company over-charging by 3p for washing machine repair job

  • To be fair, it’s not like they had much choice in the matter – the invoice is from the management company for their County Hall office, not from some random electrician. They probably werent’ allowed to change them themselves.

    And if they were integrated into the celing or tube-lights, they are fiddly and take time to change.

  • £80 ?

    They will save that much in 6 months using energy efficient lightbulbs.

    Why do I get the feeling this is just a “Bitch at Boris” rather than any intelligent political discussion ?

  • £28 an hour for a spark is not bad value at all. Nothing to see here.

  • Martin Land 6th Aug '08 - 4:05pm

    Poor old Boris; I suppose his Fag used to change the light bulbs for him at school…

  • following the successful LD campaign to ban incandescent light bulbs – lets pass a law insisting that all “energy saving” bulbs are dimmable – other wise energy will be wasted

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