Ask Three Chefs for a Three-Course Meal and See What Happens

I’ve not had a proper bugbear for a while. I’ve been practically serene. Candles lit, herbal tea, the whole namaste vibe.

But today, dear reader, my goat has been well and truly got, and I need to tell you about it before I combust.

Let me set the scene.

I’m married to a plumber and heating engineer. Not “a bloke who does boilers.” Not “a man with a white van and questionable radio taste.” An actual craftsman.

For twenty-six years I’ve sat across the dinner table listening to how he thinks about a job before he’s even picked up a spanner, how he plans it. How he approaches it. How he comes home afterwards and dissects what he’d do differently next time, like a football pundit reviewing his own match footage—except the match is a leaking boiler in someone’s airing cupboard.

He isn’t just good at what he does.

He’s bloody brilliant at it.

This isn’t simply a job to him. It’s not a vehicle for a flashy car or two weeks in the Maldives. It’s a vocation—with a capital V—and he treats it with the sort of respect most people reserve for Wimbledon finals or Sunday roast.

So imagine my face—my actual, physical face—when a taxpayer-funded organisation rings him and asks him to spend hours surveying and pricing a job…

For free.

No specification.

No drawings.

No defined scope.

Nothing.

Just, “Come and have a look and tell us what you think it’ll cost.”

No written brief. No protection for them. No protection for him. No protection for the public purse they’re supposedly safeguarding like it’s the Crown Jewels.

They simply won’t put a value on an expert’s time.

And the way some of them speak to contractors?

Honestly, I sometimes feel like I’ve wandered onto the set of Upstairs, Downstairs and been handed a mop.

We’re very much “the staff.”

Know your place.

Don’t get ideas above your station.

Certainly don’t expect to be paid for using your brain.

The Real Problem (Cue Dramatic Music)

Here’s what they think they’re doing.

They believe that if they invite five different plumbing and heating engineers to quote “the job”, all five will magically produce identical scopes of work, and the only thing left to compare is the price.

As though we’re all interchangeable.

As though expertise doesn’t exist.

As though procurement works like eBay.

Except it doesn’t.

Let me explain using food, because everyone understands food.

Ask three chefs,

“How much for a three-course meal?”

That’s all you tell them.

Chef One assumes steak.

Chef Two assumes chicken.

Chef Three, feeling particularly ambitious, assumes lobster.

You now have three prices.

But you don’t have three prices for the same meal.

You’ve got three completely different interpretations of the question.

The cheapest option isn’t necessarily the best value.

It’s simply the one with less on the plate.

You haven’t compared prices.

You’ve compared assumptions.

Plumbing and heating works exactly the same way.

One contractor includes flushing the system.

Another assumes the existing pipework is reusable.

One specifies proper insulation.

Another doesn’t.

One allows for commissioning, testing and certification.

Another quietly leaves them out.

Those omissions don’t disappear.

They simply reappear later as costly variations, delays or unpleasant surprises.

This Is Why Specifications Exist

(Sorry. The tea’s gone cold… and so has my patience.)

A genuinely experienced plumbing consultant or senior engineer isn’t selling you “a quote.”

They’re selling decades of pattern recognition.

The kind that only comes from seeing hundreds—sometimes thousands—of jobs go right… and wrong.

They’re identifying:

• hidden risks you’d never have spotted,
• the regulations that actually apply,
• the correct sequence of works,
• which products and systems genuinely work together,
• how the installation will be maintained years down the line,
• and, perhaps most importantly, the things everyone else forgot to include.

That’s where the real value lies.

Once a proper specification exists, every contractor is finally pricing exactly the same document.

Only then does procurement become genuinely fair.

Only then are you comparing like with like.

Only then are all the chefs cooking the same three-course meal.

Nobody rings an architect and says,

“Be a love and design my house for free so I can get five builders to quote it.”

The architect gets paid for producing the drawings.

Because the drawings are the product.

They’re the intellectual property.

They’re the expertise you’re buying.

Yet in plumbing and heating, people routinely expect the most experienced engineer in the room to survey, diagnose, design and specify an entire solution…

For nothing.

Then hand all of that thinking to competing contractors so they can price the work.

Free of charge.

Using someone else’s experience.

Using someone else’s knowledge.

Using someone else’s brain.

(A brain which, last time I checked, is also required for remembering our anniversary.)

The irony is almost beautiful.

Without a proper specification, the client doesn’t receive five comparable quotations.

They receive five different interpretations of the problem, all dressed up to look like competition.

They’re not comparing prices.

They’re comparing guesswork.

So Here’s What We Do Now

When someone becomes offended because we expect to be paid for our expertise…

When they expect hours of professional thinking for nothing…

We politely decline.

No drama.

No argument.

The kettle stays on.

Because I genuinely can’t think of another profession where it’s considered perfectly reasonable to expect someone not to be paid for the work that happens inside their head.

Chefs don’t cook for free so you can compare menus.

Architects don’t design houses for free so you can compare builders.

Plumbers shouldn’t think for free so you can compare quotes.

That’s not being difficult.

It’s not “below stairs” behaviour.

It’s simply recognising that expertise has value.

And that’s our recipe.