What it costs
Rates
Coming out is € 45. An hour is € 65 to € 85, according to the work. € 25 joins that before 08:00, after 18:00 and on Sundays. Dutch VAT (btw) sits inside all of it, and there is no second list.
Phone answered
07:00 to 22:00, every day
Travel time
usually 40 to 80 minutes
Call-out charge (voorrijkosten)
€ 25 on top before 08:00, after 18:00 and on Sundays
Amounts
What it costs
One set of figures for the whole site. No emergency tariff exists that waits until somebody is standing in your hallway to introduce itself.
If the job takes longer than estimated.
On the doorstep you are told what looks necessary and roughly what that comes to. Should the job turn out bigger, you hear it while the panel is still off, not two weeks later on paper. Nothing past € 400 happens until you have said yes to it.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Call-out charge | € 45 |
| Hourly rate | € 65 to € 85 |
| Out-of-hours surcharge | € 25 |
| After the first hour | per 15 min |
| Parts | separate |
One call-out charge covers the visit. Tap and sanitary work bill at the lower hourly figure; jetting, camera work and boilers at the higher one. A flat amount joins the bill before 08:00, after 18:00 and on Sundays, never a percentage of anything. Quarter hours are counted after the first hour, and every part gets its own line.
Can this wait until tomorrow?
Then there is no reason to sit in a queue. Put your number in the form with a line about what is going on, and the call back comes at an hour you name yourself. Write it in English.
What matters here
How time is counted
Timing begins on your doorstep and ends the moment the work does. The opening hour counts whole; from there it runs in blocks of 15 minutes. Fuel and driving are already paid for by the call-out charge, so they never appear a second time as labour.
Components are itemised, brand and type written beside them. If something has to be fetched because the van did not carry it, that journey is not billed as working time.
Should opening things up reveal a larger problem, you hear it there and then, with a figure attached. Nothing beyond € 400 proceeds without your say-so. Prefer to sleep on it, or to get a second quotation? Entirely reasonable: you settle the call-out and the time already spent, and that is the end of it.
Clear in advance
What does not happen
No emergency tariff that waits until somebody is standing in your hallway to introduce itself. No evening percentage laid over the hourly rate. No two-hour minimum. And nothing here to join: a signing-on fee buys you a customer number, an administration line charges you for producing the invoice, and a card surcharge bills you for using the cheapest way there is to pay. None of the three does any work on your problem, so none of the three is on the list.
The figures on this page are written for private households in Zeist, Den Dolder, Austerlitz and Bosch en Duin. Repeat work on a building split into several dwellings, typically run by an owners association (VvE), is arranged separately beforehand, because a breakdown rate is the wrong instrument there.
Not sure whether this counts as an emergency?
Water standing on a floor, nothing working at all, a drain backing up over the rim: ring. Anything that can stay as it is until tomorrow can go through the form, and it will be at the top of the list early in the morning.
Will someone understand me if I call in English?
Yes, spoken and written. One tip that helps more than vocabulary: name the room and the object rather than the component. "Water coming through the kitchen ceiling" gets a van loaded correctly; a technical term that one of us has to translate does not. Knowing the Dutch word is a bonus, never a requirement.
Until what time can I call?
The phone is live from 07:00 in the morning until 22:00 at night, Sundays as well. After that nobody answers, and saying so plainly beats the alternative: a number advertising round-the-clock cover that parks you in a queue at two in the morning costs you sleep and gains you nothing. Record a message and yours is the first number dialled once the next day opens.
What am I paying for the call-out?
€ 45 for the visit, charged once, not per direction of travel. After that the rate runs from € 65 to € 85 an hour according to the type of work, with € 25 added outside office hours (before 08:00, after 18:00 and on Sundays). Dutch invoices label that first line voorrijkosten; what is unusual is not the charge, it is finding out about it on the doorstep. Every figure includes VAT (btw).
How quickly can someone be there?
Normally 40 to 80 minutes, though it moves with the village and with whatever is already running. Austerlitz sits further up the ridge than the rest and takes longer accordingly. Ask when you ring and you are given the range that applies to your address at that hour, rather than the best figure anyone ever managed. If it slips, you hear about the slip as soon as we do, so you can decide whether to keep waiting.
Do you work in my area?
Zeist, Den Dolder, Austerlitz and Bosch en Duin, which together make up the gemeente of Zeist. Staying that small is deliberate: an area you can cross in half an hour is an area whose travel times you can promise without crossing your fingers. Sitting just past the boundary is no reason not to ring; the answer takes under a minute either way.
How do I pay, and do I get an invoice?
Afterwards, either through a payment request (betaalverzoek) sent by text or WhatsApp that opens straight into your banking app, or on an invoice with a fortnight to pay. Cash plays no part in it, and no deposit is taken against work that has not happened yet. Hours and components appear as separate lines, which is the format a landlord or a claims handler expects to receive.
What if the problem comes back?
Everything repaired carries a three-month guarantee, so the same failure at the same point brings us back with no call-out charge. What it does not stretch to is a fresh blockage somewhere else along the pipe, or a second leak in a run that was already at the end of its life. In that second case you will have been told so on the first visit, with the reasoning attached.
Not urgent
Leave us your number
This is for anything that can keep until tomorrow. Standing water, or nothing working at all, belongs on the phone instead: nobody watches this form all evening. English is fine.