How much would you charge a soon to not be your customer for this scenario; the cust sold out and the new owners hired a wiring co to reachable their office with all cat 5 and install a new VoIP system Avaya ) sys. They told my customer they needed to rewire because there was cat 3 cables. Not true. The wiring company carelessly, had blocks hanging and jumper wires jumbled and crisscrossing cross the front of the 66 blocks. Shorting and causing several phones to short. The new owners called me to come In for the multi problems. Wanted me there right away. The install was a Debacle! I fixed several phone positions and consoles. And many other things, phones, faxes, credit card machines consoles, issues, database corrupt. Told them not to go any further until we got the jumper wires straighten out. They were shorting causing these issues. They did it anyways, now the system is lo limping along. I am here to upload an old database. And and to repair issues tonight. This is my 4th time here in 2 days. It is a real mess. I have had to drop everything to come to their rescue. The 1st time it was 9 hours the 2nd time the 3rd time the wiring co was a couple hours late, for a meeting! Now there are many more problems and I going to charge them for ER service. I told them they can Bill the wiring co for the Fubar. What do u think, price wise is acceptable. The sloppy dont care attitude is costing their wiring co a lot of business down time.
What would u charge to walk in the door to this and repair it for a couple of months. I am thinking $250. for the 1st hour. ER service now non stop for 2 days now? Appreciate your feed back!

I would say since it's ER do it double your regular rate. Normally that's how we do it.

Brent,
I hope when you say cat 5 you left the e off.
As for charging them ER rates don't hesitate to do so. Sounds to me they are taking shortcuts to save money.

1st thing you should have done is a scope of work and a sign off by new owner. This is a tough situation, in that they will not be dealing with you down the road, they may not pay you anywhere near what you want.
Because its a emergency to them, does not make it a emergency for you.
I would like to know if you get paid what you ask for.