Its not uncommon to pay for a quote on a house you might buy. Providing quotes cost a company money to produce. If you was the owner of a company paying a QS £20 an hour to visit the job, calculate how much materials are going to cost, guess how long it will take a tradesmen to do the job and put a figure to it only to find out you wasn't going to buy it after all would you want reimbursing for the cost. It's all about how accurate you want the quote. You could get Fred blogs to turn up, make an imaginary sum plucked from the sky up and give you that for free, but when it came to doing the job it was much more because he guessed wrong. You hear it all the time. Builders are the only industry where customers believe they should get hours of work done for free!

We always price work for clients thinking of buying. You probably price ten that comes to nothing but one always comes in. so its worth it.

Some companies charge some other do not.
Its common to charge when a good survey is needed amd there is a time spending around it.
If a quote for a straight forward toilette i quote for free.
If i have to spend half a day surveying and a day long to find the right materials, costs and so on i charge a fee that its various depending of the job.
£175 looks a bit high but any company has different policy about it.

It can be common in certain parts to charge call out on a pricing particularly if it's a long way outside the tradesman's normal working area but this does seem a little excessive to me.

hi the bigger the company the bigger the cost overheads and all,yes in the building trade it's understandable to be changed for full written surveys time is money in any trade but what is offered is if the builder gets the contract then often the money is received back and theirs not many other kind of surveys where u get that.My advise as with anything else realy is to shop around and get several quotations first,hope this is of sum help. take care