Trades - moan!!
Discussion
DonkeyApple said:
Good tradesmen are worth their weight in gold but there are quite a few who are good at the work but don't appreciate that the administration side is equally important.
There used to be a guy in our village - he's moved some distance away now - who could do anything himself if he had to but operated more in project manager mode. If a couple of people wanted a wall replastering he'd get a plasterer for the day and do them both. Seems perfect to me - he does all the organisation etc, all the plasterer has to do is turn up and plaster.I guess any reasonable size building firm with multiple trades on their books could do this, but then customers are paying the overheads of a larger firm.
Little Lofty said:
I’ve just done a loft conversion on a property I’m flipping, I haven’t done one for about 8 years and quite enjoyed doing one again, I done around 100 in the 2000’s. I still get the occasional phone call asking if I’d quote for a conversion but I’ve always got too much on. I have thought about getting back into them while everything is so busy, but then I remember about a customer emailing me at 1am, complaining that his wife wasn’t able to make a cup of tea when she came in from work at 2pm because we had the water switched off, it was off because we needed to cut into the water feeds for the loft ensuite, we hadn’t turned it off for fun and it was back on at 4.00 before we left, I could understand it if we’d left them with no water for the weekend or no showering facilities like the guy on here recently who was showering in his back yard. Or the other guy who also emailed complaining we had forgot to turn off the landing light when we left at 4.30 as he didn’t get back from work until 5.30. If they had complained about something serious I could have put it right and apologised, but I find it hard to deal with such trivial matters, especially after seeing some truly horrific conversions where people have had their houses made worthless, and have no money left to put them right, and all my customer had to complain about was not being able to have a cup of tea. Don’t get me wrong the vast majority of customer are fine, I’m still friends with some of them 15 years later, its the odd tit that spoils it for everyone, I guess in the same way the odd cowboy gets us all a bad name.
you gotta try not to let it get under your skin, but its hard, the human brain has a proclivity to focus on negative experiences out of all proportion, it's an evolved survival instinct and in many ways a good thing.I had one the other day, installed a few sockets on a house we'd recently refurbed so it was all immaculately decorated so I went above and beyond to minimise breakage and did a superb job, y'know one you can stand back and admire, only for the prick to acknowledge it but then pull the whole "figure he had in mind" stunt when $ needed exchanging. I think its hits worse when you've put your heart into doing something good when you could have just half arsed it - we are, in the words of Nietzsche, punished for our virtues!
Another recent one that springs to mind is one I went to look at earlier this year, couldn't tell me over the phone and when I got there it was loads of little jobs. They had just bought the house and half the lights wasn't working downstairs, put a few light fittings up, check why the garage door wasn't working, stuff like that.
Before I could tell him any sort of price he says can we do it as cheap as possible as he is more than capable of doing everything himself and has only got us in because he doesn't have a ladder.
Told him £360 and never heard anything back, maybe he bought a £20 ladder instead.
Before I could tell him any sort of price he says can we do it as cheap as possible as he is more than capable of doing everything himself and has only got us in because he doesn't have a ladder.
Told him £360 and never heard anything back, maybe he bought a £20 ladder instead.
scottyp123 said:
Another recent one that springs to mind is one I went to look at earlier this year, couldn't tell me over the phone and when I got there it was loads of little jobs. They had just bought the house and half the lights wasn't working downstairs, put a few light fittings up, check why the garage door wasn't working, stuff like that.
Before I could tell him any sort of price he says can we do it as cheap as possible as he is more than capable of doing everything himself and has only got us in because he doesn't have a ladder.
Told him £360 and never heard anything back, maybe he bought a £20 ladder instead.
I had a great one the other day - just parked the van to look at a job and a woman stops me in the street and asks if I'm an electrician - yup - can you look at a job - sure - walk up to her house, massive detached house overlooking a park in Hampstead. She's got a load of old halogen lights that are failing, y'know the crappy aroura fittings where the cheap aluminium holding the spring deforms and they fall out, as well as failing transformers and lampholders, she wants it patched up, now I'm happy to repair and work to any budget but there's a point at which its stupid so I tell her shes throwing good money after bad, chop it in for some new LEDs, I might not even be able to cosmetically match the old. Oh no she knows best, she's not falling for that, and she's insistent I cosmetically match them, nothing else will do. And also a 40 year old fan heater that "doesn't need replacing but doesn't work and needs a new part"Before I could tell him any sort of price he says can we do it as cheap as possible as he is more than capable of doing everything himself and has only got us in because he doesn't have a ladder.
Told him £360 and never heard anything back, maybe he bought a £20 ladder instead.
Told her I'd get back to her, she also insists on my number, might have made a mistake writing it down lol.
scottyp123 said:
...
Extension (Extended Kitchen and Dining Room)
9) Build a house end extension with brickwork, tiles roof and Velux)
...
Sometimes the odd thing gets overlooked and ends up on the snagging list, so item 9 nestled away in the list is quite a biggie no?
Imagine the snagging list at the end of the job
1 :- socket not straight in bedroom 2
2 :- drip on paintwork on kitchen door.
3 :- kitchen extension not built
This was brilliant! I truly hope most of your customers are not like that.Extension (Extended Kitchen and Dining Room)
9) Build a house end extension with brickwork, tiles roof and Velux)
...
Sometimes the odd thing gets overlooked and ends up on the snagging list, so item 9 nestled away in the list is quite a biggie no?
Imagine the snagging list at the end of the job
1 :- socket not straight in bedroom 2
2 :- drip on paintwork on kitchen door.
3 :- kitchen extension not built
I am amazed at some of the comments about people being booked up to the end of the year. I wonder what is causing such a pinch?
- Lockdown means lots of people with money and desire to spend on their house?
- Given the choice between £150/day dealing with customers and buying my own tools, or taking furlough/SEISS money to watch Netflix, I think I'd take SEISS, so fewer trades working?
- Shutdown of construction during lockdown(s) means lots of catchup to do?
- Supply chain disruption makes jobs take longer (running around trying to get supplies; having to leave things half done while waiting for parts, then go back to finish off)
- New legislation (those electrical safety checks for rentals?) sucking up all the capacity?
Flooble said:
This was brilliant! I truly hope most of your customers are not like that.
I am amazed at some of the comments about people being booked up to the end of the year. I wonder what is causing such a pinch?
Maybe it's a simple as half the UK's tradesmen have gone home due to Brexit and COVID and getting back in is harder, while the other half all built pubs in their gardens at the start the first lockdown and have been too pissed to answer the phone? I am amazed at some of the comments about people being booked up to the end of the year. I wonder what is causing such a pinch?
- Lockdown means lots of people with money and desire to spend on their house?
- Given the choice between £150/day dealing with customers and buying my own tools, or taking furlough/SEISS money to watch Netflix, I think I'd take SEISS, so fewer trades working?
- Shutdown of construction during lockdown(s) means lots of catchup to do?
- Supply chain disruption makes jobs take longer (running around trying to get supplies; having to leave things half done while waiting for parts, then go back to finish off)
- New legislation (those electrical safety checks for rentals?) sucking up all the capacity?
In reality, I suspect the main drivers are a general knock-on from delayed projects from this time last year when few households wanted trades in their home and some materials and workers being more scarce, huge numbers of people all sitting at home and suddenly finding time to think about extensions and refurbs and a burst of people moving that was all pento up and needing work on new homes along with people staying put but wanting to change things having been trapped inside for a year.
And as you also mention, millions of consumers have ended up with more money in their accounts than they ever believed possible and are suddenly able to make much bigger purchases than ever before while some of them will have realised that when they don't spend 24/7 going to the shops to buy tat they aren't actually on the poverty line but have good salaries and that making one's home environment as good as it can be is smarter than buying this week's latest must have object.
It will probably all eventually revert back to people pouring all their money into Primark, Dunelm and Miller & Carter but if for the moment it's pouring into the pockets of tradesfolk then long may it continue.
Jaguar steve said:
Dick potential new clients about a bit and play the long game. If they want you to do the work more than anybody else then happy days and that's a really useful filter mechanism to discover who'll accept top end pricing and the job being done when it suits you and who won't.
Wow. If you think this the only way to manage and filter out potential clients is to "dick them about a bit" then you can't be running a very professional outfit.Low and behold, many of your clients will also run their own businesses. Will have the same issues and will find a more professional way to deal with people than dick them around.
Should you decide to quote, before you've even walked through their door, they are already annoyed with you. You might get the work, but they won't like you. Guess what, they'll think YOU are a dick.
This behaviour will no doubt completely erode your reputation eventually.
Also it's just not a very nice way to live - you thinking you need to dick people around.
Trades that dick me about, whether for private work or for my business stand zero chance. Once the start to dick you about, they will continue.
I am typing this from an office built 15 years ago by John Wayne - he dicked me about from the outset and did a crap job, it annoys me daily!
I have now found some really good trades in my area, I try and keep them busy and make sure I pay promptly and pay fair rates. That way they keep working for me, and will even give me priority, but it has taken years to get to that point.
For work, I have a construction management team that look after trades, but the same principles apply
I am typing this from an office built 15 years ago by John Wayne - he dicked me about from the outset and did a crap job, it annoys me daily!
I have now found some really good trades in my area, I try and keep them busy and make sure I pay promptly and pay fair rates. That way they keep working for me, and will even give me priority, but it has taken years to get to that point.
For work, I have a construction management team that look after trades, but the same principles apply
blueg33 said:
Trades that dick me about, whether for private work or for my business stand zero chance. Once the start to dick you about, they will continue.
I am typing this from an office built 15 years ago by John Wayne - he dicked me about from the outset and did a crap job, it annoys me daily!
I have now found some really good trades in my area, I try and keep them busy and make sure I pay promptly and pay fair rates. That way they keep working for me, and will even give me priority, but it has taken years to get to that point.
For work, I have a construction management team that look after trades, but the same principles apply
I think a lot of the trouble though is that a lot of the time someone just wants one thing done and needs to find the right person first time and to compound the issue further, on the one side they have zero experience of interviewing and employing people while on the other hand the labour pool is riddled with liars, thieves and incompetents that need to be cut through to reach the professionals. I am typing this from an office built 15 years ago by John Wayne - he dicked me about from the outset and did a crap job, it annoys me daily!
I have now found some really good trades in my area, I try and keep them busy and make sure I pay promptly and pay fair rates. That way they keep working for me, and will even give me priority, but it has taken years to get to that point.
For work, I have a construction management team that look after trades, but the same principles apply
You and I are, I suspect of a similar age that we didn't have expansive HR teams doing the hiring but had to learn how to spot a piss taker, an incompetent or general loser ourselves and the punishment for failure was that we had to get rid them not palm it off onto Sharon and Dancing Barry to spend 18 months putting together a case to ask them if they really wouldn't mind too much if they took some extra money and a glowing reference and left the building.
At the same time we probably have the same experience of the immense rewards of choosing wisely versus the abject misery of when you get it wrong. And as we've gotten older better abilities at sniffing out bulls
t and far less initial tolerance to such punters, opting to nip initial contact in the bud promptly and risk losing a great person than bringing people on hoping one will turn out to be great. I imagine that if you're you her or have never had to deal with such people on the front line or have a regular flow of work through which to build up a professional, two way, relationship then it must actually be quite difficult to filter out the smooth talking fraudsters from the genuine pros or the time wasters from the time efficient.
Dicking the potential customer about so as to see how pliable they are probably works quite well. Given that you can cold call people in the UK and sell them worthless products and services for huge sums there are clearly large numbers of people who will respond well to such tactics and reveal that they are ready, willing and able to be bent over in the comfort of their own home.
The flipside being that if you place some form of basic value on your personal time then you're more likely to take someone's attempts at dicking you about as fair warning to move on and swerve the high odds of bringing a wallet rapist onto the property.
I’ve been emailing the local plumber/handy man for months on a near weekly basis. He is the hot ticket and everyone raves.
He finally caved and came over to quote to keep the peace. Said he would email me. Never heard anything.
Seems like false economy to me. ‘Too busy sorry’ would have been quicker.
I was clear I’d be happy to pay a premium.
I hear there is a nurse shortage too.
He finally caved and came over to quote to keep the peace. Said he would email me. Never heard anything.
Seems like false economy to me. ‘Too busy sorry’ would have been quicker.
I was clear I’d be happy to pay a premium.
I hear there is a nurse shortage too.
I needed a dead tree felled. It stood about 75 feet tall and was only about 25 feet from my house. Just for once I admitted my shortcomings regarding high altitude arboreal work.
Put an ad in farcebook and had about 50 replies. Out of the 50 only 1 had a license and was bonded and insured.
$100 to risk having the tree flatten my house and the unlicensed guy just saying "Tough" and walking away, or $200 to have the tree felled by a licensed professional who's insured in case my house gets flattened.
Not a tough choice.
Put an ad in farcebook and had about 50 replies. Out of the 50 only 1 had a license and was bonded and insured.
$100 to risk having the tree flatten my house and the unlicensed guy just saying "Tough" and walking away, or $200 to have the tree felled by a licensed professional who's insured in case my house gets flattened.
Not a tough choice.
mart 63 said:
Gad-Westy said:
It can't just be me that suffers from this. It seems like every builder/plumber/electrician etc that I ever engage with is utterly hopeless!
In the past we've eventually found some core people that we can rely on 'enough'. But having recently moved, I'm starting from square one and I could do with a little bit of building work doing, some plastering and I need some electrics sorting. I've had a few recommendations for all. I must have called 10 different people now. Of the ones I've managed to speak to, I have had the usual, I'll call back with a time. Haven't heard a thing. Have been following up.
2 weeks of this crap. Not one person has got as far as even coming to quote. It's driving me nuts how much effort I'm having to put in just to get someone to take a look and give a price.
My standards are now so low that I would probably give a 5 star google review to anybody who just returns a call!
Rant over. Not asking for any advice. Just frustrated!
Most trades are very busy, all the good ones are flat out. You seem to want small jobs doing, which to a busy tradesmen are not worth getting out of bed for. I certainly wouldn't entertain bit work.In the past we've eventually found some core people that we can rely on 'enough'. But having recently moved, I'm starting from square one and I could do with a little bit of building work doing, some plastering and I need some electrics sorting. I've had a few recommendations for all. I must have called 10 different people now. Of the ones I've managed to speak to, I have had the usual, I'll call back with a time. Haven't heard a thing. Have been following up.
2 weeks of this crap. Not one person has got as far as even coming to quote. It's driving me nuts how much effort I'm having to put in just to get someone to take a look and give a price.
My standards are now so low that I would probably give a 5 star google review to anybody who just returns a call!
Rant over. Not asking for any advice. Just frustrated!
bristolracer said:
Gosh has it been a week since the last slag off a tradesmen thread?
Next new thread due should be about elderly drivers followed by some snowflake vs boomer handbag duel.
For an industry that prides itself on banter, I was surprised at the abuse I got on the "on the tools" facebook group when they were all moaning about people who work in offices and my response was that without people like me they wouldn't have much to build Next new thread due should be about elderly drivers followed by some snowflake vs boomer handbag duel.
. All tongue in cheek of course (without good builders there wouldn't be much point me designing anything) but surprisingly few got the joke...NMNeil said:
I needed a dead tree felled. It stood about 75 feet tall and was only about 25 feet from my house. Just for once I admitted my shortcomings regarding high altitude arboreal work.
Put an ad in farcebook and had about 50 replies. Out of the 50 only 1 had a license and was bonded and insured.
$100 to risk having the tree flatten my house and the unlicensed guy just saying "Tough" and walking away, or $200 to have the tree felled by a licensed professional who's insured in case my house gets flattened.
Not a tough choice.
Very true. Limits risk but doesn't remove it. We had a lovely old beech in the garden in London. An enormous old thing that gave summer shade over the bbq patio area. One year it sprouted fungus at the trunk and in another two it was kaput. I hired a professional company, paid top dollar, discussed the slight complexity of the tree being up on a bank and how it's branches also covered two other gardens, risk points covered, protections agreed, put in writing the specific criteria of the work and was paying more for the fact it would take a couple of days to do it as needed and not cause any damage. Everything agreed. Returned at the end of day one and my bbq and patio area had been obliterated, the bank seriously damaged, the neighbours, on one side, wall gone and the ornamental beds of the property at the rear demolished. What ensued was an 18 month legal wrangling with them and their insurers with the former deciding to fold half way through and pheonix the business. Their insurance was all but meaningless and worked extremely hard to not settle the tens of thousands of damage done. Put an ad in farcebook and had about 50 replies. Out of the 50 only 1 had a license and was bonded and insured.
$100 to risk having the tree flatten my house and the unlicensed guy just saying "Tough" and walking away, or $200 to have the tree felled by a licensed professional who's insured in case my house gets flattened.
Not a tough choice.
Happy days. :And tree surgeons are now on the list of trades that require parental oversight. D
I don't get why there are so few tradesmen about, there are actually thousands and thousands of them dotted round the Country but the workload must be immense. I've got a mate who is looking for something to do and at the minute he says he is going to buy a pub and run that, he expects to make a wage of up to £1000 per week. To accomplish this he needs to borrow £250,000 and the work will be long hours every day of the week, sounds nuts to me
Why on earth would you get in debt for a quarter of a million to make a grand a week, you could buy a £20 float and become a plasterer, work less hours and have a thousand times less stress, even an electrician only needs a £500 test meter and a few screwdrivers. There must be so many people out there who have the train of thought that they would never lower themselves to manual work.
Not only that you can turn up at work the next day after a load of charlie the night before and no-one bats an eyelid. Try doing that in an office environment.
Why on earth would you get in debt for a quarter of a million to make a grand a week, you could buy a £20 float and become a plasterer, work less hours and have a thousand times less stress, even an electrician only needs a £500 test meter and a few screwdrivers. There must be so many people out there who have the train of thought that they would never lower themselves to manual work.
Not only that you can turn up at work the next day after a load of charlie the night before and no-one bats an eyelid. Try doing that in an office environment.
I guess that until maybe recently, older tradesmen haven't want to go into people's homes while others will have opted to do the childcare while the partner works, others will have opted for furlough etc. And maybe there are plenty of bigger jobs around meaning less need to take smaller jobs?
Unusual times still.
Unusual times still.
Some of us have zero manual dexterity, so wouldn’t be safe doing up a screw unsupervised. It’s not so much a case of not lowering yourself to doing manual work as just being incompetent at it.
But you’re right about your mate, why not just live off the 250k, at a grand a week that’s five years doing nothing to end up in the same place! You would think after the last year opening a pub would be at the bottom of the list. Opening a mask factory or Covid testing centre would make more sense!
But you’re right about your mate, why not just live off the 250k, at a grand a week that’s five years doing nothing to end up in the same place! You would think after the last year opening a pub would be at the bottom of the list. Opening a mask factory or Covid testing centre would make more sense!
Market forces should sort this out, no?
If a trades person is consistently over subscribed, they are not charging enough. A frustrated client should be able to price themselves into contention? If not why not?
Then supply should catch up. Youth unemployment rate is 15% or so. I'm not devaluing the trades. (My attempts at DIY devalue the house). But remember all these reports of little jobs going wanting, it can't be hard to find a trainee position... but not worth getting out of bed for.... where is the equilibrium?
If a trades person is consistently over subscribed, they are not charging enough. A frustrated client should be able to price themselves into contention? If not why not?
Then supply should catch up. Youth unemployment rate is 15% or so. I'm not devaluing the trades. (My attempts at DIY devalue the house). But remember all these reports of little jobs going wanting, it can't be hard to find a trainee position... but not worth getting out of bed for.... where is the equilibrium?
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