... to wonder what is the problem with tradesmen?

[JumpJockey]

I made an appointment 2 weeks ago for a guy to come and quote for painting 3 windows and doing a bit of work on the bricks. He was meant to be here at 4, no message to say sorry I'm delayed or anything.

There's another guy who works a lot on our street doing esactly the job we need; I've asked him 3 times to pop round next time he's in the area (since he never has a diary on him to make an appointment), he's never showed.

We had a big job done on our kitchen, got quotes from several people, one guy turned up and spent over an hour measuring up then never sent a quote through.

Surely given the current state of the economy, people would be keen to at least quote for work? Why bother saying you'll come then not turn up? If this guy does show up I'll now be loath to use him anyway because of the lack of reliability.

Is anyone a/ DP of a tradesperson who works for themself? Is this kind of behaviour normal or have we just got loads of slacking useless independents round here?

We are trying to renovate our house and have lots of niggly things to do, as well as bigger projects, and I have had the same problem with lack of interest or no shows.

Perhaps we should ask MN for a "recommend a tradeperson" section, it would be really useful for many of us I think.

Am also interested in your shutters contact nannynick! Thanks.

Often the difficulty is that there isnt a small electrical job unless the property has been recently updated. Having one more socket in the kitchen or an electric shower in the bathroom may mean major electrical work if the existing system is not up to the latest standard. There is nothing wrong with the existing system but the rules have changed and a real electrician (ie not a cowboy) is caught in a cleft stick.

This means that DH is stuck having to tell the customer that the work will be far more than they want. In which case he often recommends living with what they have got until they are ready to rewire as otherwise the disruption will be greater than the benefit.

Of course a cowboy will go ahead and do the work but the customer wont have the necessary building regs certificates and the work may not be safe. Some customers would rather have the work done on the cheap and worry about the consequences later.

Suzie maybe your DH could look into doing eg kitchen re-fits etc?
We have a fab electrician who we have used for two re-wires now. He is a one man band and is very honest and reliable.
He is really busy and doing well - he is not cheap but not £££ either.
I know he does lots of kitchen and bathroom re-fits, often for local independent kitchen/bathroom suppliers who need a reliable electrician.

Hi Pannacotta, I guess that the real problem is that if people arent moving then they arent getting work done. Never start a business in a recession!

I would make a general plea for using your local one man band electrician. So long as he is Part P then you will be getting a skilled tradesman to do your work. If you go to a big firm then only one person in that firm needs to be qualified. Chances are he wont be doing your work.

I had a right game recently trying to get a quote to get a new front door hung. One guy turned up and measured, never got back to me (surely he had a gist of the job size without measuring to know whether it was "worth his while"? ) Got another bloke quoting me just under £300. No thanks.

Eventually another mum recommended me a semi-retired joiner. He did it for £100 plus a tenner for changing the glass in the fanlight. Bargain! Turned up when he said he would too.

Oh the front doors took us 9 months to get done. we had them sat in the cellar waiting and people just didnt turn up.

Odd job wise we have a good bloke up the street who does almost anything & he sub-contracts more specialist stuff so we know it will get done. We have had a couple of workmen that do work for dh school too so they want to keep us one side.

They all know how much bad mouthing the bad electrician got too , 3 years on and I'm still telling everyone

My ex-p is a plasterer and I cannot imagine him not turning up for a quote/job etc.

He ended up having to get a 9-5 'normal' job as the plastering was so unreliable, though, and so many customers let him down

In a similar vein have you had any ridiculous quotes for work?

I've been quoted 30k for an en suite shower room.

4k for a wooden front door.

90k for a conservatory.

YANBU. I hate them. even for big jobs. i have never had a good experience with a tiler. for my bathroom the guy cancelled twice when he said he would do the work. one day DH took the day off to be there as i was in hospital, and he called at half eleven in the morning saying he wouldn't be there for two days. this was after he had previously cancelled the weekend before phoning up at half ten on the friday night.

some one had said about swimming pools, even then they mess you about. my mum and dad got their pool retiled a few years ago and the tiler cancelled loads of times then too. he was charging thousands too and in the end they told him to get stuffed and a wee guy who had advertised in tesco did it for about a quarter of the price and very well.

im sure if the shoe was on the other foot and we kept postponing payment there would be hell to pay.

i do know a lovely joiner/handy man. hes a family friend and takes most of his payment in tea and buns:o but he has had to retire due to his health :(

We have struggled over the years getting trades people, but now we have a reliable group who are fantastic, most via word of mouth, but some through 'find a trader' website.

I now have a plumber, electrician, decorators and plasterers that I can count on. It has taken 5 bloody years though!

There's a happy ending to this after all - saw a sign on someone's house on the next road this morning, phoned chappie, he's popped over and given me a quote and it's reasonable and he can fit us in within the month. Plus he lives very nearby so if he doesn't show I can go and ring on his doorbell until he answers!

I'm relieved, but not exactly happy, to know that we're not the only ones with the problem. You do have to wonder about a lot of businesses as to how they stay in business - like major road construction or train works, or massive new housing developments - they go over budget and time so often. In my line of work if I didn't get the job done when I say I will, I'd get the sack. How is it so different in this sort of field?!

Oh and Jax, whereabouts in the country are you and we'll bother you for your list of names...

we've had this problem so many times since buying our house 5 years ago. We've had (and still have!) a number of small jobs doing (replacing a couple of roof tiles, fitting a new gas cooker, fitting a new shower etc etc) and every time we have made appointments with tradespeople who either haven't turned up, or have said they will phone us back with an appointment and haven't bothered.

I understand that my little job won't take priority over a bigger job which will mean more profit, but it's bloody frustrating!!

We have found 0800 Handyman and similar v good for small jobs.

I could have written this post! I am so stressed at the moment, have a few jobs that need doing. It takes me ages to get a personal recommendation from someone, ring up builder, get them round, then we wait & wait as they say they will be in touch - nothing. So, we go round again!

WIBU to ring some of them and ask why they couldn't just say they didn't want the work instead of going through the motions?

Our house was a wreck when we bought it and we've been doing it up over 10 years.

In that time we've contacted dozens of plumbers, sparks, painters, tilers.

I'd say that about 95% are totally unreliable. We've now got one fantastic plumber who is honest and reliable and one good painter. Electricians are the worst I've got to say. Never found a decent one of those.

I've lost count of the no-shows, the disappearing when the job is half done and switching their phones off etc...

To be honest, it makes it hard to have sympathy for any tradesman that whinges about the lack of work.

YANBU

but I don't buythe small jobs suggestion ( as it were)

I have contacted tradespeople explaining that the work would be substantial and asking if they are interested and able to handle the work before making appt.

I still get no shows. It is crap

We've had several "no-shows", especially for garden jobs. One gardening firm even laughed at me when I asked if he do some work in our garden. I don't think they are interested in the small jobs. Yet, we have no end of window firms calling round touting for trade

My dh is a roofer and wouldn't dream of letting anyone down unless there was an emergency, in which case he'd contact them and re-arrange. He always follows up with a written quote. These days you really can't afford to be sloppy! We're lucky in that he's been very busy apart from a couple of slack weeks after Christmas, but that's normal anyway.

I don't get the small job thing either, dh will do any job.

My DH is a builder/carpenter and painter/decorator.

He often gets calls to come out and quote and always turns up. If he can't for whatever reason, he will call, notify and rearrange. It's just common courtesy and politeness.

I hate reading stories such as above, please take heart mnetters that there are some reliable tradespeople out there - besides my DH will often tell me when he has appointments, so I remind him too!!!!

Im sorry for the bad experiences you've had. It gives tradesmen a bad name, especially when my DH is often working weekends doing smaller jobs, just to make ends meet.

Besides, if he can't do a job, he would say from the get go, rather than not turn up. That is so rude!

:)

For those asking about my shutters, they are from www.affordableshutters.co.uk On their website is a Calculation option, which in my case over estimated the price slightly - which was nice as it cost a little less than I had budgeted.

Wooden shutters are not cheap so be warned. I had two windows done (the one pictured and one 1/3 of the size) and it was a little over £500 including fitting and VAT.
If you want to chat to someone, call Marina on 0800 169 3080. Otherwise just use the enquiry form on their website.

SuzieHomemaker - what a shame that your husband is clearly reliable but this doesn't work for him.

Builders gave us major grief this year. We had £25k (quoted) of building work done between March and May of this year, which turned into a total of £34k due to extras supposedly demanded by Building Control. The builders turned up when they felt like it, or not if they thought we wouldn't be there, expressed horror at the idea of my being at home for 2.5 weeks for Easter (I'm a teacher), knowing that I would be observing their non-appearance / snail's pace work and endless hours spent chatting about the football on their incessant mobiles, and generally took the pi. Their work was actually good quality when it was finally finished, but they had so many jobs on the go that ours just had to compete with the others. The whole project came in £9K over-budget and 7 weeks behind schedule (this wasn't Grand Designs, all internal work involving fitting three bathrooms & a kitchen which we'd bought + tiles. It's wonderful now it's finished but I really will NEVER live through building work again, they know that you are totally reliant on them once they've started and capitalise on that. I would love to see them hold down skilled jobs in industry which require you to work to a timescale, budget and within operational constraints without downing tools, answering your phone all day long & wasting resources. GRRR ! Sorry for the rant but I've only just got back to normal since they cleared off in May. They take one look at your house, cars & jobs & add £££££s onto the quote if they think you can afford it :(

Another stupid quote to share:

Relaying a small patio: £7500 + vat + materials

We're having huge difficulty getting a plumber to come and move a radiator. Meanwhile we have no flooring & it's been dragging on for ages. Apparently they don't like working with small bore systems. Hopefully we have one coming on Thursday now so fingers crossed he shows up.

On mumsnet local we could recommend our favourite tradesmen.

Bloody genius

Keep looking Seabright - when we had block paving I stopped my car on the way to school and asked a clearly-grafting one-man-band for his phone number, and the job was done at a reasonable price to timescale, fingers crossed for you :)