To think it shou'dn't be so chuffing hard to find a carpenter for a relatively small job

[bettycocker]

I want a cupboard built into my kitchen to hide my boiler and allow acees to it, but the other side should be a larder cupboard with shelves.

Why is it impossible to find someone to do this? One man quoted me £480 for this job, just using mdf! Others have tried to pursuade me to ket the whole kitchen redone at the same time - which I don't want to do. They didn't even bother to get back with quotes.

AIBU to expect to find someone who can do this and one that won't charge just short of £500 for a shitty MDF jobbie.

Why is it so difficult to find someone to do this? I'm pretty bloody frustrated about the whole thing now. A friend said that they got a similar job done for £250 and it was in real wood.

Do I smell? Am I really that unlikeable or to they just not do this kind of work these days. AIBU to a, expect to fifnd one and b, expect them to not charge me £480 for a bloody MDF cupboard?

I tried and failed to find a carpenter to replace a broken door. The door eventually fell off and is still missing. They just don't want the small jobs and price them high to put you of.

off

I wouldn't have thought the carpenter would have made much profit building a cupboard like that for £250 in solid wood.
Have you tried ratedpeople.com ?
You could see if anyone there might do it for less.

Whereabouts are you? Roughly

It's because it's a small job tbh, seems quite common for lots of tradesmen to not want such small, low profit work. Would help if they were just honest with you though!

What about an odd job man? We had loads of things done including boxing in loads of pipes and changing lightd etc and he charged £100 a day plus materials.

My DP is a carpenter and joiner.....we have a house full of 'relatively small jobs' waiting to be done

Your friend might have had a carpenter friend/relative who only charged costs. Sorry, but £480 sounds about right if you are just ringing around. Like a PP said, they have enough big jobs at the moment they can afford to be picky with the small ones. You could try approaching a trade school and see if a student will do it for cost or what you think is a reasonable price.

I hate trying to get small jobs done. Most just aren't interested.

It doesn't seem like a big job, have you tried a handyman by the hour? You pay for materials and they put it together. Offering to pay cash can help as well. Do you have the 'grey army' over there? They are semi retired tradies that are usually happy to work a few days a week and do little jobs.

Mimishimi, 480 for an mdf cupboard? The MDF would cost about £80 and the guy said it would take a day. There's a really good builder we sometimes use and he isn't the cheapect, but he doesn't charge £400 per day.

Ho hum. I shall have a look out for handy men and ask around. Failing that, I might have to wait until I'm ready to get the kitchen done.

I am tempted to have a go myself, but DP has put his foot down and said no.

Tiredmumno1, I'm near Chepstow.

I agree, you need an odd-jobb-er.
My mum has loads of small things needed doing, when they moved into their new house.
Couldn't get a plumber, a this, a carpenter, a gardener, a hedge trimmer, tree removal guy.
All these people either never came, never quoted, never came back, didn't respond to calls.
Nightmare.
I see it as a sign of the times.

Whereas, we have lived here for 20 years and we know loads of people who are odd jobbers who do a bit of this, a bit of painting, a bit of shed repair etc. All fabulous.
Its who you know, I'm afraid.

That's the problem Oblomov. We are still pretty new here and don't know loads of people.

Ahhh Chepstow is the blackhole for getting work done. Both my parents (divorced) live in that part of the world and find getting work done 10x more difficult & more expensive than I do in a city.

Oh bugger wonkylegs. Maybe I should move back to the big smoke.

Sorry my parents have had loads of stuff done over the years but it's just not as easy to find that cheap deal as it is in the city as there are less tradespeople about and Chepstow's closest city is over the bridge so it's hard to tempt people out if you can't get exactly what you want.
I'll ask if they know if anybody who might be able to help you though. Dads had some joinery work done but I think it was fairly expensive solid oak stuff, so may not be of help.

Dh is a carpenter.

Labour is £150 a day

Materials £80

Vat 20%

Even with a little profit added this shouldn't cost more than £300 max.

Try rated people, but bear in mind the tradesmen have to buy the lead themselves and that cost is on a sliding scale linked to your estimate of the job cost.

I had exactly the same problem finding a plumber to replace two bathrooms for me. Got two quotes, one came in at £6000 and the other at £4900 both plus VAT. That was only for labour so worked out they were charging between £400 and £550 a day. Apparently, in this part of the world, those rates are just accepted. Went onto rated.com and got someone in who was prepared to work for £200 a day. He wasn't local to the area, nor was he British, but came with references which I followed up. I'm really pleased with the work he's done, it's top notch and as a result, I'll always recommend him to my friends and family. In principle, I wouldn't pay a tradesman £550 a day but your job sounds quite reasonable at the price you've been quoted.

Sorry Betty if you were closer, I would have passed my dads details on.

I hope you manage to sort it though, fingers crossed for you, that you find someone ASAP