Greedy tradesmen (or women!)

[LolalovesLondon]

Is it just me or are some people taking the piss at the moment? Everyone I contact is booked up for weeks so it’s not lack of work I don’t think...
Had a quote last week to get a gas oven installed - straight swop, no new pipes or alterations, cooker is the same as we have now just a newer model.
£195 installation only.
Is that normal nowadays? 🤔

It's not really basic supply and demand economics though topcat, because the state dictates access to the market to suit. I kniw that in Edinburgh, the market in trades has been artificially inflated by legislation compelling enforced repairs on tenement flat owners, cand it snowballed out of control and turned it into a multi million pound business, as certain favoured contractors were appointed by the Council where property owners disagreed. A lot of cases went to court and didn't have to pay up, and there were convictions for fraud.

I think it's maybe permanently damaged the market, as a lot of people now have ridiculous exiectatiins of being paid over I floated prices for unnecessary or shoddily done work. There was a lot of unnecessary replacemebt of chimneys going on, or even charges for replacement of chimneys which weren't replaced at all...

It also meant that if you did try to appoint trades yourself, it was often impossible to get decent firms quickly enough, as they were tied up in statutory notice work.

@SchrodingersImmigrant

One thing with tradesmen is that you don't pay for the time to they spend on doing the thing. You pay for all that time they spend learning to do it so it wouldn't kill you. And yes. I repeat that to myself every time I call some😂

Yes! This! My partner is a joiner and people ask for a made to measure door and then question why he's more expensive than howdens. A lot of people think that trades should work for very little. What they don't see is the overheads involved in running a business.

I'm more of a person with a trade, rather than a tradesman. I spent a four year Electrical Fitter apprenticeship. In a industrial environment.

I've never worked in a house or a factory, but thosr four years were spent learning how do everything from changing a light bulb to install, maintain and repair systems that most of the general public don't even know exists.

27 years later, after still learning, still developing my skills and still training, I've just spent the last three weeks working on an Excel spreadsheet. Those three weeks have probably earned me a smidge over £1,500 I'm not paid to put data into a spreadsheet. Anyone can do that. I'm paid to know what data to put into a spreadsheet.

I appreciate I have it easier than most tradesmen, in that I am employed status - I don't have to worry about sick or holiday pay, I've got a pension and all the other PAYE perks..I rarely have to work on site nowadays, but I have every respect and sympathy for those that are self employed, and don't begrudge them their extra money at all. - I've worked alongside contractors on three times my salary, but they're welcome to it!!!

There seems to be that being a tradesperson is a bit of a social pariah, and to be successful in the world you have to be a merchant banker type.

Indeed, there have been several posts on this very thread comparing trades with "Professionals". I'm sorry, but we ARE professionals. We make a living using some very honed skills. Every year there seems to be an attitude of little Johnny having to go to unervisity... To take an apprenticeship and to learn a skill would be so demeaning!

You're not paying a solicitor to sign a pice of paper, you're paying them to sign the right piece of paper, and to take responsibility for signing it.

You're not paying an electrician to use a screwdriver, you're paying them to use the correct screwdriver on the correct terminal, and to take responsibility for the job.

Having said that, anybody who has been an apprentice will know that for that period you're the lowest of the low. (AIBU I'm not the tea bitch take note.)

FaceForRadio Indeed, there have been several posts on this very thread comparing trades with "Professionals". I'm sorry, but we ARE professionals. We make a living using some very honed skills. Every year there seems to be an attitude of little Johnny having to go to unervisity... To take an apprenticeship and to learn a skill would be so demeaning!

Everyone wants to be a professional now. There are few jobs which *don't" require expertise and experience or "honed skills". The difference between your type of professional expertise and the traditional professions such as law, medicine and dentistry is that those professions require a university undergraduate and postgraduate degree and several years of training on the job after that (equivalent to your apprenticeship years).

They are difficult degrees to get into, requiring the highest marks and competing against the most ambitious, driven people, and little to do with "little Johnny going to university".

There is a post on here where someone has been asked to pay for building work without an invoice. Eventually, a badly spelled and vague invoice was produced and somewhat heavy handed tactics are being used to harass the poster into paying before building control assent has been granted. In a traditional profession, such work is audited and that can be grounds for complaint to the professional association, which can strike off.

If you even get so much as a speeding fine, you have to write to your professional association explaining it and why it will not happen again, and you may be called to a hearing to see if your practising certificate will be limited in some way. Its much stricter in the professions and its disappointing that you seek to demean them with your "little Johnny going to university" comment, as being a true professional is also about having a deeper academic understanding of the reasons you practice the way you do. It makes me sad that academic learning is so little valued in the UK and seen by some as something negative and pointlessly impractical (try telling a dentist they aren't good with their manual dexterity...)

You're not paying a solicitor to sign a pice of paper, you're paying them to sign the right piece of paper, and to take responsibility for signing it.

You're also paying for a vastly expensive professional indemnity scheme which will pay out if there is a cock up, unlike when trades balls up, when you will have to risk your own finances to sue them.

And of course if they have set up as a limited company (not allowed in the legal profession) they can just wind it up without paying if you win your case and set up another company, avoiding liability. You're also paying for smart city centre offices - which is why a lot of law firms now prefer to mainly deal with corporate clients.

IncandescentSilver

I'm sorry, I can't work out how to quote posts on here... (So much for all that training)

You make some good points there, and yes you're right, there are some diabolical tradespeople out there, and I would be one of the first to call for tighter regulation!

Hi, I've had loads of problems trying to get tradesmen to do things without them taking the complete piss - and some of them aren't even proper tradesmen. I was quoted £3,400 for two chancers to repair a roof on my hut (on an allotment - ancient holiday hut) as they said it was in such bad repair it would need almost renewed. And to put a walkway (3ft x 5foot) decking around the hut (he even suggested giving me £100 if he made it out of palletts. Two gardeners quoted me £640 to cut grass around it, I ended up getting a joiner I knew to look at roof and he told me all it needed was sealed down and a patch of felt added and he'd do the proper decking and roof for £280 - I got the grass cut for £160 - so do not give these chancers the money, they depend on your desperation to get job done - greedy b's

Supply and demand. We have less tradesmen than than there are people wanting work done. best way to solve it - encourage your kids to go into trades! Or do some courses on the side so you can do some basic work yourself. Carpet fitting isnt particularly difficult if you are willing to put in the time to do a careful job, for example.

You are also paying for their time traveling to and from your house, time picking up parts, the cost of parts, cost of tools, insurance, expertise, time invoicing and doing accounts, seeing your account and sorting VAT. etc. There is more to it than just the short time that they are at your property.

Yes I get that, my ex was a joiner, but these prices are OTT and nothing short of pure greed. I am a professional but I don't make £150 an hour, I was quoted today for handyman/joiner to cut a hatch in attic floor (chipboard) without blushing he told me he'd have to lift the carpet, cut the hatch, then put carpet back down again - it would be an 8 HOUR job @ £22.50 per hour - so for cutting a small hatch £180, my ex told me it was no more than 1.30/2hrs work max and asked wtf he was expecting £22.50 ph for 8 hours!! I've also had two electricians come out (at diff times) and do the exact same thing, then the first one sent his partner out to do the exact same thing (that hadn't worked) for the first two? - I told them exactly where to go. I'm still left with no overhead lights (the issue) but I've spent £240 on electricians and will still have to pay someone to fix it. I understand that some of you have partners who are tradesmen, but for most women trying to find a proper tradesman is difficult and there should be a governing body that they have to answer to. I looked up the average wager per hour for joiners and electricians £13.73 - £15.50, so why they charging so much? Its because they can, but it doesn't make it right. I'm self-employed, so I know what goes into it but I can't start charging my clients' ridiculous prices because I've chosen to do it all myself. I had an electrician come out, fix a wire, change the fitting and charge £55 for 20 minutes work. FFS - that equates to £165 per hour - I could've hired Rick Astley for that . We need many more tradespeople, women should be encouraged to be joiners, electricians etc with ethics. That's what's missing in the ones I'm seeing.

There are several points here why the people on the tools charge what they do:

1. legal regulatory controls such as gas safe
2. indemnity insurance costs. I am a gardener and work outside and I am unlikely to claim (used to be manager in large insurer) so pay about £250 public liability insurance. Once was miss quoted for tree surgery it was 10x that much.
3. tools. I spend about £500 per lawn mower and I am happy if it lasts 2 years. My van contains approx £2500 in tools...I never known what each customer wants so have to carry lots. I have a drill for the odd bit of landscaping...its £150. So you see a tradesperson spends a fortune on equipment
4. travel time
5. a job may take 5 minutes or 5 hours...they have to factor that in
6. shortage of people in many trades. The influx of eu workers and the push toward university rather than apprentice places meant that fewer people have entered in the last 20 years