To be at the end of my tether with tradies

[hereismydog]

I’ve had three occasions recently where I’ve needed a tradesperson to do some work in my home. Several have come out and had a look, said they’d be in touch with a quote and then absolutely ghosted me. Three have given quotes, arranged a date to do the work and then not turned up at all, or cancelled 10 minutes after they were due to arrive. One started the job, left a gaping hole in my roof (in early December, when I was 38 weeks pregnant!) and then went AWOL for a week. He also refused to speak to me and would only ever speak to DP, even though I would be the one at home to let him in. He would ring DP at work and ask him to pass on a message to me, even though he had my number

I’m always very clear about the work I need doing so it’s not like I keep changing my mind and messing them about, and none of the jobs have been especially complex, nor too small to bother taking on.

Is it me? Or do I just live in an area with REALLY shit tradies? Not limited to one trade either; I’ve had similarly shit experiences with builders, roofers and plumbers so far!

Don’t be ridiculous. My DP works in trade, as do a large majority of his friends and family. All call themselves tradies or workies.

DS bought a house a few months ago which needed some work doing on it.
Job 1 - get locks changed. Rang locksmith the day of completion. He came the next day and changed front & back door locks. Very reasonable price and good job done. Not someone we'd used before - just local and good reviews online.
Job 2 - replace central heating system. Rang plumber we'd used 20 years ago! Turned up to quote at correct time. Sent quote within 3 days. Said he could do work in approx 1 month but possibly a bit sooner. Rang 3 weeks later to give start date the following week. Job completed on time and to good standard and house left tidy after completion.

Job 3 - plastering. Plasterer said he'd call to look at job when he was in the same town as DS's house. (He is hubby of someone we know through a hobby). Turned up to quote within a week. Gave quote immediately. Said he was busy but would fit it in as soon as he could. DS thought he'd be in for a long wait. A week later got a text as 7pm one evening asking if work could be done the next day. Work completed to excellent standard.

Maybe we're just lucky here but long may it continue.

It's not just you, I honestly get filled with dread everytime I have to get a tradesperson in

Its just so tedious. Just tell me you don't want the job from the outset and stop wasting both our time. Don't give me a massive quote. It's patronising and again a waste of both our time. Also many are disrespectful of others home like shoving rubbish behind units above or do a half arsed job

I've had the odd good tradesperson, but most of the time it's just so much bloody effort to get anything sorted

The problem is that all the quotes are similar 😩 I’ve had to go ahead because there are no other options 😣

I’m seriously traumatised by the work we had done when renovating our house. I’m not exaggerating how I feel about it, I get panicked at the thought of dealing with any tradesmen again. We need to get an extension done but can’t face it.

I'm taking someone to small claims court because of a cowboy tradesman...

I'm a tradie. There is nothing wrong with this as a term.

My experience with tradies is one of frustration and anger. They either rip you off or do a shit job or both. All bunch of chancers and time wasters. I'm getting tough now and calling shodding jobs and poor timekeeping out to their faces. Release my inner bitch. Getting worse imo with traditional older people retiring and new youth coming along thinking they know it all but know sod all....

You were lucky

My DS has had to pass exams to qualify as a plumber- and he is now apprenticed to learn gas plumbing. It's not easy. His aim is to go onto industrial plumbing but it takes time.

I think the issue is that people want cheap and quick. I grew up with parents in trade and it was ever thus. Fact is, at the moment all supplies are very expensive. Then add in time, transport, skill. At the moment, anyone doing a job cheaply is likely not a good choice. Just as in any business, you need to do your research. People spend ages researching a sofa, yet they don't do similar for tradespeople. And then they usually go for the cheapest. Take a look at what the real costs are.

Get many quotes. Ask lots of questions. A good tradie will completely be able to tell you why their price is that price. You want quality, you pay quality prices. That doesn't mean gold plated, it means accepting that the tradesperson is buying quality pipes and fittings etc and wants todo thejob well. Any tradespeople will be able totalkyouthrough why one fitting isbetter than another. Or more suitable for your house system. The onus is on you to ask- you ask for a quote, but you need to ask questions too. Just like with any other big purchase.

The constant pressure to be cheap, quick and right now is one of the reasons my son wants into industrial- they recognise that they need to pay for proper quality and there isn't the huge pressure to be cheap when materials are expensive.

How on earth does it take a professional 8 weeks to paint a 3 bed semi?!

Honestly I think the issue is that a lot of tradespeople will mess you around, say their going to turn up for quotes and don't, or never send you the quote. Charge excessive quotes instead of being honest and say they don't want the job, do a shoddy job or lie to you and act like what your asking is unreasonable, when they actually either can't be bothered or don't have the skill. Tell you their going to do one thing and turn up and try and convince you it was you that's in the wrong when you've paid for a specific service they offered

I think most people would love to shop around but half the time trying to get one actual quote is hard enough

This is so true. Most people don’t want a cheap price, they just want a good job done for a fair price. That seems to be too much to ask most of the time.

I feel incredibly lucky reading this thread. Honestly, almost without exception the people we've had work on our house have turned up, given reasonable prices and completed the work to a decent standard and on approximately the timescale promised. This goes for roofers, carpenters, plumbers, gas people, drainage people, landscapers, electricians and the builders who did the extension - including all their subbies (apologies if that's an offensive term 😉).

Yes, the roofer I mentioned in my OP left his scaffolding up at my house for almost two weeks after he finished the job, presumably so he didn’t have to pay for storage I texted him the day before I went in for my induction to say I assumed it had been abandoned so I was going to arrange for a scrap metal collection. He arrived to collect it within hours. Funny, that!

What really saved me was chatting to people in my local swim group asking (sometimes begging!) for personal recommendations. If you can find someone retired whose been in the area a long time and still works because they genuinely love it—not just in it for the money—it makes all the difference as they will have their own network of electricians, plumbers etc. I agree it's a nightmare out there, I've had some absolute clowns charging £250/£350 per day without even being fast. I think it's worse out of London, at least in London there's loads of competition and it keeps it a bit cheaper.

Yep, I don’t want a cheap job done badly, I just want someone to actually turn up! The guy who was supposed to come today was someone DP knows from school so it wasn’t even a stranger. If people we actually know are that unreliable, what hope do we have with people we don’t! 😫

We're in the middle of an extension and re-model and I'm hating every minute of it. I've lost all trust in our builder/'project manager' (like I can call him that when he has very little in the way of organisational skills) - he randomly does things without asking us I.e. putting the underfloor hearing manifold in the utility rather than under the stairs and LYING that we told him to do that?! He is trying to charge us for things he's done without asking us and has to rectify. When I ask him questions about work detailed in the quote I'm accused of micromanaging the job and 'never in his 18 years of experience has he had a customer who goes through the quote line by line'. Hate, hate, hate the whole gaslighting, rip-off process....

What an entitled twat.
Get a student to do it for £80-90 per day. Ridiculous

Blame Tony Blair he was the one who encouraged everyone to go to university instead of learning a trade. As a result we now have a shortage of trained people. This means that they can mess you around and charge you what they like. If you don’t like it, there’s plenty of work around for them.

This is my current irrational rage.

We have a person in our family who wasn’t too invested at school. So left without real qualifications. Has, not unusually, realised that they now need some practical ones to better themselves. Can they get any kind of help or loan? Absolutely not.

So the country is crying out for properly trained electricians, plumbers etc and if you want to qualify you’ve got to fund the course yourself. Absolute madness - but don’t worry you can go to Uni and do a pointless course at 18 and get all the money you want.

Why on earth isn’t there some kind of learning fund available to those who weren’t or aren’t exams/university fodder, that is repaid in exactly the same way and delivered through approved providers? It would let them get the qualifications they need and provide a better qualified workforce.

This person is the hardest working person I know and is currently working 7 days a week - working overtime to pay for said course alongside their normal job. The sums required are minimal compared to to a degree but huge for young people having to self fund.

All trades are utterly unappreciated and undervalued. If we allow people to get better training and create a proper path into what is pretty essential work then things will improve for everyone.

Also hard agree about the current standards - it’s painful trying to get anything done!

My favourite is when they turn up several hours late and then brush it off with ‘oh sorry there was traffic’.

I have been waiting for you since 8am, it is now 3pm, traffic cannot possibly be the reason. Just bloody call me!

@LavenderFields7 8 weeks to paint a 3 bed semi sounds about 7 weeks too long.

A few years back someone was meant to call to give me a quote , waited in all day they didn't call. Then they said they had but I didn't answer.
Arranged to rebook ....and asked me my address.
So not the house you bloody well called at then 😡

I genuinely think we need more women in trades as I think as on a whole we are more efficient than men. I am being serious when I say getting a new kitchen really affected my mental health. Working and saving all that money and picking what I wanted, being treated like a queen in the showroom. Deposit paid and then treated like a piece of shit on their shoe for 8 weeks while work was being done. Big fat lazy assed men with their ass cheek showing. Doing very little each day. Not over the trauma yet 🙈

Our next door neighbour is a heating engineer. I may not have this totally correct but he says the problem is that if he takes on an apprentice he has to pay minimum wage at least from the start, but the apprentice knows nothing so he has to take time teaching, putting right their mistakes etc. I think sending them off on courses to to get certificates as well. This eats into his time and profit for at least a year.

Once qualified the apprentice usually buggers off and sets off on his own in competition, so all his investment has been for nothing - he doesn't get his investment back in the shape of a competant employee for a few years. The government is effectively using him as a free trainer - very little help for taking on a student.

In ye very olden days parents paid skilled workmen for training their children and were grateful if their kids were accepted.

However I think that decent, thorough training at colleges is needed now for trades, because there are too many fraudsters who would take advantage of an old fashioned apprenticeship approach, ie. being paid to take on an apprentice, and rip off both students and government funding..