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!

Yup. I'm glad it's not just me. We've been trying to get french doors put into our kitchen - for the last two years. May as well be asking for the moon. I don't know if we'll ever get it done

Ach, their time’s running out - overconfident breed.

‘So Mr Handyman, what did you do with your life?’

’Messed good humans around. I irritated and overcharged people - the other type, the nice ones who achieve stuff.’

Going rate round here for basic electrical work is £115 an hour.

For wiring a plug?

Are you being the dramatic, annoying little lady, sort yourself out and let the man get on with it, make sure you praise him daily, and question nothing. Maybe pay him extra 🤣🤣
Ah Op seriously I could have written your post myself saying all of the above a few years ago, it’s a walking nightmare, then when the work is done you so traumatises you can hardly bring yourself to like it. Just have lots of wine to get yourself through it😉

Where in the UK are you, @hereismydog? I have a pretty decent builder/bricklayer and plumber on hand (DH and his mate) and can usually rustle up other trades, too but you'd need to be in Kent.

I can't understand why poor service has anything to do with being busy, give a date for 6 or 10 weeks in the future. I get trades can have a lot of variation time wise so if a 2 day job turns into a 4 day job then you msg the next few jobs and advise them. There is no excuse for the constant poor management of business. I often wonder how these trades people feel when they make appointments. Would it be OK if they turn up to a 7pm restaurant booking and be told it sorry it will be 8.30 or go to the dentist booked a month in advance to be told they are busy today, try tomorrow. I don't understand why they operate the way they do. I recently had to chase up three people and found myself thinking how ridiculous they were being, 1 was excellent by comparison.

Huh... That's literally what they're called.

They call themselves that lol

Anyway, OP.
I've said this before on another thread, but I grew up in NZ where being a tradie is a great, well paid and respected job. They treat it like a proud career and don't nearly mess about as much. We still have the issues with misogyny though.

When I moved to the UK I was shocked and disgusted at how shoddy the work was, how unreliable they were and they just didn't give a shit about anything, including their reputations.

Everyone I know says the same thing and has the same issues, so I think it's a huge problem in the UK.

(Now I am in Thailand and it's different again. You can get someone to the house within an hour and the job is just done immediately. It's almost disconcerting haha).

Are you in the uk? My husband is a carpenter, my dad and nephew electricians. We run a building firm and I’ve never once heard the term tradie except on Australian reality tv.

Agree with this. It’s simply not feasible for us to have apprentices. My husband is a carpenter by trade, we run a building firm but never have them. It’s just not worth it financially and the paperwork involved is ridiculous.

I feel lucky. All the work I've ever had done in my present house has been by people who've done work for years for friends and neighbours. I've always been satisfied with the reliability and the work. When I had my kitchen replaced I went on holiday and they just got on with it. My friend who'd recommended them was on hand if there had been a problem.

Repeat sorry

It’s not you. It’s ridiculous

It's a shame because it hurts school leavers, employers and potential customers...
And the taxpayer who has to support all the unemployed kids who could otherwise be learning useful and lucrative skills.

Same. I've worked in and around the construction industry for over 30 years, can't say I've ever heard the term. Brickies, chippies, sparks, yes, tradesmen, yes, never tradies. 🤷‍♀️

A friend and I was talking about this recently . She’s on her third plumber trying to get a new bathroom fitted and I have been let down by a gardener for the 3rd time . They either don’t want to work or overestimate their availability . It’s not good either way .

Our letting agent informed us that our gas safety certificate expired this week so we needed to contact the gas company they use asap and arrange it. We donit directly because otherwise there's 78290 emails back and forth trying to find a time suitable around school runs and work.

I don't phone them and contact the gas bloke by email and text message because he's previously turned up at totally different days and times to what was arranged verbally, and then we gor changed because we weren't there (his word against mine!) So I always go for something in writing.

I've sent multiple text messages and emails to his business number and email. Nothing. Bodes well...

I have two friends that are builders but DH can do many things to a high standard but it takes three times as long. I can decorate and do a minor bit of plumbing.

We have a road whats app and people always asks and receives recommendations for trades.

We’ve been trying to get our kitchen and dining room knocked through for almost a year now.

They come, they quote, they fuck off into the sunset…

I have the same experience. I actually use which? Trusted traders now mostly. You have to pay to join which? But I have found the tradespeople on there a higher quality. They’re not all perfect but they’re responsive at least! (Not an advert by the way, just what I’ve resorted to after decades of terrible trades people).

Professionally offended 🙄🤣

We needed one side of our roof replacing. So, so many roofers quoting, agreeing a time to start and then not turning up! One even knocked on our door and quoted a price as he'd noticed our roof needed doing......he didn't turn up 😂. We ended up getting the scaffolding done ourselves and DH, DS and a friend did the job. Turned out really good in the end and saved us a fortune. You Tube is amazing 😁

This is what I hear almost daily from my "tradie" clients. 40 years ago when I started, virtually every tradesman had an apprentice, and those apprentices would either go off and start on their own or would stay and ultimate "inherit" the business and clients when the owner retired.

Not seen it at all for the past 20 years since the big changes to the colleges, polytechnics, universities, etc.

I've got electricians, motor mechanics, plumbers, joiners, etc - all sole traders, none with an apprentice. Most are getting towards retirement and their customers/tools, etc won't be getting passed on to anyone. It's bordering on criminal insanity as these are good small businesses that would be worth a lot to the next generation to basically just take over, as it always used to be where the younger guy would slowly, over time, take over as the owner would go part time and ultimately just retire completely,

I've only one client where it's working as it always used to. He's an home alarm installer who also did domestic electrical work. He's in his 70s now! He used to have apprentices 20-30 years ago, but not had one for a long time because he says the paperwork was too onerous and the standard of the apprentices he took on was poor, i.e. not turning up, inability to follow instructions, etc., so they never lasted more than a few weeks. He was talking to a neighbour who had a young lad struggling to get a job/trade, and as he knew the lad, and knew he was "OK" in terms of behaviour etc., he took a punt and took him on. 5 years later, the lad is still with him and about to inherit the business - just by actually turning up, working at college, and doing what he was told. Over the 5 years, he's learned the trade and qualified as an electrician, so will be taking over shortly when all the paperwork/insurance etc is sorted. The older guy couldn't be happier as he knows all his customers will be looked after and the young lad can't believe his luck that he's basically got a good business handed to him. What's even better is that the older guy is still able to help out on bigger jobs so can keep in contact with some of his long standing clients.

It's how it always used to be and how it should be.

Blair has really screwed things up by his obsession with university education which worsened the already bad situation of the adult education sector being decimated by the conversion of Polys into Unis and conversion of Colleges of FE into 16-18 year olds rather than all adults as they used to be. Add in bureaucracy of the apprentice schemes and you've a perfect storm as to why kids are almost forced into degrees and why the "trades" are being abandoned to incompetents and unskilled/unqualified workers who are often way out of their depth but get away with it because there's barely any tradies available.

You sound like me. I wanted an old extension knocked down last year and a new double sized one with cloakroom built.

I started the initial stuff with architect and builders quotes but after two nights of not sleeping at the thought, I cancelled the whole thing before it got too far to stop. I couldn't face having builders etc. around for what I was roughly told was about six weeks but you know that nothing ever runs to an exact time so I pulled the plug on that and had the garden renovated instead. It felt wonderful!

I now only have very small jobs done in the house, I can cope with those. I do need a completely new bathroom renovation but I will put that off until I really do have to get the work done. 🙁

My dh is a tradesman and now doesn’t have to advertise because he gets so much repeat business and referrals. His USP is that he turns up when he says he will. 😁

Yes, not rocket science is it? I always worry about the tradies who are constantly advertising - why would you need to advertise when there's such a shortage? I worry it's because they don't get repeat business because they're crap! The long standing trusted tradies we've used haven't even had sign written vans - they're entirely incognito, no websites, no directory listings, etc., but they're always busy enough. That's because they get word of mouth referrals - all were recommended to us by other respected tradies - find a good one and ask them for recommendations - the good ones recommend other good ones! It's a kind of secret society between them! Even better, because it's a kind of informal network, they help each other out, so virtually "project manager" themselves, i.e. the plumber will just make a phone call to a sparky friend when he needs someone to wire in, say, a bathroom heater, all without our involvement - they just do it between themselves. In the past, when we've randomly picked an unknown, say, plumber, they've just done the plumbing and left us to find our own electrician to wire in the electric shower - making it a longer and more complicated job to get two different trades synchronised.