Shocked at the cost of tradesman

[Nooooooou]

3 bedroom, average size.

Costs are for labor only... no materials

install laminate wood flooring across house £1.5k to £2.5k (3 quotes were above £2k).
strip wallpaper, skim and paint walls -£3k to £5k.

based in south east..
I think this is really excessive. I think it works out to more than £400 per day.

Appreciate tradespeople partners on here sticking up for them only problem I’ve found is work we previously have had done with tradespeople quite often they call very late to say they can’t come after all that day as got to finish other jobs off! They seem to totally forget we Also have jobs to go to and bosses we are accountable to do when they say they can’t attend on a certain day it messes up our work at the last minute.

I only pay for trades now if we have to, like specialist Gas and Electrics, painting/grouting/wall paper stripping/basic carpentry we just DIY now. It is not that difficult to learn a lot of it yourself. Same with restaurants, do not do that anymore. There comes a price point in everything where it makes more sense to do it yourself. Unless it is really specialist stuff.
I suspect more of my house will become white in the future, less hassle to repaint and I would also only part tile bathrooms for the same reason. Better to get really good quality once and then DIY up date every few years.
DH who was not handy 10 years ago has part repaired walls as well. I do not think I would get him to fully skim a room or take down a ceiling, but repairing parts of walls etc perfectly easy to do.

But despite my previous comments when they actually came they work really hard and I think the pay is reasonsable as I would not want their job.

I can't do the jobs they do and if I could not with the tools I have so I don't mind paying for a skilled tradesperson who will do an excellent job in less than no time.

I'm having one bedroom walls plastered next week, not the full room as I'm having wardrobes built and I'll strip the wallpaper myself and I've been quoted a rough £500. I can strip the wallpaper as I have the equipment but I can't plaster.

Also painting will be done by someone else and as that will include skirting and door frames and the walls that have no wardrobes on them I imagine it will be about an extra £1,000. The wardrobes on their own are costing about £11k.

Laying laminate is a skilled job, if you don't want weird joins or bumps in it. Plaster skimming is also skilled.

Looking forward to you telling us how it went when you DIYed it, OP!

Look away anyone related to a builder but ime they are overpriced and unreliable.

skim and paint walls -£3k to £5k. - Seems too cheap to me and in the NE. I would expect the pay 5k for plastering and another 3k to the decorator.

Clearly society thinks not! And that’s not how it was even 20 years ago. The value of my salary has collapsed in comparison to that of a painter (who, frankly is NOT useful to society - decorating is a lovely thing but it’s not a societally useful thing!).

so yes, I made a poor choice. And one consequence is the collapse in thr quality of our education system, as its becoming the case that only people w a chunk of inherited money (eg to put into a house) can teach in universities.

it does say a lot about what people value that a hairdresser earns more than someone who teaches the doctors of the future.

Yo do realise that painting is a necessary trade, paint protects the render and substrate of buildings, the increase in pay reflects that and also the shortage of trained painters. And aesthetics are worth quite a lot to society, spend some time in any former soviet state and you will quickly appreciate the value of "decoration".

Knowledge is becoming worthless now that we have smartphones in our pockets. The perfection of A.I, which is less than a decade away, will make knowledge a worthless commodity. And neither you nor any other person will be employed to train anybody, let alone the "whatevers" of the future.

I agree. We're rapidly heading back to where people with manual/trade related skills will be the ones with the good jobs and higher earners as they can do the things that most people can't. Improvements in tech and AI etc will indeed mean that there's less need for teaching knowledge/facts as you're right in that all the facts you'll ever need will be readily available from your mobile phone. That just leaves scientific advances which will still be needed via a new hybrid form of scientists working WITH tech and AI to design/develop and than manual skilled people to make things alongside AI.

Yeah, AI will do for a lot of lecturers, but people will still need their houses plastered and painted...

Why would that be? What it suggests to me is that there will be increasing numbers of people who will enter trades and offer lower prices. AI does remove some jobs, but it will push people into others, creating a more competitive market for trades.

It sounds around normal for the SE. 🤷‍♀️

That sounds around the going price. I paid £250 for a bedroom ceiling to be painted White Matt, took him 2 hours for 2 coats. Not a big room either, done the rest myself but ceilings are too much for me now, but the price was average for the job.

You can acknowledge both things, you know... The UK’s structural neglect of training and the value that migrant workers brought. Now they’re gone, we’re stuck paying £300-400 a day to entitled muppets for shoddy, half-arsed work and still expected to be grateful they turned up.

All of the knowledge in the world is at your fingertips. Can you not do these jobs for yourself?

Funny how paying the going rate for talent should somehow not apply to trades...

I certainly wouldn't pay someone who I considered a muppet £400/day. That's for sure.

You think all those Polish builders spent years studying at apprenticeships?? 😆

I had friends crowing about how their polish builders would work till the wee hours of the morning and sleep at their empty homes which were being renovated and then complaining bitterly that they can't get this kind of service anymore. Meanwhile they are dragging their heels at, brace for the horror, being asked to go back to work in the office. Without a lick of humility.

Yup!

People pay 100 an hour for routine legal advice or basic conveyancing and think it's OK because it's professional advice. It no more skilled than a trade person carrying out work.

What nonsense. You need to study for many years to give legal advice and if you are wrong you are negligent and can be sued.

25 pounds an hour for a self-employed person who has to buy tools, a van, fuel, insurance; who has no holiday, sick pay or pension - that's probably not even the equivalent of minimum wage. And these are skilled jobs.

As the partner of a tradesman offer him cash and he'll reduce the cost.