Builders can only be two of these three things…

[sizeofalentil]

Cheap.
Reliable.
Good.

^Pick two out of three.

We've got a lovely builder - he's a lot cheaper than the nearest quote, is really nice, and does good work (we've had him in for three projects now), but he takes on average three times longer than he says he will.

Our four day kitchen project is now coming up to two weeks due to him not showing up on a few days (people let him down, other jobs, injured his hand playing sports etc) and the amount of dirt and grime everywhere is driving me insane. Our three week bathroom project took three months and almost drove me to divorcing DH.

Would hiring him again for future projects be madness, or would you put up with the delays because he's cheap and good?

You get what you pay for!

Here in solidarity - running 2 weeks late on our kitchen work and losing the will to live.

You're all novices.

8 week extension here, about to enter month 6. Builder has been sacked for not working to building control standards and about to be taken to court for damages to existing structure. We've been forced to move out,and have spent the 6 weeks holiday with 3 kids camping on various sofas.

2 weeks late on a kitchen. Pah.

It's often said in construction you can have any two out of cheap, quick and good. So yes, delays are not a surprise.

If you want good and quick, I have the number of a brilliant set of builders.

I can also add a number for landscaping services where I can add a 4th variable, hot.

But yes, cheap they are not

Buckinghambae - I can't be around hot builders / workmen. It makes me act really weirdly silly - even (especially) if I don't actually fancy them.

My family are in construction. I loathe seeing the word cheap associated with this.

You often ( see - i wont say always) get what you pay for.
Monkeys - for peanuts.

You've got builders?

Where did you get them?

We are a year on from getting planning permission and can't get any one to take the job on.

Lost count of how many we've had round to give us a quote and then not heard from

There are ways to save money on builds but skimping on labour costs is not a clever one, you either end up taking forever to finish or doing work twice (and paying twice)
Expensive isn't always good either though, go by evidence - recommendations and references.

I spend a lot of time advising clients up front on what to look for and avoid with contractors as it's such a headache when it goes wrong. I also insist that people get proper contracts as it's so much easier to sort out problems when you've set out the ground rules from the beginning.

What do you advise people to look out for and what to avoid wonky?

We have just got planning permission and have one builder doing a quote so far.

Depends on the job & where you are but general rules of thumb: get at least 3 quotes and make sure they are quoting for the same thing (I know this is easier said than done)
Get recommendations from friends / neighbours or look at who other local people are using and then ask to see references/ examples of their work.
Be prepared to wait for the right builder - good ones will be busy
Google your contractor - the internet is a wealth of information both good and bad but it's worth a look to see if your builder has a bad reputation. Caution though the web should be taken with a pinch of salt/ common sense.
Fix what you want early on, changing your mind or making last minute decisions will invariably slow things down and cost money
Make sure your drawings and specification are right and ready from the off.
Get a proper contract - there are plenty of industry standard ones (if you have an architect see www.ribacontracts.com) as it protects both you and the builder.
If you aren't confident with managing your build hire an architect or contract administrator- yes it's more money but on more complicated jobs they can save you money by ensuring things run to time and smoothly.
Ask your builder for recommendations for savings (time or money) but don't feel you have to go with what they suggest if it's not what you want. They may from experience have some good ideas but also may not have the same vision as you for the end result.

Thanks wonky. That's very useful advice.

PilesOfSmiles - my dad and brothers are in construction too, so not sure what that has to do with anything.

(They've done a few bits for us, but it's just quicker and easier if we get this guy. And only works out a bit more expensive.)

One of the reasons why he is so cheap is because he lives very close to us, and doesn't drive. So he tends to fit our jobs in around his other bigger work. Because we're walking distance away he can come to us after other jobs before he pops home as we don't mind him doing flexible hours. It's just annoying, as because he's fitting us in between jobs sometimes he'll disappear for a few days mid-job and not answer the phone or have a really weird excuse for why everything is being pushed back. If he was just honest about it ("Been offered a really good job for the week, back Monday") I wouldn't care so much.

It does mean however that we have to get all the building materials in ourselves, which means lugging plaster back in Ubers or working from home to take deliveries.

I've not found a vast amount of difference in the quality of work from builders with various price points tbh. Not sure if I've been unlucky there.

We live in a 'fixer-upper' so have had various people come in over the last two years to plaster rooms for us as we've got the time/money/energy to redecorate bit by bit. The people who charged £200 more haven't done a £200-more job, iyswim.

We always find builders etc. by word of mouth, then put the job on MyBuilder.com to get different quotes. You can check out their reviews on there too.

Obviously, if someone is quoting £100 and everyone else is saying £500 and you hire the £100 guy, the work isn't going to be great. But I've not found a vast amount of difference in people charging £350 and people charging £600 for a job.

I've got to the stage now with this builder where I know he is nice, I know he is good at what he does, and he's nice to our cats and he doesn't leave a terrible mess or pee in the sink. So I feel like I can't hire anyone else in case they are twice the price but have a worse fatal flaw than taking bloody ages to finish a job.

Fancy seeing you here Monkey! Sorry you've had to move out!
Ours was abit cheaper than some of the other quotes but not to the point where the day a week he is giving us is acceptable! Grrrrr!

Reliable and good!

My DH was a cheap, reliable and good electrician but had to fold the business because everyone wanted quotes but then would rather get a dodgy job done by their brother's cousin's uncle's neighbour for the price of a few cans of beer.

Sorry, wasnt it obvious?

Then surely you know that cheap isnt good if your family are into it to? Can you not consult them about it?

What I meant however was they are not cheap, my family.

Dad gets turned down (35 years carpenter) for work, because people wont pay for his master carpentry / joinery.

Like the people who wont pay trevor sorbie £250 for a haircut, and quite rightly if they cannot afford it / think its worth it so go to a high street person instead (or maybe somewhere in the middle).

anyway, I bet my bottom dollar he is cheap because he can get away with things under the guise of 'well I'm not charging as much as some people'.

So the ones who want 'cheap' often get mugged off. Sitting target when you use that word, as they may even think, cheeky cow/man/cunt, I'll take the job and piss about.

And the jobs done at £200 more, maybe better materials? Better plaster? Wood? Do you ask about brands? Would you know?

I'm not picking here I think you should find out, piece of mind!

I think when you employ tradespeople, it's probably down to luck to getting the fab ones, but they do exist.

The last lot of dreadful builders we had the misfortune to employ in the U.K. put me off ever having work done until we moved here and even then I was initially reluctant. (I later heard that the boss of the outfit was being investigated for VAT fraud.)

I'm 99% happy with our builder and all the tradesmen we've employed over here in Ireland. My DH managed the project overall and ordered all the supplies to ensure we got good value for money and it was good quality. It meant that our builder didn't have to be out of pocket buying stuff and we paid him a lump sum every couple of months, which suited him.
We didn't bother getting any other quotes as we liked him and I just knew he'd do a decent job, which he has done. The other bonus was that he oversaw all the actual work including the hiring of ad hoc tradesmen. The electrician was the best we've ever known and even fixed the wall brackets up for our two TVs even though that wasn't really part of his remit but I just asked him one day when he'd finished the electrics in the kitchen. The guy who did the roofing and blockwork for the garage was full of entertaining stories but he carried on working whilst chatting. He was also a p/t yoga teacher and did a handstand on the apex of the 2 storey garage roof when he finished putting on the ridge tiles. (!!)
There were no serious delays other than those caused by the weather at the beginning of the project.
My only minor gripe was when the builder vacuumed the damp plaster dust (?) up with my fairly new Miele which I'd bought to replace the crap Dyson. It still has a white dusty coating inside when you flip the lid despite my efforts to clean it. Apparently, the big industrial cleaner that he'd hired was faulty so he 'borrowed' mine as the small local hire place didn't have another one available.
We live in rural Ireland so that's not really surprising.
The only rubbish tradesman was the British kitchen fitter. Talked too much during too many tea breaks and cut a few corners. I was really disappointed with my fellow countryman for letting the side down.

PilesOfSmiles - the materials are normally costed separately or we order our own as we've got to know which suppliers we like and use.

A lot of the price difference is that everyone has their own price. Or can vary from which part of our area they live in.

For example, I live in a part of London where it's easy for tradespeople from Kent and Essex to travel in to. So can often shave a few hundred pounds off the price of something by hiring someone from there, rather than a Londoner.

Doesn't mean people are better or worse, just everyone has an idea of how much their time is worth. And that can vary drastically.

Maybe I should have said 'cost-effective' or 'reasonably priced' rather than cheap.

Not sure if anyone else has found this, but sometimes with the smaller jobs I've had builders quote quite high because otherwise it 'isn't worth their time'. I guess committing to a 2 day job might mean them having to sack off a larger job that could come up?

project management triangle in venn form

Hi Lentil, thats nice of you ro clarify.

For all involved (end user, and worker) this is a really interesting dscussion and one that should be had.

Forgetting the word cheap then, I wonder if 'value for money' is the real thing here.

I'll tell you, I'm a hairdresser and my salon charges alot. We are told to give thr highest standard possible, it's a lovely shop (the loo is gorgeous, like a posh hotel one) and we charge accordingly.

As such, people walk in and ask about pricing. Some will look at you like you have 2 heads (the lowest price for CBD is £38) and say, 'wow! I only have an inch off, only takes 10 mins! I'll go back to my other lady, comes to my house and charges £15! BYE'

Okay, we say. At your house, no good shampoo, no head massage at the basin, no vogue while we cut, none of that.

Now, people don't want that and go pay £15. Fine. However, when they gasp at me in my salon, they totally poo poo my training, my 3 years hard graft at college while cleaning loos and washing hair etc.

The person I speak of (valid!) doesn't VALUE the shampoo, or tea and coffee from a nice machine they just want a £15 cut.

Because, yannow, a one length takes 10 mins and who the fuck cant cut a one length hair cut

(it's the hardest thing to do)

Now, OP I am not saying this is you at ALL and please dont think that.

ANd on top of this, hairdressers wiht MORE experience charge more than me.

Now everyone has a shit hairdresser and shit builder story, and if those shit people happened to charge more than you (not you OP, 'one' deemed 'cheap enough' then all of a sudden it doesnt matter what you pay, every person is shit so might as well have the cheapest.

I have done ALOT of research on this, it is how peoples minds work.

I tell all new clients with a horror hair story that it pisses me off, gives us a bad name.

I'm not sure what my rant achieved, but there you go.

Oh hang on, where are all these cheap,ultra reliable and highly skilled Polish builders that everyone was talking about?

Good builders/electricians/plumbers/heating engineers dont need to self themselves cheap because they have good order books already.

PilesOfSmiles - I love your hairdresser analogy. And it's actually a bit how my mind works… 50% of the time I want a Supercuts-style builder who will do the no frills, get the job done and I'll do the beautifying at the end of it. Other times, I want the Nicky Clarke - 'turn me in to a goddess' experience who will transform my home and not even let me do the hoovering.

And one way I've found to cut building costs is to find a builder that will give you the Supercuts treatment when you want it - a few we got in for a painting quote refused to paint our old walls without skimming them because they said they'd look bumping and dented. Even though I WANTED them to look bumpy and dented because I loved the whole old texture look. They said that doing that would be a bad calling card for their work.

The builder we've just had (FINALLY finished.Hurrah!) told me off for making shelves out of scaffolding boards. He said that the 'ugly old shelves' made his plastering and paint work look shit .