Let down by tradespeople again

[NotMondayAgain]

I don't get it. We've been doing a big loft conversion this year and almost every trades person has let us down in some way. We are not rude, always very polite on the phone, falling over myself to make cups of tea, offer biscuits etc while they are here.
We recently had hardwood flooring fitted. Just noticed today that one bit had been undercut and filled with a sliver of wood that has now 'disappeared' (when the vacuum came out) and hence a big gap revealed that we didn't know about when we paid.

Now today our plumber just didn't bother to turn up to fit our radiators. I don't mean just to quote, which is annoying but I could almost understand. He already secured the job - we agreed the price, day etc. If he did a good job on radiators we were also going to use him to fit our shower room which he knew. So he basically just wrote off receiving 100s of pounds from us.

We tried calling and emailing and no response. He already delayed us by a few weeks as he was supposed to be here before Xmas, so guess this is his way of brushing us off. We found him through check a trade so even more disappointed.
Does no one take any pride in their work nowadays? I'm so frustrated.

Sorry to hear about that, at the end of the day there's so much demand out there that it doesn't matter if you're good or a bit shoddy, you're still going to stay in business and have work to spare.
If demand falls somehow, the good ones will stay in business, but for now there's no way to know.
End of the day just do as much as you possibly can yourself and then there's only one person to blame if you have any issues!

I feel your pain, decent trades are few and far between. From experience I'm pretty certain 95% of trades are complete phoneys, however finding that other 5% is very difficult. Good luck getting your issues resolved.

we have just had a new kitchen fitted and have so much of this problem. first lot of plumbers and electricians arrived a day late, plumbers did crap job moving radiator, then didn't come back to fix it for 3 days. Gas man stated he was coming 4 days in a row and NEVER turned up. Second gas man also failed to turn up on agreed day, then came with wrong pipes, then never came back second day. First Tiler put job back by one day, then turned up 4 hours late and did a crap job, then rang in sick the next day and never returned etc....
It has reduced me to tears. I will NEVER get anything done on the house again!

I tell you what, if I behaved like any of them in my job I would have been sacked a long time ago.

I agree. It's hard work getting anyone to even quote, never mind turn up and do the job. Encourage your DCs to get a trade!

It will be a lot worse after Brexit. The Brits don't have the same work ethic as the Eastern Europeans.

That's a bit of a sweeping statement. Not to get political but I'm not sure all the eastern European builders will leave. Though I must say where we live there are almost none in the building trade.

"The Brits don't have the same work ethic as the Eastern Europeans."

Am i the only one who finds this statement racist. Or is it only racist if you reverse the British and East European?

FWIW I manage a number of properties and don't have a problem with well over 90% of the trades I use. Indeed I had a builder in a rental property on Boxing Day...in Central London. I can see though why people might be unwilling to work for Shard.

I find that very racist. Trades have been discouraged by our education system, the apprenticeship system destroyed and the labour market first flooded then made unworkable for small employers and this is the result. My ds, my DH, dson in law and dB are all tradesmen they cannot keep up with the amount of work they are asked to quite for.

I generally have problems too - there are good ones but even they get sick or something happens much of the time. Need more sleep - I think those in property management tend to fare better because tradies don't have to look for work so much - it comes to them. So it pays to keep the property managers sweet. We used to try and manage a rental property ourselves but gave up and got a local agent to manage. It was much much easier to get someone in to maintain the property then .

I'm not sure it's racist in itself to say that, I suspect it might be more that those people motivated enough to emigrate in search of better economic opportunities tend to have pretty good work ethics, probably better than a random sample of a home population.

Frogsoup, I have no evidence that East European workmen are 'better'. Indeed my personal experience is the opposite. Newly arrived migrants may be cheaper, presumably because they don't mind earning little above minimum wage. But honestly I would prefer to pay proper money to established and recommended tradesmen, regardless of their racial background.

There is a weird strand of thought which says it is OK to be rude about the British in a way that would be unacceptable when describing anyone else. Not just about workmen. When DD was younger she found it very difficult when her American, Russian, Chinese or Scandinavian classmates would suggest she was lazy and stupid, since that is how their parents described the British.

My experience is that good workmen run a mile from potential clients who they feel may prove difficult. Being respectful and organised and having an understanding of the constraints a tradesman is working within goes a long way.

Yes this is my experience. Dh and I contemplated an extension but I am yet to have one trade person do a decent job and I've had new boiler, kitchen, bathroom and flooring done over the last 7 years.

Except for the female plumber I called as no one (including the arsehole who serviced my boiler and told me it was fine only for it not to be a week later) would come to fix it when it broke down in Feb one year.

My df is a tradie not in the UK and I generally call him now to talk me through any diy that I can tackle myself.

Massive drug issues with lots of trades, run late, over run jobs, piss stuff off. True.

Hard to find good ones.

I have no opinion about the eastern European Vs British builders debate as such - im only saying that it is probably the case that immigrant populations of whatever stamp and in any country tend to have better work ethics than both their origin AND host communities, because leaving your country in search of a better life takes guts, initiative and uncommon determination. Our local Asian, middle eastern and eastern European shops tend to have stonkingly long opening hours, for instance, and I don't think this is a random coincidence. It isn't doing down the English - I suspect English expats tend to have pretty good work ethics as well.

After a bit of a nightmare with another builder stringing us along over a quote we found a real gem. We knocked through old dining room and kitchen to make new kitchen/diner with bi-fold doors, new patio outside, work done to a very high standard and completed in just over 6 weeks. The 2 guys put in 10hrs a day

Even the trades people I’ve had who have done a good job have been massively unreliable. Just not turning up for days on end, not being able to come due to a plethora of excuses. Small jobs left at the end of me to sort e.g. carpet bars so it’s an extra hassle once all done. All waste left without prior discussion so I’ve had to move while bathrooms to the tip.

I avoid it if possible and seriously am tempted to learn some basics of things like tiling myself.

It’s not just in the UK. Very hard to find decent tradesmen. And most of the ‘good’ Eastern European ones won’t bother coming here as they’ll always have enough jobs in their home countries.

That's true, I think the problem is global. And foobarjar, I do understand that drugs, alcohol, gambling is an issue in the trades (much like I laughed when there was a program on cocaine by Gordon Ramsay and they say he has never touched the stuff!!).