Tell me what to do about possible cowboy builder

[thatchersvintage]

Name changed as potentially could be outing

We were due to have our roof repaired this summer and we engaged a builder to do it lol p

Oops pressed post too soon.. more to folllow!

Aargh anyway we have been paying builder weekly and he's done a bit of a shoddy job so far and now it looks like he's leaving us in the middle of the job as other tradespeople have called him out on the job being rubbish. What can I do?

Stop paying him and get another roofer from checkatrade.com or the Trusted Trader web site

Please don’t rely on checkatrade, my son had his roof done by someone from the site, the job was an absolute mess to the point of being actively dangerous ie gulley tiles not fixed on in any way, just laid on. It cost my son over £4000 to have all the roof stripped off and refitted. New builder said he had never seen a worse job. Son complained to checkatrade, They did nothing. Roofer is still on their site.

Check a trade does not allow negative reviews so you may end up with the same issue. I would ask neighbours or friends who have had roofing work done or you could try local hardware shops for recommendations of tradespeople who come in regularly? We found some good plumbers by asking in the local bathroom showroom.

I'm horrified to see that no negative reviews are allowed. I read his reviews on my builder.com and all was good so I felt confident in using him. He has done other jobs for me too and everything is a bit shoddy, things are wonky and he ignored some very specific instructions from another tradesperson which has meant that person needs to come and rectify an issue.

I don't have any more money to redo work he has done. I don't know what to do about the shoddy work though

I was told a long time ago that when getting tradespeople in you can have two out of these three; cheap, quick and good quality. Anyone who is cheap and available quickly will not be likely to do a great job.

That might not be true for your current guys but will hopefully be helpful in future.

I’m in a similar position OP. I’ve just had part of my roof done by cowboy builders on My Builder and Checkatrade. They replaced my facias, soffits and gutters and did a repair on roof felt down one side of my house costing me £4.5k. They then went all over my roof taking videos and photos of other work that needed doing. They wanted another £6.2k off me for basic repairs with no scaffolding and I said no I wanted a second opinion. Also they got really funny with me when I paid them by bank transfer and was going to tick goods and services. They wanted pay an individual. So they weren’t a proper business.

Within a couple of hours of them leaving we had heavy rain and I had water coming through the ceiling in my bedroom. I was furious. I managed to find another roofer and he came out yesterday and told me part of my roof needs a complete reroofing, but the price he quoted me for the work was less than the cowboy builders and included scaffolding and a skip. My new roofer is a registered business, has 20 years experience and has good reviews on Google and Facebook. He’s also really busy. Any good tradesman will be. I don’t have any more advice because a lot of it is based on trust. You have to trust they’ll do a good job.

Also I forgot to add, ask about the warranty for the work carried out. Any good roofer should provide a 10 year warranty for their work.

Get receipts for everything
Did you draw up a contract/agree a time scale etc

I just have to hope that the work he did underneath is ok. Luckily no leaks and I guess I would have had them by now. He has been giving me weekly invoices with everything on. He gave me a timescale but went over by loads. So he wasn't quick. It's just that the other tradespeople said he'd done a rubbish job but they wanted extra money for sorting it so it's really hard to know who is pulling a fast one. We had to use reclaimed tiles as we're in a conservation area and so maybe that's why everything looks a bit wonky. I had to wait a couple of months for him to do the job so he wasn't available quickly. I had originally wanted him to do some more jobs but he said can't come back for a while as he has other jobs lined up.

Because there is a lot of pressure on the building trade, with everyone wanting stuff done, someone who is available within the next 2-3 months, I would count as "quick". We have just waited 4.5 months for our bathroom fitter. I would assume that a good, reasonably priced roof fitter would be at least a 6 month wait. Obviously it depends where you are and some places might have less pressure on builders.

If it isn't leaking , that is a good sign. How much is left to do? Sounds like the tiles are back on?