Am I right to be suspicious of Plumber/workman my husband has hired to do our bathroom?

[Lauracrazygirl]

Ok long story short.

My husband has been looking for tradesmen to redo our bathroom.

He found one on our local Facebook page My husband has just told me "years of experience, good reviews and can start work the bathroom 2 weeks today"

I said "But how can he start work when we haven't pick out any of the fittings etc? What if something is not available? Also isn't a little suspicious he's available so quickly?"

My husband said another client cancelled so he's that's why he's available so quickly.

But I don't know...In my experience good tradesmen are busy and booked out months in advance and he just so happens to be available?

Am I wrong? Am I overthinking this?

Spot on, a good tradesman will not be able to do it that quickly. All my family males are plumbers and builders and I do the diaries and if I could fit a small job in within 6months you would be lucky

I reported a company for trying to bribe me to amend my review to Truspilot some time ago. “We take this very seriously, we will be in touch.” That was last year. Nothing.

No online rating systems can be trusted now.

Another one saying do not trust Checkatrade. I dated a tradesman who paid a small fortune to advertise on there and gave cards out to friends and family to fill in with 'glowing' reviews. They were all fake.

Your local council will have a list of approved traders. Far more trust worthy and rigorously checked.

@Lauracrazygirl I’d not be put off but I’d also check to find him on googlemaps and look at the reviews there. Also do a search of company and see of he has a website etc. Anyone reputable should have no issue with you asking for references to be honest. You could always ring and pretend to be a prospective client 🤨. So part of me would be suspicious and want to check but sometimes people are genuine. Personally I can spot fake reviews a mile off. It’s easy to check a poster’s other reviews and see if they’re believable!

Thank you everyone for your responses and to let me know that I'm right to be suspicious or at the very least sceptical.

So I talked to my husband again as he has heard back from the tradesmen.

The tradesmen said the bathroom will take 4 days to do the work and we should consider it out of bounds while he is working on it during the day. Meaning I'll have to go across the road to the pub to use a loo. 😕 At least during the day.

I made many of the same points as you all made but my husband is digging his heels in and becoming a bit testy.

" Told you, I ready checked him out, we discussed all this and he is the cheapest guy we've seen" (Another plumber got back to us with a quote about 2k more)

I eventually said "Ok fine! Your the one paying for it, good luck!"

So.... This plumber/tradesmen will be round the week after next.
I'll come back to this thread and let you all know how it goes.

Hopefully it will all be ok ❤️

We had this last year and I wish I’d asked for advice and MN and been told to run a mile!
The “I can start straight away” fitter basically spent six months doing an incredibly shoddy job of only half-fitting a bathroom.
The fitter that I’d cancelled on coming out to quote (as I’d found Mr I Can Start Straight Away Cowboy) had to rip it all out and start from scratch. He did a brilliant job. But of course we ended up paying for two bathrooms in the end. Was a nightmare all round.
Less haste more speed and all that.

Update

I'm sure everyone's lost interest but I thought I'd give an update anyway. 😂

So the tradesmen arrived this morning right on time with a skip.
Which was great 👍

It's the end of the first day. He has removed the bath, sink and cupboard. Stripped down all the walls and put a temporary toilet back in for us tonight.

So far so good 👍

🤔 I hope it works out well for you but I’m waiting with bated breath

Day 2

They have put in the bath, filled it with water so that the silicone can set with some weight in it.

They have put up about half of the wet wall and put the toilet back in.

I'm happy with what they have done so far. They work from 8am to 5pm and they have tidied up after themselves very nicely each day.

I'll update you all again on Friday when the job is done 👍

Sounds good so far.

Last Update

It seems my suspicions were unfounded.

The tradesmen did a great job, we have a lovely new bathroom.
The two guys were very hardworking and professional and over the last five days I noticed how well they work together and how considerate they were while they were in our house.

For instance, if I was downstairs with my son the workman would always knock on the door before entering the living room.

I've included some photos the black bathroom is our old bathroom and the white is our new bathroom.

We are really happy with the result and altogether it was just under 6,000 pounds.

So happy ending 😀 💐

Glad it worked out and you're happy with your new bathroom. I think no matter who you choose there's always risks anyway. Some people must be just starting out as well, how do those people build up clients if no one will give them a chance?