I bow down to your expertise & knowledge.
Wer’e in the finishing stages of a new patio/garden area, a job done by a local tradesman along with his 2 ‘Yorkshire born & bred’ contractors, old crappy flagstones up & new Indian Sandstone down (& it’s level). I am more than pleased with their work, & not surprised by the amount of tea they’ve guzzled. (at my expense)
Anyone else had some good experience of decent British workmanship?

When I had my loft done the kiwi joiners and the polish brickys were great, the english plumber and electrician were not, got flooded 5 times

HTH

My flag laying / British workman impression was getting a local chap to put in a new path to our front door. We didnt want it straight – evertything else in the house is bent / curves – so laid out some white stones on the grass in an S curve to give him an idea. Discussed and agreed.

Anyways we came home that evening and he had nearly finished. The path was straighter than a Roman road. His excuse was that he’d installed it all (in concrete) in an S shape and decided it looked crap. So off his own bat he dug it back up and put it back in straight as a die! Whats really impressed me was tht he did all this digging, concreting and installing and uninstalling without disturbing a single blade of grass on either side of the straight path.

Flipping genius I say. 🙂

In the last 4 weeks I’ve had a sewing machine mechanic who managed to damage my one good machine and not fix the faulty machine. He was 2 days late in taking them away and a day late in returning them.

A floor sanding company who didn’t buff up the floor, leaving it rough, so they had to come back and finish off.

Lastly a plasterer who over charged us and a fortnight later when we started to decorate, the plaster came off in big chunks. He returned and sorted it all out.

These were all British. However the guy who fitted the wood burning stove was ‘A1’.

So I’m not that big a fan now of British workmanship.

couldashouldawoulda – What can I say! Did you sort it out?

Bunnyhop – yes he sorted it out. Actually the fix was really impressive. Rather than ripping it up and starting again he took an angle grinder thing to the left side and cut an S shape. Then he dug up the unneeded bits of the S and laid new grass. Aparently he’d already done this earlier to undo the S so was really pissed.

However he eventually laid the right side by properly cutting the flags to fit.

What really pissed him though was being caught out!

Anyways who fitted your stove?

And sorry to the OP’s optimism / praise.

And sorry to the OP’s optimism / praise.
Ha ha! why be sorry? I’m not! 😀

Oh, Bunnyhop, we got sorted with curtains in the end, thanks for your input on that, nice one. Your site is on my fave’s list for when I need a new handbag! 😉

You don’t want it level mate, where’s the water gonna go? 🙂

Well i had a governmnet who gave billions of pounds to failing banks, payed themselves a massive pension, recruited htousands to do jobsworths jobs, and then got voted out,then we get a new lot in they sack a few people, reduce benefits, tax the banks,make neighbour turn against neighbour(soon to happen as they start getting jealous of esach other), buy 2 boats with no planes, and make a lot of trhe armed services redundant.Thats the standard of british workmen politicians

alwazs remember to give your tradespeople plenty of tea. bacon and egg sandwiches go down a treat, too.

don’t stand there looking over their shoulder wetting yourself about what they’re doing. it puts people off.

myself and workmate used to get 80% of our work through recommendations. so people were obviously happy with our work.

i’ve had my own good and bad experiences of tradespeople. one spark was a complete prick and he will never work for anyone i know again. on the other hand some people have been good and i/we have reccomended them to others….

I bet if you go to Poland you get plenty of bad Polish workmen. It’s the old rule of go on recommendations, communicate plenty of excellent British workmen.

Fella who does work for us, is fine, excellent quality work, always cleans and tidies up afterwards.
We also trust him so can give him a key to the house confident he’s not going through the wife’s knicker drawer…..

Had a fella once though who continuously asked the price of everything
“That’s a nice bike, how much was that, expensive I’ll bet?” “thats a nice telly, how much was that, expensive I’ll bet?” “those are nice shoes, how much were those, expensive I’ll bet?”.
Got a bit tiresome after a couple of days.
He also spent the entire time talking to a succession of dodgy looking fellas who kept turning up in shonky looking vans while some shifty looking blokes did the work. Also when he quoted for the job, he said he never asked for any upfront payment, just the final invoice settlement, however 10 mins after turning up to start he’s asking for 50% upfront as he didn’t want to have to take money out of his saving account as he’d loose interest!

couldashouldawoulda – The stove was from ‘The George Street loft’, Glossop, High Peak, Derbyshire. Loads of people we know used them and they are brilliant.

All my other workmen were from recommendations and went through tea and chocolate biscuits like there was no tomorrow.

esselgruntfuttock – good news about the curtains. Also I will try and keep my blog updated more often, as we have more stock now. (check out the kiddies bunting too).

You don’t want it level mate, where’s the water gonna go?

Alright, I meant ‘not lumpy’ there’s actually about 3″ of fall so any water goes straight out the gate.

The British Workman (with help from my son and the daughters boyfriend) who did my patio back in the summer did a good job, and if I’m not happy I’ll just do it again 😉

no sloppy job has ever been done by me…….was trained to high standards……..