The weirsd thing is every October is busy for the house tradesmen, where mostly women decide they want new doors, windows, kitchen or bathroom for christmas, so they ring round various tradesmen and are surprised we are busy, perhaps wait till january when its quiet for us and the sheds have their sales on.
There has also been a huge move away from self employed work for a lot of tradesmen to a paid weekly /monthly set hours job, due to the current ecconomic situation, and more office and house building going on,then there are the older chaps retiring and no new blod coming into the seldf employed trades.
If you want a responce from tradesmen, phrase the conversation so it sounds worth their while to come and spend time with you.
Phrases like, i could do it myself, or my son/brother/uncle/milkman is a plumber, but is to busy to do the work,i want a cheap job,ill provide all the stuff you just do the labouring,but i want pay you for waiting round if i forget something or it doesnt fit or arrive.and when we arrive dont tell us to take our shoes off,because you have absolutely no chance of getting an estimate .