Same here in Scotland, I find it really hard to spend money with tradesmen, it is like you are asking them for a favour!

Our neighbour is having a simple extension, a garage on the side with a bedroom above. It took him months to find a builder and they have told him the build will take 9 months! They have been in for 2 months already and I reckon in that time they have only worked for 10 – 15 days.

I’ve tried to source tradesmen every which way – randomly out of the Yellow Pages, via ratedpeople.com, through personal recommendation, family members, whatever. I’ve tried all the variations, from what seem like large, established companies to one-man bands. It strikes me that finding decent ones is an expensive game of Russian roulette.

The good, as in capable of what I would consider to be normal, everyday levels of common courtesy and professionalism you might encounter in other walks of life, are far outnumbered by the bad. It seems that the primary requirements to set yourself up as a tradesman in this country are a white van and a brass neck.

Not returning calls, returning calls then not showing up, showing up to do an estimate then not providing a quote, showing up to do a job then going AWOL for a fortnight before completing the job, accepting a job, then saying they’re too busy, their mate will do it, then the mate not showing up, coming up with all manner of cock and bull stories about vans not working, other vans not working, other other vans being involved in a crash, all on the one day, turning up to fit stuff and not knowing how to fit it, reading the instructions with their lips moving while standing in front of me and charging me £70 an hour plus VAT for their valuable time and incomparable expertise… 👿 👿

If I was king for a day, I would have compulsory DIY classes at school along with maths and English to remove the mystique from a lot of these tasks and empower ordinary people to do them themselves and put a good portion of these lazy, boneheaded, venal shysters out of business.

And if you’re one of the good ones whose quality of work and reputation has filled up your diary for the foreseeable, then a bit of honesty, even a text along the lines of “sorry mate too busy” would suffice when managing customer expectations. Don’t just purport to offer a service then ignore people that your adverts have lured in.

I’m an electrician,I turn up for jobs 5 mins early, work tidily and professionally and try not to inconvenience any customers.
We’re not all bad but there does seem to be a higher proportion of people that do the opposite in the trades.
I now work for the organisation that oversees the training of electrical apprentices and try to instill in them the need for professionalism and good communication.
It’s not easy with whole classes of bored looking and seemingly indifferent 17 year olds though!

And to add to the list, doind a job then trying to charge way more than the quote.

I had a stove fitted a couple of years ago, told him my budget and siad that is my limit, if you can’t do it for that then I won’t get it done. He was happy, spent a couple of days getting the work done then phoned me that evening to tell me the price had gone up by 600 due to needing extra bend sections on the flue pipe. Never thought to mention it as the job was ongoing and apperently it is impossible to work out how many sections are needed until the work is underway!

We had a full and frank discussion.

My boss recently had a block wall builtat home. He bought all the materials, hired equipment then got 2 agency brickys from the company that supplies us with structural steelfabricators.
He kept on top of them, they did a great job, he gave them a cash bonus for finishing the job early.
If you can project manage, why pay someone else to do it

Gad exactly the same issue with getting part of my kitchen work done, had about 10 fitters/builders/carpenters around each for about 2 hours discussing it.

Only 3 bothered to quote, only 1 without chasing.

He got the business then fell of a roof… but arranged another guy he knew and trusted to do the work. We met, agreed, and he’s done a fantastic job and will be getting some more work in the new year.

It is, like everything else, about who you know.

I predict this doesn’t end well for the OP

I doubt he needs to worry about ending up under a patio.

My neighbour got a couple of quotes in to re-tile her roof. Unfortunately she chose the most inept bunch of idiots on the planet and they were kicked off the job after two weeks of sunbathing on the scaffolding.

We later discovered his nickname is Mr Buckets, because when he’s finished a job, you need them!

The replacement crew, two blokes, undid the duff work and completed the whole job to a very high standard, in a week! There are good’uns out there, just got to find them.

@littlegem-

Great, just what the building industry needs, yet another ‘expose’ of cowboy builders.

Grand Designs has a lot to answer for in terms of unrealistic expectations in the mind of the client, who expects everything to be built in the edit, with little understanding of how the trades work.

Perhaps you should make a documentary about how these trades really work, the difficulties of supply and demand, the complexities of project management, and about how hard it is to keep up with all the ‘ extras’ that clients ask for with little understanding of the impact on budget and build time.

But you probably wouldn’t, as good building practice wouldnt make for good tv.

As a self-employed sparky, here’s my persepective on this.
Person rings me. Can I do this job? Yes, but I cannot get round to see you for another week, but I can do the job in 3 weeks time when I have 5 days spare.
I go round, quote for them, get the job, book it in, then get a call saying its been put back a week. I’ve already told them that I only have that one week spare, but then it is my fault for letting them down.
If it was only my work on the job, then it wouldnt be a problem, once you involve other Trades, it gets far too complicated, and can be prone to over-runs.
I’ve got 3 local Builders who always use the same ancillary trades for their work. It runs like clockwork with all of them.
Getting 3 independents in, and hoping for them to work together can be rather problematic.
I used to do anything, but you learn to turn down work after a while, it just isnt worth doing some work. One chap texts me. I’ve told him to ring, as I rarely reply to texts. He then complains that he never gets a reply to his texts. If he rang up, he’d get an instant answer, but texts get repied to when I have a moment spare, which can be a week later.

To the OP, you want a small contractor who will supply the other trades. It is down to him to arange it all then.

Great, just what the building industry needs, yet another ‘expose’ of cowboy builders.

Someone should do an expose on how the qualifications to be a TV show researcher, essentially boil down to being able to use Google.