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Telling that so many tradespeople on here say they work by word of mouth. My dad did this exclusively for 30+ years and so did most of his regular subbies.
It's been harder since I moved 200 miles away and can't tap into his network any more!
Ha ha i got charged 50 for a tap washer so the old ladies pay double....its so tempting to take the piss but my old odd job man in sw london is now a 250 a day decorator. Thats a 4 day week and you clear a grand. I m tempted to come and get a bit of the action. 3 day weekends, pick the easy jobs.
Had a couple of quotes for some fencing work in the garden, chose one and he did a cracking job, good quality materials, didn't leave any mess and a reasonable price. The good ones are out there 🙂
Had a couple of quotes for some fencing work in the garden, chose one and he did a cracking job, good quality materials, didn't leave any mess and a reasonable price. The good ones are out there
Can he do bathrooms?
Can he do bathrooms?
Raised bed for a bath and feather edging for the shower curtain?
Why is this so difficult?
Personally, I hate people crooning while I'm trying to listen to Radio 4...
my old odd job man in sw london is now a 250 a day decorator. Thats a 4 day week and you clear a grand.
Except it isn't, and you don't...
Can he do bathrooms?
We always go to our local plumber (Ultimate Plumbing & Heating), again I can't fault them.................
Oh and people who spend 20 minutes trying to decide where to position a loo roll holder!
Sounds like me tbh as I’m fairly anal about my access point to get to it quickly.
Except I’d have a good go at fitting myself.
£250 a day for a decorator?
I need to start charging more. I know a lot of people in trades and all of them work hard and do a good job. I'm one of those who always turns up to quote when I say I will, then probably doesn't charge enough because I feel bad for the customer. I'm never going to be a millionaire but for me it's all about doing a good job and having happy customers. It does make me laugh when people try and haggle your £150 a day rate down when they're consultants and the like who are earning a grand a day. It does tend to make you think 'sod it....do it yourself then'.
Sw london rates it seems, hes busy too. Looks after loads of rental flats so its a fast turnaround, hes only got a day or 2 to paint a whole flat. Plus the generous discount you get from jonstons for the paint i reckon you can clear 300 a day.
Poolman - for every charegable hour an independent trader has another 30 mins to an hour non chargeable. time spent getting materials, doing quotes, dealing with paperwork ie tax returns - that sort of thing.
Lots of people wondering why a tradesman would come round and then not provide a quote
Hate to break it to you but they met you and decided they’d rather not bother
I need a house renovation soon, in Bristol. Any recommendations for someone who can manage a good job?
Poolman - for every charegable hour an independent trader has another 30 mins to an hour non chargeable. time spent getting materials, doing quotes, dealing with paperwork ie tax returns - that sort of thing.
That sounds way too high, I can see it being 20% ie 1 day a week.
As someone said earlier, its busy out there so theses 'tradespeople' can afford to be choosy. I walk my dog around the village occasionally and am amazed at how many people are having building works done to their houses. Literally every 10th house seems to a skip outside in one particular road.
You really need to find someone who is a friend of a friend or similar, who will not mess you around due to the connection.
I laboured yesterday for the builders and the guys earn every penny, everything ached last night. To be fair they work every day so they are used to it.
To be fair they work every day so they are used to it
You don't get used to it, you just get on with it 😉
All decent trades are busy now. Nothing like few years ago with customers expecting to beat you down on prices as the recession was in full swing. As above you getting used to aching.
i found a hippie/carpenter on a local forum and arranged for him to come and hang a couple of doors and fit a bathroom lock, no haggling on price and i’m 5 min away.
he didn’t turn up....
sent a text mid morning....
nothing..
sent a text in the afternoon asking if he able to come tomorrow? finally got a reply saying yes.
first thing he did on getting getting here was put the radio on full blast MagicFM 😆
he’s cracked on with the job but why not just let your customers know your job has overrun?
30 seconds to send a text.
30 seconds to send a text.
Maybe but you've to remember that we're working, which doesn't involve sitting in front of a computer or walking around staring at your phone.*
So you either forget or put it off till later when you get home at daft o'clock.
*Yes. I realize I'm pissing about on the internet. 🙂
It's not just tradesmen - getting bits machined, I've just given a £2000 order to the one company who responded promptly with a quote, I got tired of chasing another company for over a month.
Maybe but you've to remember that we're working, which doesn't involve sitting in front of a computer or walking around staring at your phone.*
So you either forget or put it off till later when you get home at daft o'clock.
Sorry not acceptable. I’ve taken a holiday day off work so I can let you in the house etc so you not having the courtesy to let me know you aren’t coming means I lose a days holiday for no reason at all. Sort yourself out.
The building trade complains they have a bad reputation for various things but when you can’t even let clients know when you aren’t going to turn up how do you expect to be treated any differently?
Hate to break it to you but they met you and decided they’d rather not bother
Why don’t they let the customer know then?
I’ll say it again, I’ve worked in the service industry a while before my current job and if I did the sorts of things tradesmen have been described as doing in this thread I wouldnt have lasted the day out before being fired.
I will leave my thread of last week here - [url= http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/a-swedish-plumbing-joke ]plumbing jokes included for free.[/url]
Yeah newrobdob, that's fair enough. It's bloody annoying when you can't get in touch with someone. Especially when deadlines or money are involved. It's the same on both sides. I was just trying to point out that we can be a bit slow in getting in touch. Especially if they are a one man band.
(a bit sweary)
being in the middle of something is no excuse, i’m often in the middle of something and will ignore social texts emails etc but if it’s work i’ll respond even if it’s a couple of hours later, if you have time for a pee you have time to send a text, if you don't have time for a pee you need to manage your time better or think about a different career.
i have been doing my own painting so yes i’m not going to stop half way through a skirting or one area of wall but there are always pauses in working on something.
if you have time for a pee you have time to send a text
Better still, take a shit and compile an explanatory email at the same time.
tewit - Member
30 seconds to send a text.Maybe but you've to remember that we're working, which doesn't involve sitting in front of a computer or walking around staring at your phone.*
Bullshit. Unless you're job involves balancing something over head all day, or you're in a constantly difficult dangerous environment you'll get an opportunity to check your phone. You might even use a minute of your 45 minute morning tea break or your two hour long lunch break.
My friend who's a tree surgeon can't have his phone on him when he's climbing, for obvious reasons. As soon as he comes down he checks his phone, replies to texts and returns calls. He does this because he developed a level of professionalism and customer service in a previous career where grunting and ignoring customers would be seen as sub par service.
+howevermany for a varied experience.
Builder I'm using now is excellent - I know what the plan is, when things are happening, what the next stage costs will look like.
I had to get the extension foundations piled. He dealt with the piling contractors, almost all of whom fell into the "don't turn up category". It didn't affect me, but the builder was royally annoyed. "It's the embarrassing thing about our industry - people aren't reliable" were his very refreshing words.
The rest of his team (esp the site manager who's also excellent) + most of the subbies have been great. Only one tradesman has been a let down so far: the roofer, which hasn't been ideal in this weather. As soon as my MIL saw his truck on the drive she said "You've got him?! No-one can ever get hold of him!"
Every silver lining, and all that.
If your hands aren't free you could wear an earpiece and answer texts with voice whilst still working.
You might even use a minute of your 45 minute morning tea break or your two hour long lunch break.
Tea break? Lunch break? What's them? 🙂
I suppose it depends on the trade and whether it's practical to have/want your phone somewhere you to check every so often.
Just trying to give a reason as to why trades people don't always get to you straight away.
But yeah, some are just rubbish like any other profession.
Yeah no excuse for that other than you completely forgot the job /forgot to put in diary in which case fess up and apologise.
If your hands aren't free you could wear an earpiece and answer texts with voice whilst still working.
I hope im missing that this is a joke....
I sense a bit of envy in this thread...
Maybe that's why tradesman work as self-employed tradesman. If they wanted their balls kept in the boss's satchel while he records their movements over Skype and not being able to take an un-monitored piss without signing several 27B/6 TPS Reports they would've become IT drones...
I hope im missing that this is a joke....
I kept misreading it as ‘codpiece’.
My problem isn’t answering quick queries, it’s the long complex emails with numbered lists that need half an hour and quite a bit of research to answer that can’t be answered in a spare minute during the day.
Not turning up for a job and without communicating is completely unacceptable. However answering calls and texts while I'm focused on someone's job I'm charging an hourly rate for I find problematic. I respond to enquiries once I've got my feet up on the sofa and have thought through what I can realistically offer folk (not something I can do with a hands free set whilst doing a task that requires full attention). The rate enquiries and jobs build up exceeds the rate I can deal with them even when I'm completely upfront about just how long my backlog is.
Someone mentioned professionalism, well I could turn up with my trousers round my ankles and customers wouldn't bat an eyelid....market forces have driven things way too far in tradesfolks favour.
To the trades people...all we have to do is get an office and employ someone to answer all the calls and emails ...obviously that person would need to be skilled and know all about the trade in order to help so will need to be well paid.....ohhh hang on then the day rate of the trades person will have to go up to cover this..mmm that im sure will go down well
Nope just get the tradesperson to do that in there break 🙂 or whislt working therefor not concentrating on doing a good job for the person paying you at the time... 😉
Its only graft after all ... because we dont need to use our brains with it being manual work and all 🙂
would be nice to know the professions of the complainers for balance.
But i agree there are some terrible people who go to to work no matter what the work is .. some dont give a .....
A Stonemason
If your hands aren't free you could wear an earpiece and answer texts with voice whilst still working.
😆
Awesome work mols.
Oh and can you do it on sunday whist im out on my bike.....
Er no... im going out on my bike 🙂
Am currently having to take two months off my joinery work (no sick pay, insurance* or benefits worthy of the name) due to 1/4 sec inattention whilst using the table saw. Really don't think I'll be getting a hands free "run your office whilst u work" system anytime soon.
*before you ask, check costs for self employed cover (plus the t&c and multiply that by the 32 years I've ran my business to find out why I don't have that!
due to 1/4 sec inattention whilst using the table saw.
Doing a 'Stoner' as it's now known?
Regarding heating engineers,we had a local Gas safe engineer recommended to us to carry out the annual check on a rental property.
It amounted to £85 cash for what was literally 5 mins in the house,but we still used to have to chase him for a good 5 or 6 weeks before he eventually turned up and did the job.
"Can we pay you at the end of the month?"
That's a regular one. 🙄