is nobody bothered anymore? (trades people / companies)

omg it's a miracle, the aircon company are coming to see me today after work. Mentioned about tradesmen to him and he said he's going to give me the details of a good painter he knows.

Fingers crossed!
 
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jonneymendoza said:
Why's that?
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I'm not trying to answer for Brutal biff but a friend who is an electrician said he only does new builds. He has plenty of work and basically isn't going in blind to some other sparks shoddy work. I never asked but I assumed it was because he didn't want to blow himself up :D
 
A lot of it can be self taught if you have the right mindset. We never had any money when we were younger and bought our first house so started doing stuff myself. A lot of mistakes happen but over the years (if you have shed) you build up quite a selection of tools.

I completely gutted our main bathroom. Ceiling, floorboards and re-routed the pipe work (in copper of course) and installed a thermostatic for the shower instead of the electric one in there. Tiled from floor to ceiling including the side of the bath. That was in 2015 and still no leaks or creaks at all. The only time I will call a tradesman in is if it is gas or electrics where safety is critical.

Saying that I have always been very good with my hands. Not so much with my tongue which I guess is why I could never BS my way to promotions.

I have the money now to employ a tradesman if I wanted but I know the ball ache of trying to find someone you can trust so just end up doing it myself.

A tip that has worked for me. Especially if you live in a suburbs type setting is to go take your dog for a walk in the evening and look out for vans etc. Give those people a ring as they will generally not **** on their doorstep.
 
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My brother in law does landscape gardening and I remembered asking him about 6 years ago to give a quote to do our back garden. I even made it clear he would get his normal rates, but he simply said no as he did not do work for family. He still refused even after my sister asked him. I asked jokingly if it was because I knew where he lived if he did a crap job and he did not like that.

I work in IT and he would call me to repair or even upgrade his laptop/destop PCs etc and I never expected payment. He never once even offered me a few bottles of beer as a thank you. The next time his PC started acting up he asked me to look at it and I told him no as I don't do work for family members.
 
adam cool dude said:
A lot of it can be self taught if you have the right mindset. We never had any money when we were younger and bought our first house so started doing stuff myself. A lot of mistakes happen but over the years (if you have shed) you build up quite a selection of tools.

I completely gutted our main bathroom. Ceiling, floorboards and re-routed the pipe work (in copper of course) and installed a thermostatic for the shower instead of the electric one in there. Tiled from floor to ceiling including the side of the bath. That was in 2015 and still no leaks or creaks at all. The only time I will call a tradesman in is if it is gas or electrics where safety is critical.

Saying that I have always been very good with my hands. Not so much with my tongue which I guess is why I could never BS my way to promotions.

I have the money now to employ a tradesman if I wanted but I know the ball ache of trying to find someone you can trust so just end up doing it myself.

A tip that has worked for me. Especially if you live in a suburbs type setting is to go take your dog for a walk in the evening and look out for vans etc. Give those people a ring as they will generally not **** on their doorstep.
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I did the sanding of my floors upstairs on my own and put the insulation up on our loft and added a loftzone platform
 
ICDP said:
My brother in law does landscape gardening and I remembered asking him about 6 years ago to give a quote to do our back garden. I even made it clear he would get his normal rates, but he simply said no as he did not do work for family. He still refused even after my sister asked him. I asked jokingly if it was because I knew where he lived if he did a crap job and he did not like that.

I work in IT and he would call me to repair or even upgrade his laptop/destop PCs etc and I never expected payment. He never once even offered me a few bottles of beer as a thank you. The next time his PC started acting up he asked me to look at it and I told him no as I don't do work for family members.
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To be fair loads of tradesmen hate doing jobs for friends and family even when paid at normal rates.

Your brother in law sounds like he falls in the tradie by name not by nature category though.

It's strange, but all of the good ones I've had dealings with over the years carry themselves a certain way and have quite a particular communication style. It took a while but I can almost sense a pretender a mile off now.
 
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My son recently took options at school and they were very anti dropping French as a language and didn't like that he wanted to do two types of technology (electrics and design tech). He's naturally quite bright, but wants to go down the road of doing something in the trade. Fair play I said, and this was not pushed by me. So I've been supporting him despite what the school say and would be happy to see him go into a trade. As others have said, I know of some people in the trade that literally do drive Landies and have nice houses. They seem to rake it in and are always busy.

I've had mixed experiences with traders, but mostly poor. I try to DIY on almost everything now. I've had a carpet fitter round. OK but caused damage and cut corners. A chippie that tried to hang some doors so badly, I learned that yeah, I can do that better too. A plumber that was decent but charged high. We as Brits have just accepted over time that we will just have to pay high for basic work to be done. That's why it now costs hundreds to change a kitchen tap apparently.
 
Surely AI and some robotic arms can solve this problem? All you'd have to do is provide it with supplies.

Train it to take plenty of fag breaks, multiply quotes by 5, learn how to not answer phones and it's half way there.
 
jaybee said:
My son recently took options at school and they were very anti dropping French as a language and didn't like that he wanted to do two types of technology (electrics and design tech). He's naturally quite bright, but wants to go down the road of doing something in the trade. Fair play I said, and this was not pushed by me. So I've been supporting him despite what the school say and would be happy to see him go into a trade. As others have said, I know of some people in the trade that literally do drive Landies and have nice houses. They seem to rake it in and are always busy.

I've had mixed experiences with traders, but mostly poor. I try to DIY on almost everything now. I've had a carpet fitter round. OK but caused damage and cut corners. A chippie that tried to hang some doors so badly, I learned that yeah, I can do that better too. A plumber that was decent but charged high. We as Brits have just accepted over time that we will just have to pay high for basic work to be done. That's why it now costs hundreds to change a kitchen tap apparently.
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The issue with DIY is that it takes so long.
 
Ayahuasca said:
To be fair loads of tradesmen hate doing jobs for friends and family even when paid at normal rates.

Your brother in law sounds like he falls in the tradie by name not by nature category though.

It's strange, but all of the good ones I've had dealings with over the years carry themselves a certain way and have quite a particular communication style. It took a while but I can almost sense a pretender a mile off now.
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I know many like that because they fall into the trap of any little issue becomes their problem and they have to provide lifetime warranty. So I do agree it can be problematic doing work for friends and family.

As for my brother in law he is my ex brother in law now after my sister finally wised up. To be fair I never once commented on how I felt about him as that was her choice.
 
jaybee said:
My son recently took options at school and they were very anti dropping French as a language and didn't like that he wanted to do two types of technology (electrics and design tech). He's naturally quite bright, but wants to go down the road of doing something in the trade. Fair play I said, and this was not pushed by me. So I've been supporting him despite what the school say and would be happy to see him go into a trade. As others have said, I know of some people in the trade that literally do drive Landies and have nice houses. They seem to rake it in and are always busy.

I've had mixed experiences with traders, but mostly poor. I try to DIY on almost everything now. I've had a carpet fitter round. OK but caused damage and cut corners. A chippie that tried to hang some doors so badly, I learned that yeah, I can do that better too. A plumber that was decent but charged high. We as Brits have just accepted over time that we will just have to pay high for basic work to be done. That's why it now costs hundreds to change a kitchen tap apparently.
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I'll do the easy things- hanging a door is easy enough, for example.

I once fitted my own carpet, and got the one cut a few mm short. Last time around I got a carpet fitter in, and he was just soooo much better than me, and fast, too. I think he charged me £50 to do my room, which has three doorways, an angled fireplace and a bay window.

The one thing I would never, ever try is plastering- that is an art.
 
ICDP said:
My brother in law does landscape gardening and I remembered asking him about 6 years ago to give a quote to do our back garden. I even made it clear he would get his normal rates, but he simply said no as he did not do work for family. He still refused even after my sister asked him. I asked jokingly if it was because I knew where he lived if he did a crap job and he did not like that.

I work in IT and he would call me to repair or even upgrade his laptop/destop PCs etc and I never expected payment. He never once even offered me a few bottles of beer as a thank you. The next time his PC started acting up he asked me to look at it and I told him no as I don't do work for family members.
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For some reason, working in IT is seen as a hobby for family members! I've heard this so many times from colleagues but if you ask them for help, you get a bill at the end, maybe mates rates if you're lucky. They ask you to help them with an IT issue, that might take longer to fix than it did them! And they look at you gone out if you mention being paid for your time!!
 
TheOracle said:
Damn, how big a job do they want?

bathroom and 2 x en-suites £24,000
four bedrooms painting £2,000
aircon in 5 rooms £6,000-£7,000?

unless the meant the new patio doors :cry:

Thing is, you are probably right. The last bloke we had out to look at the bathroom said he was on a job installing a new kitchen and the counter top on it's own was worth £50,000. He showed me a picture, and it was the biggest kitchen island I've ever seen. In fact, I think the island was bigger than my entire kitchen :eek:
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I've heard that there are problems at the moment with material costs rising, and belligerent homeowners refusing to pay, which is pushing builders away from this type of work. Whether that's generally true, I don't know.
 
Bluecube said:
AI is far more likely to replace all the desk jockeys in the world. The flip side is that in ten years time we’ll have more tradesmen as people retrain!
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Houses can be '3D built' already.

I can understand why fiddly things like electrics and plumbing might be tricky for robots but building walls and stuff, I'm going to automate it, I've decided.

Robots already build most things for humans in factories. We just need cheaper arms and more AI.

It's going to be called the sigmafagbreak2000.
 
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TheOracle said:
Damn, how big a job do they want?

bathroom and 2 x en-suites £24,000
four bedrooms painting £2,000
aircon in 5 rooms £6,000-£7,000?

unless the meant the new patio doors :cry:

Thing is, you are probably right. The last bloke we had out to look at the bathroom said he was on a job installing a new kitchen and the counter top on it's own was worth £50,000. He showed me a picture, and it was the biggest kitchen island I've ever seen. In fact, I think the island was bigger than my entire kitchen :eek:
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Why would you even consider paying someone £2000 to move a paint brush up and down? No wonder these people are laughing their way to the bank!
 
sigma said:
Houses can be 3D built.

I can understand why fiddly things like electrics and plumbing might be tricky for robots but building walls and stuff, I'm going to automate it, I've decided.

Robots already build most things for humans in factories. We just need cheaper arms and more AI.

It's going to be called the sigmafagbreak2000.
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Yes, i imagine a lot of stuff will end up being prefabricated (well, even more stuff..)
 
sigma said:
Why would you even consider paying someone £2000 to move a paint brush up and down? No wonder these people are laughing their way to the bank!
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I'd literally laugh my head off if someone said to my face that they wanted £2000 to paint four bedrooms.
 
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