Register of Traders

[DireEmblem]

I've been trying to find out there a register of plumbers, electricians, painters, roofers and alike.

I cant seem to find one. One that confirms either basic training, or a history of jobs and reviews. Am I right is there something out there I have missed?

This was more of a thought that came to me during the day. Something that quality of work would be attributed to those completing the work, rather than the company. That way it protects the company if they have for whatever reason, a dodgy worker as they can be fired.

Similarly it would stop people setting up new companies to reset their trading history, and help those setting up their own company by brining with them their past history, that has been verified.

For new tradesman, well they could simply build up their 'reputation', through gaining experience working on jobs with existing companies.

It should probably be independent but industry led if there was ever such a scheme.

 

[hughtrimble]

Which? has something, which I've used and found good, but only tried the once with a recommended plasterer, so can't say how consistently good it is.

There's also Check a Trade, but I've never used it.

 

[dlockers]

It used to exist and it was deemed illegal. I had a quick Google but I can't find it.

I'm not talking about generic registers of certification like Gas Safe etc. But a black book of dodgy workers that was used to basically destroy peoples careers because of a falling out with a manager or something.

 

[Narj]

Yeah Which? is probably the safest bet. I had experiences with all manner of dodgy people when I was looking for roofing quotes. When the Which? associated guy I found turned up it was obvious he was competent and he spotted things none of the others did, and was very reasonable on price. Some of the quotes I had were double his one!

 

[DireEmblem]

Yeah I've had similar issues with roofers. I went up on our flat roof for the first quote, was shown what needed done - basically the rendering on two internal side walls needed replaced, and the seal on the corner of the cupola repaired. I'm not the biggest fan of heights, so did not see the need to go up for the second. The second quoted 3.5x the first estimate, or 2x once you remove the scaffolding they added. They did however itemise every single item to justify the fee. 1.5x was the cost of scaffolding, and they itemised both chimneys built into each wall on either side that are rendered. They were flush in depth with the wall, but stood slightly higher.

The first roofer was recommended by a friend, and had a 96% rating on my builder(that's how they found them), but then I later heard from my friend they needed further works done and couldn't get in touch with them. They had a couple bad reviews, but then you always get some customers that are never happy.

Rest of the quotes were equally all over the place. I then thought about paying for an independent surveyor to check what was needed, and send their recommendations out to tender, but that then adds further costs.

Similar issues with tradesmen to fit windows, one of them showed me images of similar installations they had done in the style we were looking for to get an idea of the end result. I oddly recognised the house, and knew another company fitted them!

Haven't had much internal work done internally yet, but talking to people today, it would be a really useful thing to have - accredited tradesman!

 

[v0n]

Plumbers and electricians are assessed and checked annually "in the field" by their "guilds" - GasSafe (formerly CORGI) for plumbers, NICEIC, Elecsa, NAPIT, Stroma for electricians. Despite plethora of names - there are only two main companies allowed by .gov to keep control over their industries - Certsure (owners of GasSafe/NICEIC/Elecsa/ECS schemes) and NAPIT (owners of NAPIT and Stroma schemes). You can find proper, registered sparks and plumbers via corresponding GasSafe/NICEIC/NAPIT etc websites. Obviously it is still possible to encounter a bad egg among registered tradesmen but the annual checks made by Part P register organisations I mentioned among their members is as good as it ever got - at least you know the companies or individuals were recently vetted for insurance, training and knowledge of new regulations and assessed at work by the bodies providing routes for building control certifications of their jobs.

All the Which?, Trusted Trader, Rated People and tons of similar private companies dealing out made up "accreditations" and van stickers is a terrible way of verifying tradesmen and their approvals are meaningless - these are just subscriptions tradesmen pay (Which?, any Verified/Trusted Tradesmen scheme run by Ltd companies on the back of your local council) or worse yet - jobs aggregators often with very shady rules (Trusted Trader/Rated People/My Hammer), where mostly inexperienced/rebooted/whack-a-mole tradesmen and outfits with poor comms or without any "word of mouth" customer base outbid each other on "pay per bid/pay per lead" basis for often non existing jobs at bottom prices and then try to accomplish them on a shoe string while cutting corners.

A good, known among community experienced tradesman with long standing good name and full calendar won't be a member of such subscription clubs nor seek such "accreditations" because why would he - it costs thousands of pounds annually and provides nothing but spam and prospective customers that want to go select a company based on the lowest possible quote.

Instead check if the spark/plumber is fully registered to do his job, check if he's VAT registered, that will tell you if he's good at his work and gone through VAT threshold last year, beware of a tradesman that can do the job tomorrow - if he's good he's going to be booked for months.

 

[DB_SamX]

Checkatrade.

 

[Zefan]

Checkatrade.

Yeah, not sure why people are saying this doesn't exist, it definitely does. It's voluntary of course, the people registered there pay a fee to appear, and some argue that the best tradesmen won't be on there, but it's sort of your only option for what you're looking for IMO.

 

[dlockers]

Yeah, not sure why people are saying this doesn't exist, it definitely does. It's voluntary of course, the people registered there pay a fee to appear, and some argue that the best tradesmen won't be on there, but it's sort of your only option for what you're looking for IMO.

I think the chap is more eluding to a tradesman passport that follows the individual. Less so a yellow pages of jobbers that can change their name and reinvent themselves.

Edit: This was the article I referred to when I said it had been done and was deemed illegal:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...-building-firms-secret-information-on-workers

Essentially a chap ran a database that would use your NI number to identify you. This chap would keep feedback on that person. The big firms managers who essentially kill an entire persons career with a single bad review, stopping you from getting employment from all the big boys at the time (Murphys, Carillion, Skanska, Belfour, Kier, etc).

 

[Zefan]

Ah, fair enough!