Need a bit of building work done indoors so have rung quite a few builders to get some quotes.Only one has had the decency to ring me back.Can't give my money away at the moment. They must be coining it
Carly, it's often a natural consequence that the good builders are the busiest so be wary about anyone who can start straight away or return your first call within 10 mins. Not good customer care but rather that than get some cowboy sitting around waiting. Being doing quite a lot of work within the builder game recently and they are telling me that everyones has been trying to get work done before the VAT goes up and no one's moving at the moment but spending the money on renovations instead.
Possibly the efffect of the recession is that they lay off a lot of their staff, and make themselves busy as they don't have the resources to spread around?
Have moved house and refurbed about 5 times and moved factory twice. Make no mistake, there is no such thing as a good builder. The poles are not much better now that they are getting in the swing of it. But let's be clear, NO SUCH THING AS A GOOD BUILDER. Some of my mates are builders, my best man was a builder, and I have 2 brother in laws who are builders. I was out last night in Hayes drinking with 2 builders. But I maintain, NO SUCH THING AS A GOOD BUILDER.
Had a quote off a roofer to do a barn......the price was so ludicrous, its no wonder some of them dont bother to do much quoting.....put out enough silly prices and some will stick. Bloke behind us has just had builders at his house for FOUR months, usually at least 6-7...no structural work other than fitting in a supplementary beam, the rest was cosmetics.....unreal.
Yes we all know poor, over priced workman, I could tell you about a few Estate Agents, bankers , and Sales people.
Just to set the record straight I am not one, but my sons are both.
They are still young, and have served 4 year apprenticeships, instead of going to UNI , and do a decent days work. They are up at 5.30, and work all over the South east, very rarely locally.
Unlike some of the so called tradesman, they have all there city and guilds, and have shadowed, decent craftsmen.
They have done essentially a sandwich course, not an intensive 12 week, dvd, do it once, now you are a plumber course, and do not expect to be millionaires!
Being an awkward bastard myself, I would only employ registered builders, go and see there work, and ring up there trade body. Not think about it, talk about it, but do it!
Glossy advertisements, and websites mean nothing, or members of most associations. People like gas safe, and Fensa. Then I ask for there last three jobs......not phone numbers, In the end if you do not know what you are doing get a project manager, they could well save you money, and get the job done on time and not be ripped off!
Keep back retention money, get a written contract, with resonable/realistic times . I saw a brickie last week, doing a great job, I stopped and asked for his card!.( you need to see there work) Cheap is only cheap if it is any good!
[cite]Posted By: masicat[/cite]Have moved house and refurbed about 5 times and moved factory twice. Make no mistake, there is no such thing as a good builder. The poles are not much better now that they are getting in the swing of it. But let's be clear, NO SUCH THING AS A GOOD BUILDER. Some of my mates are builders, my best man was a builder, and I have 2 brother in laws who are builders. I was out last night in Hayes drinking with 2 builders. But I maintain, NO SUCH THING AS A GOOD BUILDER.
Pratt Edited as my time of the month when wrote this
[cite]Posted By: carly burn[/cite]Need a bit of building work done indoors so have rung quite a few builders to get some quotes.Only one has had the decency to ring me back.Can't give my money away at the moment. They must be coining it
If you need the number of a good builder, send me a whisper and I can sort you out.
reckon by the time i eventually get to fixing everything wrong with my disaster house i'll have gone a long way to pulling the country out of recession....
Dont use this website. Used a plummer from there, £150 later, the pipe still leaked and the f##ker changed his mobile number.
He had 'ratings' on there as well.
I used someone from there recently for some work on our roof. Guy was on time and did a good job for a decent price. So i guess like everything else it is a case of buyer beware.
I can't really put it any simpler than this...if you can, use someone from the "Buy With Confidence" scheme.
All the other schemes have their place but ultimately are primarily set up to make money for the scheme organisers and pretty much rely on published references alone. I'm not going to comment on any other scheme in particular but it's a rare thing to see a negative report of their members work published put it that way. With BWC you can guarantee that the person involved has not only had references taken up but it continually monitored by trading standards who will get involved if there's any problems. On top of that to get on the scheme traders have to be financially checked out via Experian/Companies Hse, etc, have nothing adverse re:CCJ's, have had a recent CRB check, have a proper complaints procedure, be properly insured, have had their qualifications and trade association memberships checked out and been audited to make sure they are trading fairly and legally and to a Code of Practice.
Right, I finished work at 6 tonight so that's me clocking off for the weekend...
Its a fine line lot of builders will get work through an architect, surveyor or project manager knowing that they are not having there time wasted.
Cold calls are usually a waste of time in all honesty. In my case in roofing we dont quote private houses as we tend to find we will get called out for something. Which for example takes us half hour to drive to look at, half hour with customer to walk round and half hour to return. You then would send a quote in for example to repair slipped slates or something man for a day 180 quid and the standard response is i was only looking to pay 40.
It is difficult to pick time wasters from people looking for a decent job
Your right cafcbourne,I'm a builder and the amount of jobs I go and see then go home to work out a quote which could take a couple of hours of my own time then let the customer no then never hear from them again. That's time wasting.
We have tonnes of enquiries but none are looking to start until April/May earliest.
Also the jobs that are being let are on real tight margins. I know three roofing firms that have jacked in over the last 2 months purely because the labour dont want to do it for cheaper and builders budget is so tight
If any of you roofers want to have a look at my leak, drop me a whisper.
I'm in SE9 (New Eltham, near Fiveways) and need to get it sorted - I'd rather give the money to a Lifer that won't rip me off than a big firm...
Went on rated people to get a patio job costed/ quoted. Three quotes, three different ways of doing it, at differening prices. You need to get quotes so you know exactly what they intend to do ...
Got my building work done in the end ,back in November.The fella did a very good job at a reasonable price.
Things have turned full circle it would seem however.I now need a chippy for a bit of work.Got a few quotes.They are bending over backwards to get round here now.
[cite]Posted By: 1 light[/cite]Your right cafcbourne,I'm a builder and the amount of jobs I go and see then go home to work out a quote which could take a couple of hours of my own time then let the customer no then never hear from them again. That's time wasting.
Of course it's not, it's just a fact of life. Anyone should get a minimum of two quotes for just about anything, so at least one person is going to miss out every time. That's not because someone wasted your time, but rather they decided to go with another quote. You shouldn't take it personally.
[cite]Posted By: 1 light[/cite]Your right cafcbourne,I'm a builder and the amount of jobs I go and see then go home to work out a quote which could take a couple of hours of my own time then let the customer no then never hear from them again. That's time wasting.
I work for a major lighting company and tend to be very selective with clients and aim for repeat business on the service aspect i give to a project and seems to work with 20 or so clients to gain my budget.
I have been to sites where up to 27 electrical contractors are tendering for a project on a price driven basis and looking to cut costs to win the project.The result due to price always end up with snags and all in the chain blaming each other and costs being passed on and the client swearing he will never use the team involved again.
In conclusion i would suggest a builder or other parties of the trade are more focused these days on the client base they work with and have not got the time to get in a price war and end up being knocked and spend countless hours quoting not saying the original thread will do this.
Also more time are spent by the tendering parties these days on design aspects of a project to justify the tender and the architect or consultant gets the price for their input and all costs are down to the awarded contractor for not meeting the time frame and design results that they at times enter in.
To answer the start of this thread its terrible you cant get a decent response and sad in fact,but from what i have seen in my part of the industry that is not so much a domestic trade but more commercial i can see their thought process.
when i am asked to break a spec i always think of the poor sod that has spent hours putting the quote and design together.
Comments
Try someone off here maybe?
Yes we all know poor, over priced workman, I could tell you about a few Estate Agents, bankers , and Sales people.
Just to set the record straight I am not one, but my sons are both.
They are still young, and have served 4 year apprenticeships, instead of going to UNI , and do a decent days work. They are up at 5.30, and work all over the South east, very rarely locally.
Unlike some of the so called tradesman, they have all there city and guilds, and have shadowed, decent craftsmen.
They have done essentially a sandwich course, not an intensive 12 week, dvd, do it once, now you are a plumber course, and do not expect to be millionaires!
Being an awkward bastard myself, I would only employ registered builders, go and see there work, and ring up there trade body. Not think about it, talk about it, but do it!
Glossy advertisements, and websites mean nothing, or members of most associations. People like gas safe, and Fensa. Then I ask for there last three jobs......not phone numbers, In the end if you do not know what you are doing get a project manager, they could well save you money, and get the job done on time and not be ripped off!
Keep back retention money, get a written contract, with resonable/realistic times . I saw a brickie last week, doing a great job, I stopped and asked for his card!.( you need to see there work) Cheap is only cheap if it is any good!
Pratt Edited as my time of the month when wrote this
You must be a builder.
If you need the number of a good builder, send me a whisper and I can sort you out.
You'll definitely get some quotes at least.
http://www.ratedpeople.com/get-quotes/trade-overview?gclid=CP3a_p3l5qQCFdD92Aod9FCs1A
Dont use this website. Used a plummer from there, £150 later, the pipe still leaked and the f##ker changed his mobile number.
He had 'ratings' on there as well.
I used someone from there recently for some work on our roof. Guy was on time and did a good job for a decent price. So i guess like everything else it is a case of buyer beware.
I can't really put it any simpler than this...if you can, use someone from the "Buy With Confidence" scheme.
All the other schemes have their place but ultimately are primarily set up to make money for the scheme organisers and pretty much rely on published references alone. I'm not going to comment on any other scheme in particular but it's a rare thing to see a negative report of their members work published put it that way. With BWC you can guarantee that the person involved has not only had references taken up but it continually monitored by trading standards who will get involved if there's any problems. On top of that to get on the scheme traders have to be financially checked out via Experian/Companies Hse, etc, have nothing adverse re:CCJ's, have had a recent CRB check, have a proper complaints procedure, be properly insured, have had their qualifications and trade association memberships checked out and been audited to make sure they are trading fairly and legally and to a Code of Practice.
Right, I finished work at 6 tonight so that's me clocking off for the weekend...
Cold calls are usually a waste of time in all honesty. In my case in roofing we dont quote private houses as we tend to find we will get called out for something. Which for example takes us half hour to drive to look at, half hour with customer to walk round and half hour to return. You then would send a quote in for example to repair slipped slates or something man for a day 180 quid and the standard response is i was only looking to pay 40.
It is difficult to pick time wasters from people looking for a decent job
The lack of enquiries is a real worry atm.
Also the jobs that are being let are on real tight margins. I know three roofing firms that have jacked in over the last 2 months purely because the labour dont want to do it for cheaper and builders budget is so tight
I'm in SE9 (New Eltham, near Fiveways) and need to get it sorted - I'd rather give the money to a Lifer that won't rip me off than a big firm...
Things have turned full circle it would seem however.I now need a chippy for a bit of work.Got a few quotes.They are bending over backwards to get round here now.
Of course it's not, it's just a fact of life. Anyone should get a minimum of two quotes for just about anything, so at least one person is going to miss out every time. That's not because someone wasted your time, but rather they decided to go with another quote. You shouldn't take it personally.
Perhaps you are over-charging?
I have been to sites where up to 27 electrical contractors are tendering for a project on a price driven basis and looking to cut costs to win the project.The result due to price always end up with snags and all in the chain blaming each other and costs being passed on and the client swearing he will never use the team involved again.
In conclusion i would suggest a builder or other parties of the trade are more focused these days on the client base they work with and have not got the time to get in a price war and end up being knocked and spend countless hours quoting not saying the original thread will do this.
Also more time are spent by the tendering parties these days on design aspects of a project to justify the tender and the architect or consultant gets the price for their input and all costs are down to the awarded contractor for not meeting the time frame and design results that they at times enter in.
To answer the start of this thread its terrible you cant get a decent response and sad in fact,but from what i have seen in my part of the industry that is not so much a domestic trade but more commercial i can see their thought process.
when i am asked to break a spec i always think of the poor sod that has spent hours putting the quote and design together.