The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: jools66 on February 23, 2012, 10:07:19 am
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Hi
Just thought i would let off some steam >:(
I decided to redecorate my staircase/hall and asked 2 local painter and decoraters to come last wednesday to give me a quote for the job
1 never showed up the other guy turned up thursday he promised to phone me on monday to give me price i'm still waiting >:(
You hear about people desperate for work but i cant get work done
If they didnt wont the job why not just tell me now i have to start looking for someone all over again
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Not sure where you are but I think its common everywhere....
We asked some one to do an urgent job for us last year and never heard from them again, price etc was never even discused so we waited but nothing so then asked a local person who we like, and is very handy, he came and did the job and we agreed on sevaral other jobs for a fixed price to be paid monthy, he though that was a brill idea as it was getting near christmas, we bought what he needed (still have some stuff ) and he did one or two jobs and to be honest made a bit of a bodge of some of them but that was our fault as he is no tradesman, then he never turned up when he said so we held onto the rest of the money, he never finished stuff and now he has a bad back!!!!!!!!! Jobs are still not done, we went to a party next door and there a man is doing up an empty house and every tradesman he has contacted has not turned up...cash in hand, name your price type stuff like we were going to do......
.I do not understand it either!!!!!!!
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Unfortunately the culture and mindset these days is why work when i can sit on my a**@ and do sweet fanny adams and the govt pay me to do nothing!! ::) >:(
Mandy :pig:
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Fortunately I have a neighbour who is a great handyman, but he is extremely busy and sometimes I don't hear from him for weeks after asking him to do a job for me, but I know he has a list and just works down it and will phone when he is a week away from coming to do my work. He al;ways gives me a quote before he starts, and he is a tidy worker. I have tried 'ratedpeople' as has my daughter and there are cowboys on there as well as good workers so just be careful.
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well for all of you in central scotland
my main work is outside but i am also very handy
all work is fixed price and start dates are guaranteed when work is agreed upon.
the only stuff i dont do is electric and gas and decorating other than that i do it, to a good standard and in a timely fashion.
:-)
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my sister in Ely has exactly the same story about quotes for decorators for her hall and stairs.
The chap who eventually quoted turned up at 10 !! one day, moaned how tuff life was with little work and left at 4. The next day she remarked how little he had done and he confessed that he was a painter and not a plasterer. She now wants to finish the work herself but since her dog pulled her over and she broke the top of her femur she is reluctant to climb ladders on the stairs.
As others say - it is hard getting a quote and the chance of getting someone recommended is thus low. When we do get someone to do the work then how do we know that they are skilled in what they say they have quoted for.
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i get all my work by word of mouth, and im booked solid for the next 3 years.im lucky that my niche is pretty recession proof.
if i want work doing, i go on friends reccomendations.
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I think maybe it's not so much that they don't want the work but they say yes to any job that comes along and then find they've taken on too much :-\
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Last night I replied to a work wanted add, as I need a Labouror / assistant for a couple of months
His add stated he was willing to try anything, ( obviously not ) as he has a family.
Did I get a response ? NO - I didn't even get a 'no thanks'
His has re-posted again today.
If you dont want a job - dont advertise for one - GIRO - JUNKY
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On the other hand how about this.
Married man with children will travel anywhere in France to house sit/ look after animals for no charge EXCEPT for any "handy jobs " he does. He has no transport but arrives with his tent !!!!!!!!!
I want to meet this guy who seems rather keen to get some work. :trophy:
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We had some roofers work next door and they just gave us a bril quote so sod them that have not given us a quote yet, we cannot have fires and its getting warm...the bad winds we had took our chimney pots and some slates off but everyone has been too busy to help out//
Back to odd jobs, we have loads of them!!!!! Bloomer....!!!!!
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Still waiting for calls back from several companies we asked to give us quotes to fit a new double glazed door. One of the two who did come and measure up, and who we offere dthe work to, said it would take ten days to have the door made then he would come and fit it. That was about three weeks ago. The weather has warmed up now so we are not so desperate but it needs fitting before I can decorate our kitchen.
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We use a local plumber & electrition and they are very good and reliable.....we have a list of jobs to do as long as my arm (I have short arms) As we earn money we spend it and are more than happy to pay the going rate for a good job......
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We asked three roofing firms to come and quote for a complete new roof on our old house. Not one of them turned up. Recently asked a local builder to quote for some work inside our current house. He came, said he'd work out a price for the job and get back to me, never saw him again. There's too much easy money to be made I reckon or why don't they want the work?
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I was thinking about it today and I used to be married to a plumber and we always had to waite...but, as he was so busy he had to get trades in and the same thing happened to him, as he looked like he had money they would also charge him a lot!!!!
I think the only way forward is to do things yourself.....I built a hen house and everyone laughed...BUT..its still up and not blown off in the wind but my hubby has been putting new logs in it as the hens have a shed!!!!!!
I wish I was not so stiff and I would do all sorts >:(
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don't know where you all are, but if you are anywhere near Oxfordshire give me a shout! i know some great lads from tree sergeons to landscapers etc. not free but good lads and work very hard.
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im finding this whole thread really interesting, its the same complaint everywhere!! loads of work about but no one to do it,
where have all the tradesmen gone?
I tried to expand from a one man buisness a few years back, i took all the work that came in and hired and trained 4 labourers, i paid fair money but the grief i had was ridiculous, i spent so much of my time sorting lifts for guys whos car had broken down, paying out subs and fixing mistakes and balls ups that eventually after a year i gave up and went back to working alone. much easier!
don't know where you all are, but if you are anywhere near Oxfordshire give me a shout! i know some great lads from tree sergeons to landscapers etc. not free but good lads and work very hard.
me too, i can provide some recommendations in this neck of the woods, however most of them have waiting lists.
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yep waiting lists go without saying! lol
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What I think is happening is this:
- with talk of recession firms, large and small, have been laying off staff and/or not replacing leavers. They feel better if their order book is longer and their cost base is smaller.
- round here from 2007 people were not moving house but doing it up. Now they're doing neither but repaying debt cos they're scared. You can see that in the High Street closures.
- HMRC has got vicious and is chasing hard for tax, while the banks are puling back. The many small firms that don't manage their cash-flow too well are being squeezed from both sides. If you use today's income to pay yesterdays tax bill you're in deep poo. Also I hear that blowing the whistle on your neighbour has increased a lot, and those who are caught get assessed for previous years.
So the competent and well-regarded are doing quite well because overall capacity has dropped more than available work, while working for cash has become much more risky. Note Cameron announced a plan for giving tax relief to people who employed cleaners a couple of weeks ago. Which is great for his rich mates while it will be paid for by catching lots of non tax-paying cleaners.
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What I think is happening is this:
- with talk of recession firms, large and small, have been laying off staff and/or not replacing leavers. They feel better if their order book is longer and their cost base is smaller.
- round here from 2007 people were not moving house but doing it up. Now they're doing neither but repaying debt cos they're scared. You can see that in the High Street closures.
- HMRC has got vicious and is chasing hard for tax, while the banks are puling back. The many small firms that don't manage their cash-flow too well are being squeezed from both sides. If you use today's income to pay yesterdays tax bill you're in deep poo. Also I hear that blowing the whistle on your neighbour has increased a lot, and those who are caught get assessed for previous years.
So the competent and well-regarded are doing quite well because overall capacity has dropped more than available work, while working for cash has become much more risky. Note Cameron announced a plan for giving tax relief to people who employed cleaners a couple of weeks ago. Which is great for his rich mates while it will be paid for by catching lots of non tax-paying cleaners.
nice reading your thoughts Small Farmer, couldn't have put it better myself mate! ;)
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Decorator finally phoned back with quote £485 :o i only have a small staircase and landing
Have another guy coming tuesday so fingers crossed
Luckily my OH is an electrician and hes also hardy at most things just not decorting :D
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One of the major points why most people dont come back - is that there are still alot of people who expect a worker to come do odd jobs and working for minimum wage.
You can tell someone whos not upto speed with the going rates of labour as soon as you meet them most the time. They will use words like 'oh its not much work' and ' its just a little bit here and there' - when people start to use phrases like that when you can see at least a weeks work and they expect it in a day its hardly worth putting in a £700 quote for 5 days as the client expects it to come to no more than their daily rate of £50.
;)
Baz
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that was certainly the biggest problem i have ever found quoting for work
as soon as someone says what's your hourly rate i worry, i quote per job not per hour, so if a job done quickly and professionally is done in a couple of hours and costs £50 provides a better service than some one charging £6 an hour dragging it out all day to earn a bit more and doing a shoddy job so you end up getting someone else in to finish it off, the hourly rate for the first person is not unreasonable!!!
also fixed price working means if i do make a mistake and it takes longer than planned its me footing the bill not the client, this also stops clients nagging me to hurry up as they're worried about a clock running!!!
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Bloomer, I much prefer people to quote for the job rather than the hour. It gives you more idea whether you can afford it or not. Having said that, my friend's husband says £10 an hour so I tell him what I want done and in what order and how much I am willing to pay. He gets done what he can and works hard.
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When we first moved in we had a simple job done that took a few mins, less than half an hour and the part less than £10, we got a bill for well over £100, I asked for a breakdown and I would pay and I never ever got one, to me that was one big rip off.....I also asked if there was a call out charge and they said no but even if there was the job should never have been sooo much, my ex and his family are in the same trade as the trades man we used so I do know the costs...never used that one again!!
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i had the same problem with hiring out the digger it was on an hourly basis plus transport and fuel everybody (well the skinflints)always wanted it on a price basis there was so many variables involved light work a tank of fuel could last a week heavy work it would last 2 days and a tank is £500 also depended on what they were doing if transport of waste material was involved you are waiting for a lorry to come back always a difficult factor to work in then you are pricing against somebody with no insurance and even less skills
once they knew you gave them there moneys worth and on time they saw the advantage of an hourly rate :farmer:
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£10 / hour.
what a joke. anyone charging that is probably not declaring it. take income tax and ni off, costs for tools and disposables, leaves about £4.50!!
whaqt do you expect for peanuts?
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well DTW at £10 per hour he is not going to be paying tax and at that rate will be claiming family credit :farmer:
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I've done the odd 'casual handyman' type job when I'm not busy with the sheep, but since I am self employed I have to put it through the company (who wouldn't?). I do quote by the hour and I'm fairly reasonable, but I have honestly had people stand there and offer me £8 an hour which leaves diddly squat after tax etc. In those cases, what I'll do is smile sweetly and never get back to them. I honestly can't see anything less than £15/hour being worth doing.
The funny thing is, the kind of people that offer me the lowest money have the highest incomes/biggest houses.......
I bet they wouldn't work for £8 an hour even after tax!
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Bloke up the road wanted to borrow our horse trailer so his daughter and friend could go to play dressage. We said no cos its full of animal feed at the moment, but mostly cos he's never driven with a trailer before, and he isn't going to learn on ours. We told him where to hire one but £70 for the weekend, shared between two families was too much apparently despite his two 09 plate BMWs, one an X5.
He needs a 4wd because he put six inches of shingle on his driveway and its quite hard to walk across let alone drive on.
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some great precis of the problem and it is interesting to hear rates people charge. But to my mind there is the price people will pay and then the price the job costs. Since I lost my job I have to look at what I pay others carefully and consider their daily rate against a price per job. Daily rates are 120 - 150 Euros here.
So now I can not pay what I used to I question each quote and get them to explain the final bill. When I worked I just paid up - because I could.My daily rate then was more than a tradesmeans weekly rate.
Now I am skint I barter - killing and cleaning of 2 pigs . Payment will be all the blood they can carry, half a pigs head and some belly. I may throw in lunch - wine and even some eggs If all goes well. ;D
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''But to my mind there is the price people will pay and then the price the job costs.''
that should be 'the price people will pay and then the price the job IS WORTH'
i had an estate agents valuation before a job i did on a lovely house in falmouth and then one 3 weeks later, the difference was 19k. i made 2k. i doubled my rate after that and still havent ever lost a quote.
you get what you pay for.
that quote above for the decorating sounded about right, 3ish days work, 1 days prep, 1 and a half decorating, half a day making good and clearing up properly, add 150ish for cost of materials.bang on.
have you seen the price of farrow and ball lately....
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Deepinthewoods, there is a difference between commodity labour and craftsmanship.
Craftsmanship produces a unique product for which there will always be a market, sometimes deep, sometimes not. The price shouldn't matter to your customer because he puts a high value on quality - and can afford it.
But I recall a farmer friend doing a through costing of the agricultural contracting part of his business. He not only exited the business, he started using his former competitors because they were prepared to charge less than the cost of the machine alone, valuing their time at nothing. The same farmer employs Ukrainian workers because they value the money they receive far higher than a local worker does.
There will always be someone offering a cheaper price for a lesser job.
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My £10 an hour man is unskilled so charges accordingly. Having said that, he worked extremely hard doing some heavy work in my garden and got more done in the time than I expected. He is registered for tax but I didn't ask if he pays it. He is probably below the threshold and on Tax credits. As soon as I have some spare cash, i will get him in again to prepare and paint my kitchen ceiling.
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I find the price does not always reflect the quality in the building trade, my ex and his brothers have a firm and so I used to know lots in the trades....we had our fave but some thought they were better than thier standard of work.
IF, you get a good, clean, honest tradesman in ANY trade....give him anything you have to keep him/her..home made cakes, wine, money, ::) etc etc