This is getting silly.
We did have someone that was very good in sorting the kitchen last year, as a prime contractor, organising all of the necessary workmen quickly and reliably.
Sadly he has badly let us down converting the garage and we are making no progress at all. He did eventually get the builder in, to look and go away and come back with a quote ... except he has not come back with a quote! WTF?
I need someone to co-ordinate builder, electrician, gas engineer, plasterer, decorator, etc, and get this all sorted for me, as well as sorting building regs and inspection as needed.
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You need to pick up the phone and politely ask. If they are just not getting the job done then it's time to get someone else in.
ReplyDeleteIt is surprisingly hard to find decent builders etc. I have no idea why,
ReplyDeleteOnce a builder etc. has their relevant qualification then there's basically no reason for them to do a quality job.. there's sufficient demand that even the bad ones have full order books (which is why for example if you get a quote for a small job 9 times out of 10 they won't bother turning up).
DeleteWhat's needed is more competition, so they'd have to compete.
The house I live in was build in 1911 so we've had our fair share of trademen and I constantly wonder why there isn't a better way to this.
ReplyDeleteStep 1, find the right person to do the job. An almost impossible task with many tradesmen offering their services for many different types of work. I find freeindex quite useful here as they bid for your work.
Step 2, actually get them to arrive to gather the information for a quote. Getting time of work to do this only to get a no show (has happened many times) is frustrating. Even worse if you try to get at least three quotes to compare. Despite asking three trademen to quote I have never been able to get as many as three.
Step 3, get the quote. It just amazes me how many trademen just disappear from the face of the earth after promising me to send the quote in "a couple of days".
Step 4, arrange a start date, usually an easy step because it just consists of a promise that will rarely be kept.
Step 5, trademan turns up and starts the job. Short jobs aren't usually a problem but if job length exceeds three days then expect the trademen to go to "father's / mothers' / some relative's funeral"; I don't think I've every had a trademan not go to a funeral on a long job.
Step 6, remind trademan of what he agreed to do before he finished the job because he *will* forget. I've learned to get it all written down up front.
Step 7, trademan sends in bill, this is the first thing that will happen to plan.
Step 8, pay.