choose your tradesman and quote

blossom30

Dear Mser's, I just had to share this with you as I have had a lot of very good advice from this site. I receive e-mails from love and money and on a recent e-mail they were singing the praises of a website www.mybuilder.com It is a free site that you can post a job get a quote from local tradesmen and view feedback from other jobs. I have posted a job recently and within 24 hrs I have had 3 quotes. You also get background info on the tradesmen qualifications etc I will follow this up when the job is done to let you know how I got on. shrewdalx

dander

Hello
I used the same site to advertise the extension job I'm currently doing. I had plenty of interest and have verbally agreed the deal with someone now - again I'll be able to fully review the experience once the job is done, but I agree, it's a great, really helpful site.

suisidevw

Used a similar one, ratedpeople or rated something or other and it was similar. I put in the spec of what I wanted and had 3 quotes almost immediately, and arrangements for quotes. excellent!

baldelectrician

I am listed with mybuilder.com, but they want to charge a fee to have the chance of getting jobs or obtaining contact details for a prospective client.

As far as the qualifications go- they do not seem to check.

I have noticed a lot of electrical people specify 'inspection and testing'- most insurance companies specify NICEIC / ECA / SELECT registration.

I have found it a dutch auction. Most decent tradespeople still have jobs on and can't start tomorrow. There is a lot of 'all trades' doing electrical jobs. This may not be the end of the world, but if I did plastering it would look as if I had done it.

Most of the electrical not to standard problems I see occur in kitchens where 'the same guy did it all'.

You usually get what you pay for

Bishop_Basher

baldelectrician wrote: »

I am listed with mybuilder.com, but they want to charge a fee to have the chance of getting jobs or obtaining contact details for a prospective client.

As far as the qualifications go- they do not seem to check.

I have noticed a lot of electrical people specify 'inspection and testing'- most insurance companies specify NICEIC / ECA / SELECT registration.

I have found it a dutch auction. Most decent tradespeople still have jobs on and can't start tomorrow. There is a lot of 'all trades' doing electrical jobs. This may not be the end of the world, but if I did plastering it would look as if I had done it.

Most of the electrical not to standard problems I see occur in kitchens where 'the same guy did it all'.

You usually get what you pay for

I'm also registered on there, though I've never bothered with it, to me it seems all they're after is the cheapest possible job.

And I never knew there was so many 'multi-skilled' tradesmen! :rolleyes:

dander

How does the quality of the other tradesmen make a difference to you? Surely if you are using it to find work, it's the quality of the customer you should be worrying about!

Bishop_Basher

dander wrote: »

How does the quality of the other tradesmen make a difference to you? Surely if you are using it to find work, it's the quality of the customer you should be worrying about!

The point being that some of the 'tradesmen' are only operating on the site simply because the checks of accreditation are non-existant, they only recently asked that tradesmen have public liability insurance, but even that is only a verbal check.
And as I've already said, I've never used the site to find work.

dander

Ah, well, you'll miss out on my pennies then, because I think it's really helpful! :T

It's not as if you employ someone based purely on what you read on a website - you just use it to make the initial contacts for getting quotes and meeting them etc. You can check the details later - but at least you know what they claim they can/can't do - which is a damn site more than you get from the yellow pages.

It seems to me really odd to refuse to get involved with this type of marketing when there are loads of customers out there that want systems like this to find you. Just look at how many posts you get on this forum saying "can anyone recommend a builder in manchester?" etc - people want/need help, they get far more security from a proper website than leaving a message on a forum.

thehairybuilder

dander wrote: »

Ah, well, you'll miss out on my pennies then, because I think it's really helpful! :T

It's not as if you employ someone based purely on what you read on a website - you just use it to make the initial contacts for getting quotes and meeting them etc. You can check the details later - but at least you know what they claim they can/can't do - which is a damn site more than you get from the yellow pages.

It seems to me really odd to refuse to get involved with this type of marketing when there are loads of customers out there that want systems like this to find you. Just look at how many posts you get on this forum saying "can anyone recommend a builder in manchester?" etc - people want/need help, they get far more security from a proper website than leaving a message on a forum.

You miss the point that Bishop is making , I think .
He seems to be saying that the `tradesmen` advertising on these sites may not actually be tradesmen at all but more likely to be jack of all trades master of none men .
I wouldn`t be comfortable with an unqualified uninsured DIY Joe poking around my house pretending to be a pro that`s for sure .
If you don`t know any better I guess it may be easy to be taken in by a smooth talking chancer pretending to be a qualified tradesmen .
By all means take a wander through them but I would proceed with caution if using these type of sites to employ anyone .
Even in todays credit crunch GB I don`t know of a single tradesman , of any sort , who I could call out for a job tomorrow . They are all busy so if nothing else please don`t think that someone calling on you the day after your enquiry is a good thing . If a tradesman is sitting at home and not out working then there`s a reason for this

Bishop_Basher

dander wrote: »

Ah, well, you'll miss out on my pennies then, because I think it's really helpful! :T

It's not as if you employ someone based purely on what you read on a website - you just use it to make the initial contacts for getting quotes and meeting them etc. You can check the details later - but at least you know what they claim they can/can't do - which is a damn site more than you get from the yellow pages.

It seems to me really odd to refuse to get involved with this type of marketing when there are loads of customers out there that want systems like this to find you. Just look at how many posts you get on this forum saying "can anyone recommend a builder in manchester?" etc - people want/need help, they get far more security from a proper website than leaving a message on a forum.

I've never needed it, I get my work from recommendation and... the Yellow Pages!!

dander

thehairybuilder wrote: »

Even in todays credit crunch GB I don`t know of a single tradesman , of any sort , who I could call out for a job tomorrow . They are all busy so if nothing else please don`t think that someone calling on you the day after your enquiry is a good thing

I think you must have misunderstood how the website work. There's nothing about calling someone out instantly.It's just using the internet to find tradesmen and at the end of the job you can leave them a review, good or bad as you see fit.

I simply can't see why just because it's a website it's going to be full of cowboys - it's just using modern communication methods. Phone books don't check references and registrations either and I've seen plenty of people on these forums who've had problems with people that have been recommended to them.

Anyway, I can see we'll never agree!