15K for labour is this fair? - London

evoke

vax2002 makes a good point: you will need several tradesmen, each specialising in a specific job - check that the relevant skills will be brought in as required.

And most importantly, check that the work complies with building regulations and that certificates will be issued where required. Finally, check that the tradesmen have the required accreditations (e.g. Gas Safe registered) as required.

kaiserphoenix

Gosh, this whole thing is stressful....I dun even know where to start! But I think from what Ive read so far, its best to get a specialist for specialist areas like plastering, laying floors, electrics and then get a builder or do it myself i guess...

evoke

kaiserphoenix wrote: »

Gosh, this whole thing is stressful....I dun even know where to start! But I think from what Ive read so far, its best to get a specialist for specialist areas like plastering, laying floors, electrics and then get a builder or do it myself i guess...

Not really. You need to get a building/construction company in to quote for the whole job. They will supply the required skills.

If you know the breakdown of all the work then you can get specialists to quote for each activity, but it doesn't sound like you're confident to manage this as a project.

latecomer

vax2002 wrote: »

And what qualifications does this guy have ?
they are an abundance of unqualified, unexperienced polish bodgit merchants ripping folk off on the strength of these Anti English racist diatribe myths.

so how is it different from most british builders?

the building trade has a well earned reputation - for sub-standard work and/or being expensive (usually both) and thats why polish builders get a lot of work. At least if you get a job done cheaply by a polish tradesmen, you lose less if they do a bad job.

vax2002

latecomer wrote: »

so how is it different from most british builders?

If An English builder messes with your wiring without the relevant certification he goes to gaol and for a damned good reason as well.
The polish guy will just !!!!!! off !
If your wiring is not done by a qualified certified electrician who supplies a test certificate then your insurance is invalid until you get a certificate and if this is a mortgage property that is an extremely dangerous position to be in.
Work out what you want doing and solicit quotes via the Yellow pages and ask to see some form of formal qualification in that trade such as nvq level 2 upwards.
Hiring a bodgit polish grab and run merchant is not only foolish but could cost you severely.
PS another thing.. if these polish tradesmen are so highly skilled, how come the country they come rom is such a mess with such poorly built buildings and the highest structural failure accident rate in the EU, by quite a large margin as well.

evoke

latecomer wrote: »

so how is it different from most british builders?

the building trade has a well earned reputation - for sub-standard work and/or being expensive (usually both) and thats why polish builders get a lot of work. At least if you get a job done cheaply by a polish tradesmen, you lose less if they do a bad job.

And this has been exactly my experience over the last five months. The central heating company I used had English installers. The entire job from start to finish was a bodge - they would turn up for an hour and then disappear for a few hours. The original estimate of £3K rose to me paying out £7K for a basic central heating system in the end. Several problems along the way were mis-diagnosed and I had to get addiitional engineers to fix them.

A handyman I awarded a very, very simple job to (paint an outside wall, hang a few things up and clean windows and gutters ended spreading the job over 5 days instead of the 1.5 it should have taken, the quality of the work was very poor and messy and he charged a small fortune for the bodge.

Same with a guy I hired to re-oil my decking: £720 for a job he said would take 2-3 days. It took him half a day and he used a roller to splash the decking oil on. I had to get the whole lot redone.

My electrics, double-glazing, decorating, carpets, wood flooring and second-fix work was all done by Eastern Europeans - the work was clean and tidy, on budget and the workers worked long hours, never created a fuss, were polite and friendly and resolved all problems without any moaning whatsoever.

Polish workers every time for me.

vax2002

evoke wrote: »

My electrics, double-glazing, decorating, carpets, wood flooring and second-fix work was all done by Eastern Europeans - the work was clean and tidy, on budget and the workers worked long hours, never created a fuss, were polite and friendly and resolved all problems without any moaning whatsoever.

Polish workers every time for me.

Hope you got the relevant certification for the wiring, if not, guess what, you have no insurance.
But no doubt you will be back to tell us he did, because like the rest of the post, it is bull, self hating liberal rubbish

latecomer

vax2002 wrote: »

If An English builder messes with your wiring

I presume from your posts that you are a british electrician then?

I think you'll find that if anyone who is unqualified does work thats illegal that the law should treat then equally. And your insurance would be invalid in either case.

vax2002 wrote: »

PS another thing.. if these polish tradesmen are so highly skilled, how come the country they come rom is such a mess with such poorly built buildings and the highest structural failure accident rate in the EU, by quite a large margin as well.

care to provide any substantiation for those claims?

kaiserphoenix

Thank you all for your reply. I decided to call up individual trademen and compare their quotes with what the Polish dude quoted me on for the same tasks. I also didnt know about how it may affect my insurance so will definately check up on this as well.

evoke

vax2002 wrote: »

Hope you got the relevant certification for the wiring, if not, guess what, you have no insurance.
But no doubt you will be back to tell us he did, because like the rest of the post, it is bull, self hating liberal rubbish

I have ALL of the relevant certifications and checked accreditations before employing the services of any tradesmen that requires accrediations - right down to NACOS certification for my alarm system for my contents insurance.

Ironically, the previous electrical 'certiifcates' done by a mate of the vendor turned out to be dodgy - he was English. My electricians were all Polish (up to four on site per day, each specialising in a different aspect of electrical work). The owner of the company accompanied me on the day that the electrical safety tests were being conducted and explained each test to me (I have a good knowledge of electrics and electronics anyway) and showed me each test being conducted and the results.

The window installes were Polish and Albanian - I received a FENSA certificate and a 10-year guarantee for the double glazing.

The heating engineers were English. I received no guarantee and had to contact Worcester Bosch directly. I received no Building Control certificate and am still awaiting one, despite the work having been done over four months ago.

Sorry if the truth hurts - I have forked out £40K+ so far and have another £10K of work happening over the next 6 weeks. That's £50K of experience to go on over what will be 6 months.

There is no substitute for experience, as the saying goes.