Odd jobs for a living!!

HoneysuckleLou

SBOG...really interesting reading your thread. My DH and I do gardening for a living ad my DH also does plastering/painting and decorating and the odd jobs that larger building companies just don't want to know about. You're right the work is out there...sometimes its a case of taking the really little jobs and they develop into something more.

On the licence front, we have had to get a waste carriers licence just even to take grass/hedge cuttings from customers gardens. As I understand it, we have to have it to be legally allowed to even remove it. (I was incredulous when I found out). We are being asked more and more by new customers for evidence of the licence as more people become aware of the change in law. Some one we know who also does gardening for a living, was stopped by the police last year and was give three days to get a licence or face a hefty fine. Not writing this to be critical but from one gardener to another...just to be aware!

chiefgoobster

HoneysuckleLou wrote: »

On the licence front, we have had to get a waste carriers licence just even to take grass/hedge cuttings from customers gardens. QUOTE]


Did u have to see a Turf Accountant for this ?


I'll get me coat. Taxi is waiting anyway.

jetplane

I can understand SBOG's attitude, one mans muck is another mans brass and word of mouth is the best advertising.

However I do think it is people like this who put genuine handymen / oddjob men out of business. Those who are legit, register as self employed, pay for liabilty insurance, waste certificates, licences and registration, etc and need to make an honest living can not compete against those willing to undercut them by charging £10 for an hours work in the pocket.

Maz

jetplane wrote: »

However I do think it is people like this who put genuine handymen / oddjob men out of business. Those who are legit, register as self employed, pay for liabilty insurance, waste certificates, licences and registration, etc and need to make an honest living can not compete against those willing to undercut them by charging £10 for an hours work in the pocket.

Have you actually read SBOG's posts on this thread? If you read back, I think you'll find that he's covered in all the areas that I've highlighted and seem to concern you.

And, surely it's up to him to charge whatever hourly rate he sees fit?? In my experience whenever I've had odd jobs done, £10 per hour seemed to be the going rate.

lori64

pinetree wrote: »

Hi sbog, Do you have a blog? If not you should, as your posts are always interesting and inspiring to many,
good luck to you :T

Yes, I agree about writing a blog....would be an interesting read!

Oh, and I agree about the jobsworths comment...there are always a few to be found on threads like this. The man has stated he is legal and above board, but even if he did make a few quid on the side one day? Who cares!
Good on you mate for being so enterprising!

kezlou

Just like to say well done for being so enterprising!

My only concern is with the "odd jobs" is whether you are qualified to do certain jobs. For instance changing radiators or just having a quick look at a boiler as it making a noise.

I know its sounds bad, and i'm NOT having a go at you just giving a heads up. News laws are coming in regarding clearing gardens, gutters where you are required to have public liability insurance. I know we've just had to pay for it just for an application for a gas engineer job. Shocking.

Were self employed and recently, in fact yesterday, got ripped off by my neighbours. My partner, fully gas safe registered, diagonoses a problem with a boiler. Our neighbour then pays £20 to his "mate" to fix it. In other woods a bidge up merchant. We end up nothing, not even a penny for looking at it.

If anyone does decide to take up doing odd jobs please make sure you actually know what your doing. A friend of mine recently got asbestos poisioning because they took down a shed roof. The people he was doing it for didn't tell him, instead they wanted a cheap job. In the end it was my mate who got the thick end of it.

Please just be careful with your doing. If you have the knowledge and the means go for it!!
If not leave it.

Obviously the OP has got experience so they better equiped and should be applauded for they ingenunity.

Good luck !:D

Should_be_out_gardening

I have been busy and haven't had the time to sit down and type responses, I've read them but then been too tired to type , leaving it *for another day* which is strange as I don't do that in any other part of my life! I'm done for the day and decided to come home and have lunch , stoke up the fire and set about replying.

I wouldn't have the time for a blog as I barely have time for all this, though I see why it might be good.

I'd like to make clear that I am not taking anyone's work away from them , I often work with builders and gardeners in an casual way for a couple of days or a week or two here and there. I know most of the local builders , decorators, plumbers, gardeners mechanics etc. The problem is there are so many cowboys people are in fear of being ripped off. I haven't touted for work for years, when I did put a few ads in I got next to nothing. Most of my work comes word of mouth from others who I have helped and they have seen me working- like a neighbour who is an OAP and I did a little work for and her son met me and asked me to do some for him.

If a job isn't for me or too big I can get good reliable people to help them and often those builders etc will give me a days casual , plus I can get stuff from the skips etc.

Should_be_out_gardening

Oh I should say I wouldn't touch gas or major electrics , I can put up and outside light or and outside garden socket. I have put in an outside tap and water features. If I can't do it I would attempt it , it wouldn't be right plus they'd never ask me again.

The thing is there are too many Ni Viz jacketed cowboys going round ripping folk off, when their neighbours see me cleaning the gutters and cleaning the white UPVC they ask about it and I do theirs. I even got money for putting up and taking down outside Xmas lights

Should_be_out_gardening

jetplane wrote: »

I can understand SBOG's attitude, one mans muck is another mans brass and word of mouth is the best advertising.

However I do think it is people like this who put genuine handymen / oddjob men out of business. Those who are legit, register as self employed, pay for liabilty insurance, waste certificates, licences and registration, etc and need to make an honest living can not compete against those willing to undercut them by charging £10 for an hours work in the pocket.

The thing is though there are few round here who will even look at samll jobs , it just isn't worth it. Now this waste thing has come up more than once - I'll tell you what I did last autumn.

I did some work for a bloke - pointing his garden wall and trimming some trees. I was working for him as he'd seen me doing stuff for his neighbours elderly parents and we got to talking. he lives in a little cul de sac, at the end of which is the railway line down and embankment and a road runs past it. There is this little triangle of land , cut off from the railwayline, seperaterd from the end of the road by bushes and the road by a tumbly down fence.

Now as happens in the less pleasant areas , the the fence on the road was pulled down and folk took to tipping and then youth and zipheads took to taking short cuts through the fence to the cul de sac. They drop little and are a nuisance as well as people have had stuff nicked and the bods have took off through the waste ground.

Now a few of the people on the road had complained to the council - not their land they said. They complained to the railway , not our problem it seemed. No one gave a damn.

I took a look and put to a few of them the idea I would clean it up , repair the fence trim the bushes and make a hedge . I had taken down a fence a while back and the panel was far too good to break so I kept it, I figured on using that to repair the main fence with concrete posts I also had put by.

I cleared the area of grotty rubbish , I got a fair few aluminium beer cans for my stock plus the added bonus of finding a large electrical extension lead on a coil with a stand plus a large roll of membrane the kind put on gardens under the chippings. Thsi must have been dumped their by thieves , they didn't belong to anyone in the cul de sac so I had them . The rubbish was bagged and put in the various wheelie bins around the road.

I put up the fence , I trimmed the bushes and spilt and twisted them together to make a natural barrier. I b=dug up and replanted some hawthorn and place that behind the fence , where the land backed onto one of the gardens I chopped back all the over growth, trimmed a lrge tree that had self set. I had my garden mincer thing there - electric by one of the residents (saves me using mine) chopped up all the bits and kept all the residue to for my compost heaps. All the wood I kept for fire wood.

Took about a day , they whipped together £40 all in . I got the wood, the stuff I found dumped, the beer cans which was about a bin bag full, I dug up a few small buddlia bushes which are all over wasteland and potted them for use in a blokes garden .

While I was there a bloke asked if I could take an old chest of drawers out of his garage. I thought to chop it for fire wood but it looked OK and I was reminded of a mate whose son ran a gym and they wanted to put in a smoothie bar, he'd said he wanted and old style drawer cabinet thing. I shoved it in the estate - if he didn't fancy it I could chop it.

Later at home I took a ,look and it was really OK , I asked him and he said it sounded fine so I sanded it down and put a couple of coats of gloss on it . he gave me £20 for it. Later in the moth when doing a garden I planted the two buddlia and the bloke gave me £10 for them. They look great and when they flower butterflies will come.

So thats £60 straight away that week with another tenner later , no waste , no mess. The fence is still in place , the bushes are budding right now so it's all good.

No one else would have taken that on .

Should_be_out_gardening

HoneysuckleLou wrote: »

SBOG...really interesting reading your thread. My DH and I do gardening for a living ad my DH also does plastering/painting and decorating and the odd jobs that larger building companies just don't want to know about. You're right the work is out there...sometimes its a case of taking the really little jobs and they develop into something more.

On the licence front, we have had to get a waste carriers licence just even to take grass/hedge cuttings from customers gardens. As I understand it, we have to have it to be legally allowed to even remove it. (I was incredulous when I found out). We are being asked more and more by new customers for evidence of the licence as more people become aware of the change in law. Some one we know who also does gardening for a living, was stopped by the police last year and was give three days to get a licence or face a hefty fine. Not writing this to be critical but from one gardener to another...just to be aware!

As I don't drive a marked van just an old estate, and I don't advertise I could easily say anyone I am doing a bit for is an old friend and they usually are. if people needs loads doing and big work I work sometimes for a landscape gardener and I put him on it and he gives me some of the work so it;s win win .

As for waste I am lucky in that my neighbours and old cou8pkle let me grow veg in their garden and we share the produce, I have built from decking off cuts and pallets a couple of really big composting bins in the garden to add to the one in mine. I need all the compost I can get , I shred everything onsite thus saving my electric and take it off in bags. This way I can compost privet etc and I need the grass cuttings to make layers.

Luckily I work a lot for a local farmer and can get rich muck any time and straw. I am looking at using nearly all my compost, all my bin loads of broken rubble bits that I keep for under slabbing and small walls etc - I agreed to fill in an old pond in a garden then build a raised bed with shrubs etc. I have several good railway sleepers I got for nothing from the farmer I often work for. I have to fill in the hole with rubble and soil then build the sleepers into a raised bed then fill with soil. I will be looking for any gren/brown stuff I can find over the coming months as compost - even the nits of mortar off old bricks I keep.

Still it's a good way to clear out all the stuff from the garden, especially now all the logs have gone - another worry here, I'm down to burning chairs and an old table I pulled from a skip. I have some old pallets I found. I need to go a hunting!