so. HOW do you find a builder?

paye

paye wrote: »

we don't always drink tea tea tea & biscuits loool.

What are you planning to have done, maybe I can recommend a few companies. I work for a main contractor as a bean counter lool (Quantity Surveyor).

Just remember when ever you employ a builder for high value works always check out their insurance details by asking for a copy of them. Any professional builder will be more than happy to provide you with this information,

Leif

cyclonebri1 wrote: »

Recomendation, it's the only way, plus try to find someone local so you can actually knock on their door if you reach issues.

And also because I hate national companies in respect of building works and believe we, you, should support the local rather than national economy.:beer:

Sorry for the slight rant,

Agreed. Recommendation from someone you know and trust i.e not someone with low standards, or who gets a commission. All the trades I got by personal recommendation did professional work, some very good.

Fed_Up_Tradesman wrote: »

Dunno.

How do you find a good customer ?

Not the ones who just scream "cheap", "cheap", "cheap" then go crying on internet forums when the job is rubbish.

Tis a conundrum to be sure ...

What's wrong with mybuilder?

My sister had the wrong tooth pulled out once.

Can't wait for Cowboy Dentists & Cowboy Doctors & Cowboy Solicitors & Cowboy Hairdressers & Cowboy Customers & Cowboy Teachers & Cowboy Estate Agents on TV. Can you ?

Life is erm difficult isn't it...

I've never been to an incompetent dentist, or doctor, or whatever. But they do exist. An incompetent doctor can be struck off and it does happen. However, it is near impossible to get an incompetent trade struck off. I would say that dishonest or sloppy trades are fairly common, as anyone can call themselves a builder. Good ones are hard to find.

By the way, I did meet an incomptent teacher. She was an extreme leftie, who verbally abused me, when I was about 13 years old, calling me a "F---ing middle class b*****d" amongst other things. Could I get her punished? Ha ha ha.

" What's wrong with mybuilder?"

I used CheckATrade, and in my opinion they should be avoided at all costs. I had two people from them, one so so and not reliable, and I would not use them again, and one incompetent and dishonest. After getting three surveys of a badly half fitted bathroom, the cowboys simply disputed all the findings, and washed their hands of me. I had to have it completely redone. CheckATrade did nothing whatsoever to help or mediate. They even allowed the cowboys to post a response that was full of untruths, including the claim that I prevented them having an independent inspection of the bathroom. I showed letters, some from the cowboys, proving their response contained lies. Did they do remove it? No. The work was completely incompetent, and looked appalling. It was also potentially dangerous due to large loose wall tiles in the bath area.

Five months later and Trading Standards offered to mediate. It turned out they were on a TS Buy With Confidence scheme. After inspecting the surveys, TS agree that I was within my rights to throw them out and demand compensation. TS are now talking to the cowboys, to get them to recognise their liability, and offer compensation. And I beleive they will not allow them to remain on the BWC scheme unless they take appropriate action i.e. refund me, and go on a bathroom fitting course. However, as yet it is not clear what TS will do to the cowboys once I have been refunded, or I have taken them to court if they do not offer a refund.

So are companies like CheckATrade good? No! They are paid for advertising boards, no more, no less. The trade is the customer, not the public. And in the case of CheckATrade they do not give a damn if a trade lies about the work they did, and the work is incompetent. There are also a lot of comments from trades online that indicate that many reviews on CheckATrade are posted by the trades themselves. However, they are unsubstantiated claims, so take them as you wish.

Incidentally, there are good trades on CheckATrade, and other sites. The problem is that the scoring system does not allow you to filter out the charlatans. The cowboys I employed had 47 glowing reviews saying things like "First rate work, and such nice people", with a score of 9.7.

Another problem with sites like CheckATrade is that the work only has to look good enough for the customer to give a good score. It does not need to be good. If 3 months later it falls apart, tough, you've posted a review. You can't edit your review. But CheckATrade DO edit reviews. They edited mine from "I have lost £3000" to "I have made a financial loss". Quite a difference.

Lastly, good trades will tell you that they have to turn away work, as they have such a good reputation. So why would a good trade go on MyBuilder or CheackATrade? Either they are bad workers, or they are new to the job.

cyclonebri1

111KAB wrote: »

Might be an idea to say what sort of project you are undertaking and area of the country. That way you may get some recommendations via this forum.

Without offence I think that is the worst possible thing the op could do. It's just to important a subject to take advice from an anonymous source such as users of this site. Fred Bloggs is simply going to recoment his brother,
Also anyone who hangs around here long enough will realise that there are widely held differnt beliefs of what is value and acceptable standard etc


Oh, and Lief, I did once visit an incompetant dentist.
Tried doing a filling, unfortunately he had not secured the hypodermic to the syringe correctly. I got the entire contents down the neck and had to spit out the needle, frozen clack for 2 hours.

Yes I did change my dentist:mad:

Leif

cyclonebri1 wrote: »

Oh, and Lief, I did once visit an incompetant dentist.
Tried doing a filling, unfortunately he had not secured the hypodermic to the syringe correctly. I got the entire contents down the neck and had to spit out the needle, frozen clack for 2 hours.

Yes I did change my dentist:mad:

I did not say they do not exist, but dentistry is regulated. I do hope you reported him. If a dentist really is incompetent, rather than making an acceptable mistake, then he/she can be struck off. And they do get many years of training. Anyone can call themselves a builder. The cowboys I got did not know the basics of tiling, or bathroom installation. Caveat emptor.

Toothsmith

Yulka1974 wrote: »

since "mybuilder" & co is not all god
and I do not have anyone who can recommend a builder
how I could find a trusted builder?
not the one who just "money-money-money!!" or "tea-tea-tea! and biscuits!"

Why not have a wander round your neighbourhood and see if anyone else is having building work done - especially if someone is having something similar to you.

Then just knock on the door and ask if they'd recommend the person doing it.

Get a good first hand recommendation and probably get to know a new person at the same time!

namecheck

Toothsmith wrote: »

Why not have a wander round your neighbourhood and see if anyone else is having building work done - especially if someone is having something similar to you.

Then just knock on the door and ask if they'd recommend the person doing it.

Get a good first hand recommendation and probably get to know a new person at the same time!

I did this..and the tradesman was (genuinely) booked up for the following 18 months!

Fed_Up_Tradesman

Leif

You and others who use these trade websites seem to labouring under a major misapprehension.

I do not know of any of these type of sites that make any claims about the quality of their registered tradesmen let alone state they will intervene and mediate when things go wrong.

When you look through the smoke and mirrors of their marketing nonsense, they're just trade directories who are all making money out of you - the customer as all trades have to pay for the service - so you end up paying for that in the cost of your project. Simples.

I'm registered with several of them so know how they operate from first hand experience.

Imo it's rather silly to even expect these providers to somehow step in and kill their own cash cow isn't it ?

If you can point out where any of them say they will mediate and intervene and adjudicate then please point it out and I'll shut up.

If you can't do that then you are indeed making incorrect assumptions about the service that they offer.

Your contract is with the tradesman that you choose not the internediary - they're not charging you a penny and so have no obligation to you whatsoever.

Would you expect Yellow Pages to intervene in a dispute with one of their advertisers ?

Your local paper perhaps ?

If you had a bad experience with a Yellow Pages tradesman would you then proclaim that Yellow Pages "is bad" ?

If you had a bad experience from a reccomendation from a friend would you then say that your friend is bad ?

I'm intrigued as to how you go about getting your car serviced, choosing a school for your children, choosing which dentist you use, which doctor, which hospital, which holiday company etc etc etc

Life is full of all kinds of problems and choosing builders presents it's own problems just as choosing all the other services you might want to use also does.

Maybe, if the ranting middle calls media !!!!!s would devote so much time and effort into weedling out and exposing every other type of service provider like they have done with "cowboy builders" etc., then you might see my point.

I had stitches left in my back the other week after the highly trained nurse removed them.

Should I now proclaim that the entire hospital or NHS is bad do you think ?

Daisy70

checkatrade.com is good, I found a very good fence company through them.

Fed_Up_Tradesman

I'm extremely good at what I do. I'm registered on lots of these sites and once you've weeded out the dross from the seriuous enquiries there are some proper leads avilable to go after.

My problem as a tradesman is paying for the leads that have been posted by people who are just fishing for prices.

Mybuilder charge £12 + VAT for a bathroom lead = £14.40 just to get hold of someone's telephone number. Once you've then spent time travelling and visiting them, working out a quote and following it up they invariably disappear and nothing is heard again. Simply because they're fishing for ideas of what it would cost.

Of course this happens no matter where the lead comes from, only this time you're having to pay for the time wasters.

It doesn't take a Pythagoras to calculate that with a few of these each week, you're soon doomed on advertising / lead expenditure in addition to quarterly membership fees.

Myhammer gives the tradesman the option of buying the lead up front, a recent bathroom lead on there cost me £7 inc. or not doing that and paying a success fee of 6% + 19% German VAT for the cost of the entire job.

So, for example on a £2k bathroom you'd have to factor in a myhammer commission of £143 !!!!

Guess who's paying that ...

These fees along with quoting against so many other competitors is just driving down prices.

And you know what happens next don't you...

Hence many tradesmen are of the view that in the long term these sites are doing nobody any good whatsoever.

Toothsmith

namecheck wrote: »

I did this..and the tradesman was (genuinely) booked up for the following 18 months!

Well that's a good one then!

Would an 18 month wait be so bad for the right person?

After all, if a bad person did it, you could well still be having problems and things fixed and sorted for well over 18 months after the job is 'finished'.