Rennovating House - Trade Discounts - Which Suppliers

southcoastrgi

no one is fleecing anyone on here, we just give advice, some people like it & some don't.

the name of this site is Martin's MSE however he sold it a while ago do you think he gave it up for free ? Martin has his own show on friday nights & i'm sure saves people alot of money, but does he do it for free ? he is featured on lots of shows showing people how to save money, does he do it for free ? No of course he doesn't he is paid very highly for showing others how to save money.

Ok here is a hypothetical situation,

Steel mill buys raw materials for use in making a boiler, cost to them £10
Boiler manu buys the metal it needs from above, cost to them £50
Merchant buys the boiler, cost to them £100
Tradesman buys the boiler, cost to them £150
Customer buys the boiler from the tradesman, cost to them £200

now can you tell me why you think that the only company that isn't allowed to make any money in the above situation is the tradesman ?.

yes we would love to be able to go direct to the manu & buy it for £100 & sell it to the customer for £150 but then we would be cutting the merchant out of the loop & put them out of business, but according to you & a great many others on here the only company that isn't allowed to make money to support their business & make a profit to cover the overheads is the poor old tradesman, because according to you he is ripping everyone off.

OP ask your wife how much she gets paid by her company per hour (ie approx 2 fillings), then ask her how much the materials cost to do those 2 fillings, now ask yourself if those fillings actually cost £x in materials & woman hours then why does the customer get charged £x ?

It's called overheads & this is paid for out of the company profits, what you & a number of others are trying to do is takeaway those profits from the tradesman, meaning they can't pay their overheads & will have to fund them out of the labour charge thus reducing their take home pay & some already think that trades charge too much.

Like i said the building industry is the ONLY thing where people think they are being ripped off.

sell your house do you really think your solicitor has done enough work to warrent the thousands of pounds you have to pay, or the estate agent that comes out does a few measurements, takes a few pretty pics, then sits behind a desk charging you thousands for selling it.

LEJC

we have recently done a renovation and to be honest we found toolstation to be just as competitive as some of the "trade discount " offers.

Howdens will probably offer you 10%,although thats nothing compared to the 70% that they will offer a kitchen fitter,so it was an area that we negotiated with our kitchen fitter to share the discount.

Otherwise we also made use of discount days at places like B&q etc and ordered online through websites like quidco for store collection.
In honesty the trade discounts are given to those who are using the trade more frequently than the renovation of one house.

No idea where you are based,but STAX was somewhere that our guy used quite a lot to get reasonably priced items, it is by membership only so again it is trade preferred.

For areas such as hiring sanders etc for your floors or steamers then we hired over weekends that were attached to bank holidays,when you are only charged for weekend rates...and worked out much cheaper than weekday rates.

nickj_2

teneighty wrote: »

Looks like I hit a raw nerve.

I wonder if some of the people on here are pulling that old scam of getting big discounts but charging their customers full retail price? Naughty naughty. Magnets and Howdens account holders speciality.

If so I think they missed the name of this web site. Its not called "how to get fleeced by dodgy tradesmen dot com"

it's life, why shouldn't tradespeople make a bit extra , if people want to search out, and supply their own materials then they are more than welcome , when you go to the builders yard to pick stuff up it costs , traders aren't going there for love , if it takes an hour , then that's an hour of your time , so if you save 10-20% here and then then so be it , wether they pass some or all of their savings on to the customer is their perogative .
anything else you buy will have a mark up , food , petrol , the pc you are using

shrub100

Toothsmith wrote: »

She rejected the jobs she did because when the surgery owners took off what they considered to be the running costs - your wife felt that without working much too quickly she could not earn the income she wanted to. That is fair enough. What we earn is an important consideration in what job we choose.

But don't dress it up as the rejected places being 'bad' and your wife being an angel. I'm sure she's a great dentist and she chose a job where she felt she could do good work. But she would also have chosen a job where she can earn a decent living whilst doing the good work.

In the spirit of a forum I will respond to provide insight and experience, but I hope this is taken in that manner. I apologize for this being 100% off topic.

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The principle of what you say is absolutely right - nobody can force her to work unethically. You are also right in saying that maybe she could not keep up with the UDA rate being suggested by the practices and that is her issue and nothing more.

However, the surgeries (emphasize the 'ies') that she rejected, were outright telling her that she was not allowed to undertake certain treatments such as root canals on the NHS.

This is 100% against the terms of the NHS contract.

Now nobody can force you to work unethically, however I hope we can all appreciate what kind of working relationship one would have with the owners of such a practice if this is the outright statement in the interview.

Yes reporting them could be an option, but in the grand scheme of things the last thing you want when starting a new job is to go in knowing that you are likely to have to make a formal complaint to the regulator about the practice!

We did both also seriously consider reporting them, but with no evidence there is little that could be done.

shrub100

Hi all,

Thanks for the responses. Back on topic regarding the trade discounts. I agree with you all that any discount likely to be received will be minor, but at least it does open the option of utilizing some of the trade options. To be honest I have a neighbor who has done quite a bit of building work for us so it may be worthwhile going through him and using his team for the more involved work.

shrub100

southcoastrgi wrote: »

sorry KS you got in first.

you are joking of course, in what way do you think your wife being a dentist entitles to you to trade discount in the building industry ? unless you think her being able to build a bridge counts

With regard to the trade discount thing....I think there are some really odd views going on here.

In my mind, organisations have the option of closing or opening the doors to whatever customers they like. If they want to specify that only builders and the like can purchase from them then they can.

However they choose not to, and open the offer to ANYONE who is self employed as well as self employed Dentists. As far as I am concerned I don't feel like I am doing any harm purchasing from an organisation who have self declared that we are eligible. After all they will be making money from us!

One interesting point to note, I work for a large multinational. A number of the large food wholesalers have proactively approached our company to offer any of our employees a trade card in their store. If I were to follow what some in this thread have indicated, I should refuse this card because on moral grounds I am doing a disservice to retail businesses who whom would otherwise sell the products to me at a higher price.

Hopefully anyone with sense can admit that is rubbish.

I pride myself on my integrity, and will follow the rules to the letter both in terms of building regulations and store policies as well as every other aspect of my life. But don't expect me to hold myself back based on pseudo morality!

Finally, I have no issue with tradesmen making money from things that they purchase on my behalf. They are offering a service to get the parts and I am happy for them to profit from it. On this very day my mechanic sourced a load of parts for my motorcycle. He asked if he could purchase them instead of me as he gets a discount, but he offered me the same price as I had found online. I authorized him to make the purchases and didn't even consider asking him to share the discount with me.

In my eyes, trying to find the best price using the various discounts, trade promotions etc available to me is just common sense. I regularly do this, as I am sure you do, when I decide to research a product and purchase it online. The price online is often significantly cheaper than in store (and I am not talking about finding a product in store and then purchasing online - that never feels right to me).

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Right - I think that will be my last post on this forum. I cannot really believe the aggression and outrage I have caused with a topic as small as "who offers the best trade price building materials".

Thanks to all those whom offered genuine assistance and guidance. Your views were really appreciated, and I have genuinely rethought about how I approach this project and the purchasing of my materials.

shrub100

Toothsmith wrote: »

Your initial one didn't - but calling the 'average' member of any profession, job or trade 'unethical' is rather ignorant.

Final final note - just reread the thread. Toothsmith I absolutely take your point and it was in bad taste that I made that comment.

If the truth be known I felt like the first post was fairly aggressive, so I was making a poor attempt to show empathy to a perspective that many in the general public have and I assumed was coming out in the thread.

It is great to see someone else sticking up for dentists and I am all for it.

paddyrg

Just a thought, buying 'trade' means not buying retail, so it's a business to business transition - consumer rights may/do not apply. Not sure that makes a huge difference, but there we go.

In my line of business, all the hire companies publish rate cards - only inexperienced punters would not push for discounts. Guess this is just the same... 'OK, thats great, so what's the best price you can do me?', etc.

keystone

jonwestuk wrote: »

............, but why are you so aggressive?

I'm not. I, like others, can only react to what you write. Did I not say that? My post was in direct response to what you wrote so if you think I was agressive you might just have to shoulder some of the responsibility.

I am honestly not a chancer or some kind of idiot. I have undertaken some very serious electrical and plumbing renovations in the past and have good experience.

Fine. I accept that. If you had said so in the first place then my reaction to your post would probably have been rather more moderate.

In terms of the project, we are talking about adding a few additional plugs and some additional down lights - hardly rocket science.

Funny but the word renovation kinda conjures up rather more extensive works but if thats all you are doing you won't be breaking any rules by doing it yourself unless its a Part P issue due to location.

With the regulations as the are I want to do everything above board and most importantly safely.

Good.

With regard to my wife - I feel your pain regarding the average Dentist being unethical. However there is an exception that proves every rule. My wife had to turn down more than 10 jobs to find a practice that was not going to push her to work in a manner that put patients needs behind profit.

Whoa Tiger! What are you smoking? Where did I say anything like that?

I appreciate any input I get when asking on forums, but I would advise you to be a bit more cautious and don't make rash judgments on people that you do not know.

Have you looked in the mirror recently?

Apologies if my post came across as money grabbing or in poor taste.

Well it did to me which is why I reacted the way I did. I also had visions of hundreds of "how do I do this" threads coming along because your first post suggested you don't have much of a clue although I appreciate you subsequently provided more data which gives the lie to that idea. I did also apologise if what I said offended did I not?

Cheers

keystone

teneighty wrote: »

Dont worry about the other posts. It seems to be the norm now on this forum to just attack posters rather than give advice.

Is it that easy to be smug with the benefit of hindsight? If OP had provided the information in his first post that he included in his second then he would have got a different reaction. Could you please enlighten me as to where I attacked the poster rather than responding to what he wrote?

Good Luck

I agree

Cheers