Quotes

ANGLICANPAT

How long do you usually have to wait for a quote? Just lately it feels like tooooo long.
A simple rough cut back gate of a normal size with hinges, rim lock and a bolt. Two handyman and one 'do it all' gardening company visits. One 7 days ago, one 4 days ago , and as yet, no -one has come back to me.
I thought firms were crying out for work ! I would have thought getting quotes in and accepted would be a priority but obviously Im wrong .

manda1205

We've just had 4 quotes for our roof, 1 came back in a couple of days, 2 were 8 days later and 1 I've still not heard from over 2 weeks ago.
We're having an extension done at the moment, and I have constantly had to chase tradesmen. As you say you'd think they want the work, it sometimes makes me think they just don't want to work too hard and happy ticking over slowly.

fluffpot

I would allow a week - don't forget if a trades person is working all day the only time they get to write up quotes is in the evenings or weekends.

minibbb

Ive waited three weeks for a kitchen quote from my joiner- i'll give him until Monday and if no news will go elsewhere.

A long delay in providing a quote is a massive put off for me- I understand they are busy but they need to realise that it'll get people's backs up when they dont get back to you!

Furts

In defence of good tradesmen and professionals I would add the following.

A good tradesman will never be out of work and life becomes a task of trying to keep up with the constant enquiries. There is a limit to the hours in the day and the tradesman has to make choices. He will weigh up good customers, bad customers and customers where he may be wasting his time to produce a quote. Quotes are produced FOC and tradesmen are not charities.

Many homeowners think tradesmen should be almost grateful to be asked to quote for something, or they are almost doing them a favour by inviting them round in these difficult times...

The truth is there is a chronic shortage of good tradesmen in the UK and it is getting progressively worse. Bluntly, there are not enough to pass around.

ANGLICANPAT

fluffpot wrote: »

I would allow a week - don't forget if a trades person is working all day the only time they get to write up quotes is in the evenings or weekends.

Im not even asking for a written quote. My way is to ask for a verbal quote, and then if I want to take it up, I ask for it in writing.
Surely a tradesman would have a pretty good idea of the price of wood , and have a supply of screws etc and a twenty second search on Screwfix will fill in the gaps. He must know what he charges per hour for his labour, so how long can it take to give the client a verbal quote.
If its correct that Britain is short of tradespeople, then we should have no tradespeople on the dole, and maybe the Govt should be embarking on many more apprentice schemes , so that if their house building spree gets off the ground, we have the tradesmen to go with it .

Furts

ANGLICANPAT wrote: »

Im not even asking for a written quote. My way is to ask for a verbal quote, and then if I want to take it up, I ask for it in writing.
Surely a tradesman would have a pretty good idea of the price of wood , and have a supply of screws etc and a twenty second search on Screwfix will fill in the gaps. He must know what he charges per hour for his labour, so how long can it take to give the client a verbal quote.
If its correct that Britain is short of tradespeople, then we should have no tradespeople on the dole, and maybe the Govt should be embarking on many more apprentice schemes , so that if their house building spree gets off the ground, we have the tradesmen to go with it .

The sad story of tradesmen is anyone younger than 50 years old will not have received proper training via an apprenticeship route. This is a huge percentage of the workforce. That is not to say the younger workers are useless, but there are issues with some..and this is a diplomatic reply!

I speak with experience and authority. There is a missing generation from the construction tradesmen and soon to be a second missing generation.There is also an extraordinary number of "older" tradesmen in the industry these days. This partly because there are not the skilled younger workers to fill their places if they did step down.

I was on a house building site last month. All expensive individual, stone built, quality homes. There was one lad of 16-18 mixing up the mortar for bricklayers laying back breaking foundation blocks. He was the only youngster. These bricklayers are age 58 and 60, the groundworker hand trimming rock foundations is age 68, the concrete lorry and skip lorry drivers are age 55 plus, the Site Engineer age 54, the excavator driver age 64. With the exception of the brickies labourer nobody was under 50 years old.

And do not think this was the back waters of the UK - think affluence and high property prices!