Are there really that many bad tradesmen around??

PhilE

In the last 8 months I've had a heating engineer smash asbestos in my house and cause me to vacate my property. He then declared himself bankrupt. A wooden floor company did a pathetic job of my floor. A worker from an asbestos company stole some small items from my house. A carpenter paid to repair my floorboards left them in a state.

That's over half the tradesmen in my home within a year who've failed to do their jobs. I'm wondering if its bad luck, or if this is to be expected in the industry in this country?!

Furts

There is an all round problem in the home improvement industry. There are not enough good trades people to satisfy the market. Couple this with apprenticeships becoming non existent around 30-35 years ago and matters are likely to get worse. The age profile in the construction industry is a real cause for concern for the future well being of this country because the properly trained trades are now in their silver haired era. When they have retired there will be a real problem!

A common scenario is consumers do not undertake due diligence with selecting trades folks. Even if they do, there is frequently a failure with specifying, managing, inspecting and signing off the work. Consumers might say "why should I?" but this is an ostrich mentality. Architects, Quantity Surveyors, Main Contractors and Social Housing Landlords work on this basis, albeit to different degrees. Yet consumers think they need not. It always amazes me that consumers believe they are an exception to this rule, yet they complain when things go wrong.

PhilE

Point taken, but the trader I used for my floors was older, supposedly qualified and experienced and messed things up.

The 2 tradesmen who were good are both in their 30's and did an excellent job. Saying that the initial heating installer was in his early 40's so not old as such.

I'm not sure if its an age thing, more that people can take the P and get away with it. All a limited company ever has to do is declare bankruptcy and get away with whatever bad mistakes they've made.

And the question is, how do consumers select tradesmen? Apart from word of mouth, there's the internet. On checkatrade, mybuilder the sun is shining out of everyone's backsides.

Perhaps its the age we live in; British work ethics and craftsmanship used to set the standard for the world to follow. Now its significantly less than that.

Carrot007

My experience. Avoid british workers unless you know they are good. Can't fault the foriegn ones in my experience.

Where are you choosing these workmen from anyway, that could be the problem.

Or learn to do it yourself.

Or learn enough and stand over them. Any good workman would not be upset after they see you are interested in learning more how to do it yourself.

bris

Most good tradesman are working for bigger companies with long term contracts. The tradesman that answers the little diy jobs like this tend to be a hit or miss.


A lot of them are like Yosser Hughes, "geez a job I can do that" (showing my age there).


Recommendations from family and friends are crucial when letting someone into your home.


I'm surprised about the heating engineer though, they need to be to a certain standard, make sure to check the Gas safe register before trusting one.

PhilE

He was and continues to be gas safe, NICEIC. Informed both of the situation, neither cared.

fezster

PhilE wrote: »

All a limited company ever has to do is declare bankruptcy and get away with whatever bad mistakes they've made.

Which is why the good tradesmen will want to ensure their business always has a good reputation and history. Part of the due diligence should be how long ago the company was registered or how long a business has been trading for. If a tradesmen has a string of companies to his name as a director, that's a tell-tale sign they should probably be avoided.

molerat

PhilE wrote: »

He was and continues to be gas safe, NICEIC. Informed both of the situation, neither cared.

Agreed totally meaningless. Unless they actually blow the house up then not interested.

My son had an overheating boiler. Over 2 years or so BG had replaced about every replaceable part on it with no improvement, said power flush next then new boiler. Indy gas man just sucked air in through his teeth and said it was the control board (actually impossible for the fault) which could not be sourced (readily available part) so new boiler for £2.5K was the only option. I spent about 1hr diagnosing the off boiler fault, zone valve leaking into motor head microswitch keeping boiler running after valve had closed. Boiler has not missed a beat for almost 2 years now !

Electricians put in new cable run for uprated electric shower. Could not get the figures to work so filled in the final figure and worked backwards to get the right numbers.

Conservatory fitted by major retailer. 5 different "professional" conservatory installation companies tried to get it right resorting to taking it down and completely replacing including digging out the foundations again.

comeandgo

Where are you finding these tradesmen that are so useless. In all my fifty odd years I have never had a dud tradesman. Pick a company with years of history, look at companies house for info on the Ltd companies but it does not mean much if company not trading as ltd. Go to industrial sites near you and see who is there, check them out. I would never use a one man band unless I knew him.
Maybe not very MSE but I never get estimates prior to using them, a good reliable tradesman is worth their weight in gold. None have charged ridiculous prices.

PhilE

comeandgo wrote: »

Where are you finding these tradesmen that are so useless. In all my fifty odd years I have never had a dud tradesman. Pick a company with years of history, look at companies house for info on the Ltd companies but it does not mean much if company not trading as ltd. Go to industrial sites near you and see who is there, check them out. I would never use a one man band unless I knew him.
Maybe not very MSE but I never get estimates prior to using them, a good reliable tradesman is worth their weight in gold. None have charged ridiculous prices.

The electrician who did both my place and my mums place is a one man band, and he did a great job. Not cheap but he worked flat out and did what he was paid to do.

My carpet installation was fine, done by a small local company, one man and his son. Local asbestos company, one man who helped me loads.
Latest heating installation which went well, one man company just starting out, but granted he's my best mates brother.

Yes, the muck ups were also done by one man bands but the items stolen went missing when employees of a big, licensed asbestos company were there.
Looking for carpet installers, a lot of these big companies were outsourcing to one man/small companies anyway. I avoided them as I've had bad experiences with outsourced installers, who dont really seem to care about the bigger company they represent.

As I said in a previous reply, I've found both the good and bad tradesmen on the internet. Checkatrade, google searches/reviews. I prefer the google reviews as the negative ones get published, whereas checkatrade in my experience, will do their utmost to make sure a negative review is not published. I look at the credentials, checking with the governing bodies that they are actually registered.

Both gas safe and NICEIC didn't really care when things got bad for me though. Gas safe said it was asbestos, not gas. I replied, if he's acting like this with asbestos, would you trust him with gas?

PhilE

fezster wrote: »

Which is why the good tradesmen will want to ensure their business always has a good reputation and history. Part of the due diligence should be how long ago the company was registered or how long a business has been trading for. If a tradesmen has a string of companies to his name as a director, that's a tell-tale sign they should probably be avoided.

True. But as another poster suggested, the consumer will not investigate that deep. They see 'Gas Safe,' and assume everything will be ok.