Thinking of using Sharps or Hammonds? Don't. Do this instead.

dontmess666

TELLIT01 said:

With any company you are at the mercy of the fitter when the quality of installation is in question. It could be argued that you have more chance of getting a large company to sort a problem, than to have a 'one man band' accept that their work is substandard.

In my experience, i find the opposite is true. An independent trader is more concerned and reliant on their reputation they will probably go to better lengths to resolve issues. When i complained to Hammonds about the sub-standard of their shoddy work, it was almost like they didnt care once they got their money, and had to really fight to get their interest.

Sandtree

dontmess666 said:
which are not vested in the company, is like Russian Roulette.

I cannot say for trades people but certainly in other areas where you have big brands selling but outsourcing to local guys for the actual doing the brand can become a massive percentage of the their work. They may not get profit shares or dividends but that flow of work being turned off at the tap because there have been too many complaints about standards etc can be a significant motivator to ensure the jobs keep flowing and standards are at least to the brands requirements.

Le_Kirk

Sandtree said:

dontmess666 said:

Maybe I was previously naive. But it never occurred to me to use a local tradesman. When people think of national outfits, they assume they are getting quality, reliability and superior service. The issue of advertising overheads aside, my experience has shown that not to be the case.

There are far too many TV programs about rouge builders etc and people therefore think they have a choice of buying from a national that will probably be "ok" or buying from an unknown local who could be anywhere on the spectrum of a total con artist to amazing service and quality.

Is that builders who wear make-up to work?

Montymoon1

Can anybody recommend a company that does fitted sliding door wardrobes preferably glass effect ? Sharps company reading from your comments has put me off getting a quote .
Lyndsay

prettyandfluffy

We had fitted storage built into 2 bedrooms by Hammonds, it was a tricky job to accommodate different angles in the eaves.  Every aspect of the job was excellent, no complaints here.  At our previous two houses we had fitted wardrobes installed by Sliderobes and were very happy with the results too.

Ganga

Being a regular reader of this forum it would appear the only way to get a first class job/craftsman or woman is to view their work ,there have been loads of posts on this site about rogue tilers ,joiners etc by both one man bands and multi-national companies.

siobain

I concur with the very first comment. I have had both Hammonds and Sharps sales persons visit my home. Hammonds were more professional than Sharps though. The latter stayed approximately 10 minutes. The young person's first words were that if I ordered today I would get a 20% discount, and when I mentioned their competitor she just wanted to pour scorn on their product. I said I was not interested in hearing how much better Sharps products were and that I would judge the quality of both by visiting both their showrooms. At which point she reacted like a scalded rabbit, said she would come back and quote another time and never got as far as taking any measurements before gathering up her laptop and dashing out of the front door. It's very sad that these large companies cannot train their staff properly. Had she listened to what the customer wanted in the first place she might have gone away happier.