Are you in the building Trade - is work falling?

thriftybabe

I would be grateful for anyone working in housebuilding right now. My OH does not think things are that bad. I would be grateful for anyone in the building trade to let me know of their own experiences of work right now i.e are you still finding work or have you been paid off, reduced rates etc. Many thanks in advance

Captain_Mainwaring_2

I think you have until all the projects that have been started get completed ( 3 months ?) until there is a pinch, It happened the same way last time.

Canucklehead

Good evening: You might get a better response on Diynot .FWIW..my OH hasn't seen any change in his volume of work but he has been a self-employed plumbing/heating engineer for over 20 years so a different market (hasn't done site work since his apprenticeship)...people still want/need new bathrooms, boiler servicing and repairs and as a last resort, new heating systems. Different kettle of fish for any trades working in housebuilding I'd say.

HTH

Canucklehead

baileysbattlebus

My son is a joiner (currently 2nd fixing) he was working on Housing Association new builds, but they have had planning issues with the 2nd phase and they have been laid off until the planning issues are resolved, which they say will be 4 to 5 weeks. The one's that have been laid off are the subcontractors, like my son, the permanent guys haven't been.

Some builders where he was have stopped finishing the houses (private homes) until they are sold - so they put up the shell and leave it until it's time to finish it.

My son did snagging for a week, then got another job roofing, he finished one day and started new job the next. The new job is a day rate of pay, the other one was price work (you get paid for each house completed).

He will be a bit worse off on a day rate, he works hard (allegedly) and prefers price work, the day rate is pretty standard I think, £150 a day, so no pay cuts yet.

If and when the planning issues are resolved with his original place he will go back, because they are HA houses. There are lot of them to build and he thinks it's better to be working on HA houses in this climate than private.

There doesn't appear to be an issue getting work here at the moment - quite a bit of it seems to be who you know, our son got a phone call from someone he knows who asked if he was interested in the roofing work, as the company his friend works for was looking for people.

I dare say it will change, I remember the last time too.

It's probably different in all over the the country, we are in the south east. I would imagine the work will dry up sooner or later.

baileysbattlebus

Canucklehead wrote: »

Good evening: You might get a better response on Diynot .FWIW..my OH hasn't seen any change in his volume of work but he has been a self-employed plumbing/heating engineer for over 20 years so a different market (hasn't done site work since his apprenticeship)...people still want/need new bathrooms, boiler servicing and repairs and as a last resort, new heating systems. Different kettle of fish for any trades working in housebuilding I'd say.

HTH

Canucklehead

One thing I have noticed in our immediate area is the number of people having work done to their houses, there's scaffolding up on quite a few houses, skips with kitchens / bathrooms etc in them. I have never seen anything like it before, usually you would see one or two a year having major work done.

thriftybabe

Canucklehead thanks for the tip will go on the site and have a look

bo_drinker

There will be a lot of improving/ extensions etc. If folk can't sell many will extend. I try to avoid house bumping as we call it. (new house sites) It will be interesting to see where it goes.

thriftybabe

Another one of our housebuilders has told us that they are going to stop building on the site as there has been a lot of cancellations. They are going to finish some of the plots they have started but the remainder they are going to build to 1st fix. That means we have 2 sites sitting uncompleted. My OH has another company which does extensions which is doing good at the moment but I think we will see a drop in that too as it hits the wider economy.

mrsbez_2

My OH is a self employed general builder, he is busy doing repairs, alterations etc. He has quite alot of jobs lined up. But then you don't know how long that is going to last, especially if people need to borrow to pay for it.

So we are not feeling it at the moment, but it would be nice to see what situation we are all in, say in about 3 months time.

I think last time there was a recession, he worked on the roads and did basically anything!!

mlz1413

my OH is a general builder but a couple of years ago started working for a painter & decorater who set up as a maintenance company, they have been really busy since set up and have got in with a couple of big companies doing office maint.

Last month they were notified that the company they do 60% of their work for had gone into receivership, they were gutted, but it has not made any difference - work they thought they couldn't tender for as too busy they put in applications for, also the company that went into receivership had a management buy out of the maint side so that picked up were it left off.

Again as mentioned before they do not do new builds or any new site work, as everything they do is maintenance they hope to see the credit crunch out, they have also picked up more domestic work where people are having work done on their own homes.

geoffky

my next door neighbor is a builder and he says he has not seen it this bad before he told me yesterday that he was giving it two weeks then he would have to go and sign on... he is in roofing. his own business