The Retirement Thread

[Sterlo]

@PaulSB, couldn't agree more re the tradesmen rant. I'm fed up of contacting one (if you can even get them to respond in the first place) then them saying they will come round and have a look. They then either don't turn up or if they do they promise a quote and you never hear from them again. We've had it with roofers, electricians, builders. Fortunately, one of our friends is a plumber so we have no issues with that side, we never push him unless it's urgent, but he always turns up when he says he will. I was the same, from a customer service background, we always at least responded to a customer, never ignored their requests.

 

[welsh dragon]

There was a post on my Facebook page yesterday that reminded me of you, it was from the Black Country museum and showed a traditional two up two down with bloomers hung on the washing line.

I have done the Black Country museum. It was yeats ago, but it was quite good. Well worth a visit

 

[welsh dragon]

Well I've been pondering.........regular readers will know I'm prone to this. So what is it with tradespeople?

Just before Christmas a roofer was working in the village and my neighbour was very satisfied with his work. I asked for a price to reroof my garage. I explained I understood it's a small job, that is I expect it to be expensive. The promised quote never arrived.

Last Tuesday a highly recommended plumber came to price replacing two radiators and a towel rail. He said we would have the price by last Thursday and he could do it next week. Guess what?

I mentioned the bathroom people wanting to charge £760 for replacing two radiators. I went to the trouble of returning to the showroom, explaining my concerns that there could be a misunderstanding as £760 seemed a great deal. I was promised a response. Well then???

I find it truly bizarre. Although I trained as a grower I spent 40 years managing sales, customer service etc. Yes, we did let people down on occasion but we never ignored them.

I understand small jobs are expensive. I'll pay but please don't pee me off.

Can't get my head round it.

You just can't get good tradesmen any more. That's why we do and have always done everything ourselves. And our son does everything himself as well no matter what it is. We will do the bathroom ourselves. Carpets laid. Plumbing done. Windows fixed. My son bought the parts to repair his dishwasher a few months ago and did the job himself. All decorating is done by himself . We have never had so called professionals In as they are mostly crap. Charge a fortune. And bodge everything.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Well, my notifications have stopped appearing again. ☹️

Cache cleared so let's see if that works.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

@PaulSB, couldn't agree more re the tradesmen rant. I'm fed up of contacting one (if you can even get them to respond in the first place) then them saying they will come round and have a look. They then either don't turn up or if they do they promise a quote and you never hear from them again. We've had it with roofers, electricians, builders. Fortunately, one of our friends is a plumber so we have no issues with that side, we never push him unless it's urgent, but he always turns up when he says he will. I was the same, from a customer service background, we always at least responded to a customer, never ignored their requests.

We've had this, its annoying, a lot of tradespeople don't seem interested in the smaller jobs. With our recent stopcock repair we only got it done because a friend of my Brother In Law is a plumber, our regular plumber, who's normally very good but expensive, looked at it and refused to do it, the stopcock is half buried in the wall.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Well I've been pondering.........regular readers will know I'm prone to this. So what is it with tradespeople?

Just before Christmas a roofer was working in the village and my neighbour was very satisfied with his work. I asked for a price to reroof my garage. I explained I understood it's a small job, that is I expect it to be expensive. The promised quote never arrived.

Last Tuesday a highly recommended plumber came to price replacing two radiators and a towel rail. He said we would have the price by last Thursday and he could do it next week. Guess what?

I mentioned the bathroom people wanting to charge £760 for replacing two radiators. I went to the trouble of returning to the showroom, explaining my concerns that there could be a misunderstanding as £760 seemed a great deal. I was promised a response. Well then???

I find it truly bizarre. Although I trained as a grower I spent 40 years managing sales, customer service etc. Yes, we did let people down on occasion but we never ignored them.

I understand small jobs are expensive. I'll pay but please don't pee me off.

Can't get my head round it.

@PaulSB, couldn't agree more re the tradesmen rant. I'm fed up of contacting one (if you can even get them to respond in the first place) then them saying they will come round and have a look. They then either don't turn up or if they do they promise a quote and you never hear from them again. We've had it with roofers, electricians, builders. Fortunately, one of our friends is a plumber so we have no issues with that side, we never push him unless it's urgent, but he always turns up when he says he will. I was the same, from a customer service background, we always at least responded to a customer, never ignored their requests.

A serious case of demand exceeding supply and the work is there without having to try too hard on the customer care front.

 

[Dave7]

Meant to post this 2 weeks ago....off our son to MrsD.

 

[PaulSB]

You just can't get good tradesmen any more. That's why we do and have always done everything ourselves. And our son does everything himself as well no matter what it is. We will do the bathroom ourselves. Carpets laid. Plumbing done. Windows fixed. My son bought the parts to repair his dishwasher a few months ago and did the job himself. All decorating is done by himself . We have never had so called professionals In as they are mostly crap. Charge a fortune. And bodge everything.

I can see the benefits but the problem is I'm really bad at it!!! I understand exactly how to remove and replace the new radiators. It ain't rocket science but would be an absolute copper-bottomed disaster if I tried.

It's the same reason I use an LBS I'm just mechanically inept.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Tradesman story.

My accountant's mother had a leaky hand basin.

Accountant has a friend who is a plumber.

Accountant asks plumber to do job and send bill to him.

Plumber did the job satisfactorily. He had arrived onsite at 8.30am and was finished in under 2 hours.

Accountant was billed for £200!

Bill queried and the plumbers response was that he was unable to fit any work in for the rest of the day (!) and he only did the job as a favour when he could've booked a whole day's work in instead.

Accountant sent the plumber £60 and no more was heard of the matter.

 

[PaulSB]

A serious case of demand exceeding supply and the work is there without having to try too hard on the customer care front.

Yes, quite agree. We have over the years found some absolute diamonds but keeping hold of them is impossible. I really get it, small work is not cost effective so please charge me accordingly. I will pay for good work done on time...........though £760 for two radiators is taking the piss frankly.

Years back we had a good joiner. Great guy, super work quality. Then one day he quoted me £200 to hang some doors.....that was £200 per door!!!! It would have been far better if he'd been honest and said "I'll do it but I have to charge £££ because."

 

[PaulSB]

Tradesman story.

My accountant's mother had a leaky hand basin.

Accountant has a friend who is a plumber.

Accountant asks plumber to do job and send bill to him.

Plumber did the job satisfactorily. He had arrived onsite at 8.30am and was finished in under 2 hours.

Accountant was billed for £200!

Bill queried and the plumbers response was that he was unable to fit any work in for the rest of the day (!) and he only did the job as a favour when he could've booked a whole day's work in instead.

Accountant sent the plumber £60 and no more was heard of the matter.

I have a friend who's an accountant, his customer base is all small local businesses. When he was building a new house he thought it a great idea to give the work to his customers. This didn't work out well. When things went wrong or weren't completed on time he was stuck as he didn't want to upset his own customers by hassling them

 

[SpokeyDokey]

I can see the benefits but the problem is I'm really bad at it!!! I understand exactly how to remove and replace the new radiators. It ain't rocket science but would be an absolute copper-bottomed disaster if I tried.

It's the same reason I use an LBS I'm just mechanically inept.

Similar radiator issue in some ways.

We needed 1 old radiator replacing.

Contacted local well know larger firm for supply and fit.

They quoted £230.

Plumber came and fitted the radiator and did an excellent job.

Took him just over an hour and a half.

Bill arrived a fortnight later at £450.

Queried this and the response was that the job took longer than expected.

I paid them £230 immediately by bank trans and invited them to explain how any extra time could possibly run to £220 when the original quote probably included about £150 for labour and business costs on a job that lasted around 1.5 hours.

I invited them to undertake Court proceedings should they wish to do so if they felt that they had been underpaid.

Never heard anything from them after that.

 

[gavroche]

Salut les amis ( es) . Yesterday, on the way back from school I bought a new phone at Currys. I will collect it tomorrow. It is a Samsung A13 with 128 mb so plenty of memory. My present one is full and I am fed up with not being able to download apps or do updates so in the drawer it will go tomorrow with other old ones.

 

[Mo1959]

Walk done before the next shower. Blue bin day for us. How exciting.

My bathroom is badly needing renewed. There is a local plumber who gets a good name and recommendations on Facebook but I have given up asking him. I must have asked him four times over the space of over 2 years and no joy. He even turned up the next day to replace my ballcock in the loft no problem and looked at the bathroom and sounded like he was definitely going to do it, but never heard from him again. I must get the finger out and find someone else.

 

[welsh dragon]

And those horror stories are why we do everything ourselves. My SIL fitted a new kitchen and the only job he didn't do himself was to move a couple of sockets. luckily there is a great electrician in the area. She only does it part time as she is a farmer.