Just being a grouch because I have a workman in my house.

But most of us have people in and out of our houses, friends and family, including the nes we do notlike, if your teenage grandaughter brings an unknown friend or boyfriend, you welcome them in. Wht is the difference between them and a tradesman?

You really aren’t listening are you? I have said more than once that visitors don’t turn off the power, or go in bedrooms, or be where you want to be. They don’t roll up your carpets or start drilling just as you start to work online. You are talking to them, not keeping out of the way so they can get on with their work.

Of course people talk to tradesmen and see them as ordinary people. What makes you think you are the only one? Not enjoying having your space invaded does not equate to seeing tradesmen as ‘other’, for heaven’s sake. It’s just liking privacy.

Close the doors - unless he is actually changing gas pipes they do not need to be open

Ask him to turn the radio down

If he is chatting on the phone, go a stand next to him; tap your wrist if he is really chatting - are you on a fixed price? If not remind him you are paying for his time. Or go and boil your kettle and suggest if he is on a break, he might want a coffee.

If his things are really in your way, may a point of tidying them back to his tool box

Flippinheck

Does anyone else hate having workmen / women in their home? I am having a new gas boiler installed in my kitchen which will also include substantial work in my only bathroom and take two days. The fitter seems nice enough but my entire downstairs is already upside down with equipment strewn everywhere. He has a radio on in the kitchen, drowning out my tv where I am watching reruns of the Olympics (because I can’t do anything else but sit and wait for the job to be done). 25 mins ago he took a call, obviously from a partner or girlfriend and is still on that call. I call that unprofessional and ill mannered, and will mean he is here for that much longer. All this with my front and back doors wide open, as if it not cold enough already.
How do you cope with this sort of thing?

I'm with you on this one.I hate having work people in the house.It makes me feel really uncomfortable and I don't know where to put myself.I feel as though they've invaded my space.It just feels awkward and I can't wait til they've gone!

Oreo

Doodledog

I don't think anyone is afraid of tradesmen, are they? I'm not. At the risk of repeating myself, I just don't like having my space invaded - it's really as simple as that.

That’s exactly it for me.

But most of us have people in and out of our houses, friends and family, including the nes we do notlike, if your teenage grandaughter brings an unknown friend or boyfriend, you welcome them in. Wht is the difference between them and a tradesman?

I usually chat with my workmen. Not endlessly but when they come, before they go, when I take them refreshments. They are just ordinary people.

Unlike DeeDaa, we have never owned a building company, but we are serial old house restorers so we do know uite a bit about the work being done and can discuss methods and materials with our tradesmen.

Today our specialist plasterer and I discovered we were both in several of the specialist house restorer sites and we had a conversation about some of the most regular posters, some of whom he knows professionally.

I just added a bit onto my question in ChatGPT - and it boiled down to being safe by waiting up to 10 weeks and then "moisture testing" to be sure the concrete is dry before putting those tiles down. Yep....the tiles will be mucked up if they're put down before that concrete is dry enough.

ClicketyClick

CariadAgain - thanks for jogging my memory about fittings being too high. In my last house the bathroom wall mirror was put up at the height that suited the bathroom fitter. He disputed that it was too high for me until I showed him that, as at 5 feet nothing, I could just about see the top of my head .
You've got me worried about your ceramic tiles comment so could you explain further please as I'm having these on the bathroom floor. The fitter and tile company haven't commented on this being an issue being fitted on the existing concrete floor.
Regards the toilet, DH (who can't got through the night without a toilet visit) had said about a bucket in the shed. I'd like to see him traipsing down the garden in the middle of the night. I'm thinking also of the trades people having toilet facilities over the 2 weeks they will be here. This is partly why I'm considering hiring one of those portable chemical toilets. I'm gagging at the thought of putting our waste down the drain never mind other people's.

To me personally - I didnt want ceramic tiles on the bathroom floor anyway. I wanted vinyl.

My thoughts are that the damp they had created on my bathroom floor (because it hadnt dried out in the time they told me it would...) managed to "climb up" through the vinyl from the concrete floor and emerge the other side of the vinyl (ie though I think it was a year or two before it did so). There is, I would think, a degree of permeability to vinyl.

The concrete needed to breathe and warm up - as it dried out and - because it hadnt - then it got through my vinyl.

If I'd chosen ceramic tiles instead then I'm guessing it wouldnt ever have been able to "climb up through" and penetrate to the upper side of the ceramic tile and it would have taken a lot longer (I think) before I'd seen signs that the concrete underneath those tiles hadnt dried out properly before they were laid. That damp would have had to "go somewhere" and who knows when and how it would emerge and I'd see signs of it. I'm wondering whether the first I would have seen of it would have been when it "climbed" the bathroom walls and maybe headed through one of my walls into the back of my kitchen cabinets the other side of that wall iyswim.

If I were you - I'd put in a query to ChatGPT or similar and ask it how long it thinks a new concrete floor has to dry before ceramic tiles could be laid on top of it. You could also ask it what would happen if it hadnt dried properly before those tiles were put on it. That way you'd get a full handle on what was what for your particular choice of floor covering.

That bathroom fitter putting the mirror too low really wasnt very strong in the brainbox department was he? It's blimmin' obvious that the whole point of a mirror is to be able to look into it. Ditto obvious the person likely to be planning on looking into it most would be the woman - so check the height of the woman first before deciding where to place it. If in doubt - bear in mind the average height of a British woman is 5'4" (though I think the next generation or two after us might be a bit taller than that).

I had a tradesman in (inadvertently) once who was far from the worlds brightest button. I was told by the bathroom firm that I could employ the guy they used to plaster the bathroom subsequently to paint it for me if I wanted. I decided to do so. Now I've had my entire house painted in what I feel is the most suitable colour for me and my sorta Scandinavian tastes - so it's all (supposed to be) Dulux Jasmine White. So that's the colour I said.

That guy asked me numerous times - more than 10 - what colour and I repeated myself again. I had expected him to write it down somewhere to help him remember it. I was gobsmacked that he kept asking and asking and asking and he even turned up specially outa the blue one evening and asked me yet again - so I wrote it down for him that time.

I realised, after he'd painted it - that it wasnt that colour. It was a shade of white - but a different one! I also caught him in the act at the end of the painting throwing the chemical he'd used to clean off his paintbrushes over the earth in my garden!!!!!!!! I yelled blue murder obviously about that - especially given I'd certainly said to him in conversation I'd be growing a bit of fruit and vegetables (organically of course) in my garden. I think I might have said I'd paid for a truckload of earth in my garden too - as it was a poor bare desolate garden that had just had a few "old lady" shrubs in it before and there wasn't one single sign of life (not even an earthworm) and it was obvious previous owner had used chemicals on the garden!!! Hence my sheer horror when he ignored my "It's all gonna be food...it's all gonna be natural" thing and thrown a chemical on my expensive "new" soil. I lost my temper VERY bigtime at that point. In hindsight - daylight dawned that he'd been "forever on the ask" about the paint colour I said to him because he couldnt write it down - he couldnt read and write. That must be why he asked me the exact same question about 15 times!

I'd never encountered anyone who couldnt read and write before...I'd barely heard about it in fact. Even my 80 IQ erstwhile brother could read as far as I knew (though I never once recall seeing him do so - but our father would have definitely commented about that to me somewhere along the line if it had been the case). Hence I hadnt quite believed that there are people who can't do so. I'd literally never encountered that before to my knowledge.

I guess he'd only gone into that type of job as he couldnt do any other. NB; Not saying that's the case for anyone else before someone decides to misinterpret and get annoyed. Cue for latest tradesperson I had in was a female plumber - and there was no flies whatsoever on her. She didn't miss much - not surprisingly - given that she'd retrained from starting work in Customs & Excise and had to leave the job and retrain as they kept swopping those people on to varying duties and renaming them. When they said to her "You're to be Border Force now - out in our boats in the English channel dealing with the 'traffic' coming over from France!" she had a fit at being made to do a job against her conscience and promptly retrained and left. She even spent some time working (apprenticing) for free to a Council to help herself retrain away from Border Force and stop helping those boats against her will. No flies on her at all...

I've only had workmen in a few times, but I've always enjoyed chatting to them and always offer tea, although they've usually brought their own. Perhaps it helps that we used to have our own building company, so there's always plenty to talk about. It would never occur to me to tell them not to have a radio on. If it was very loud I would just askthem to turn it down a bit.

win

Flippinheck

Well, Keepingquiet thanks for the telling off. FYI, British Gas insist on someone being present while the work is done so I can’t leave. Having a new boiler is not filling me with joy, nor is the extortionate bill. Anyway, have a good day.

You certainly are grouchy and a bit touchy too Flippingheck
!!!

I didn't think I was telling anyone off- OP asked how I'd cope with it and I answered!

I know a few people who won't leave the house when there are tradesmen in- they even stand watching what they are doing which must be very intimidating.

I prefer to leave them to get on with it- a good excuse to go out for coffee and cake or a nice lunch.

Anyway, it sounds as if OP has calmed down and tomorrow she will have a new boiler.

CariadAgain - thanks for jogging my memory about fittings being too high. In my last house the bathroom wall mirror was put up at the height that suited the bathroom fitter. He disputed that it was too high for me until I showed him that, as at 5 feet nothing, I could just about see the top of my head .
You've got me worried about your ceramic tiles comment so could you explain further please as I'm having these on the bathroom floor. The fitter and tile company haven't commented on this being an issue being fitted on the existing concrete floor.
Regards the toilet, DH (who can't got through the night without a toilet visit) had said about a bucket in the shed. I'd like to see him traipsing down the garden in the middle of the night. I'm thinking also of the trades people having toilet facilities over the 2 weeks they will be here. This is partly why I'm considering hiring one of those portable chemical toilets. I'm gagging at the thought of putting our waste down the drain never mind other people's.

Doodledog

I don't think anyone is afraid of tradesmen, are they? I'm not. At the risk of repeating myself, I just don't like having my space invaded - it's really as simple as that.

That’s exactly it for me.

Flippinheck

Just a last update with thanks to you all. The fitter has finished for the day and will be back tomorrow to finish the job. He was a lovely man, careful and tidy.
Just to be clear about the radio. My issue is not that I couldn’t ask him to turn it down but that he shouldn’t have put me in that position in the first place.
But well done all of you on this post for distracting me. I should be in a better frame of mind tomorrow.
More importantly my cat has finally come home. He’s clearly in a mega huff but could not resist the siren call of ‘Dreamies’.

I dislike intrusions also, well done you and your cat.

There's a difference between listening to a radio and playing it so loudly that the householder can't hear the TV in her own house.

Jane43

Tizliz

Was tempted by the £9000 grant until we got the overall cost!

It is also likely that existing radiators won't be big enough and will have to be replaced, having replaced our downstairs radiators last year a heat pump system is out if the question for us.

Six replacement radiators include. The total cost was £19k for a 4 bed bungalow 20 years old and didn’t include taking away the old boiler (relatively easy) or the oil tank (difficult).

Unless the government put up the grant they are not going to get many takers.

Blimey!!! There’s an awful lot of grumpy gransnetters on here!!!! Not letting tradesmen listen to their radios??!! I can only imagine the conversations they have about you all when they go home to their families! 😂

crikey - just checked with Chat GPT - and it's saying more like "leave the concrete screed floor to wait 6-8 weeks before considering it ready to roll" !!!!! Worth checking for the details it says on that.

There's two things I wish like mad for when I was renovating this house:
- Chat GPT had been around at the time to ask queries
- I hadn't had to wait until literally two days after original (major PITA) deliberately obstructive next door neighbour who "knew everyone" here before finally - at visit no. 50 !!!!!!! by Openreach the exact same guy that had only been in the previous week for visit no. 49 finally seemed to hear what I was saying and do what I required - after the months and months the previous 49 visits had taken (instead of the 0 that should have been the case) and my phone and computer were working normally for the first time since moving here (months and months...probably a couple of years or more later). It made it VERY VERY difficult indeed to research my house renovation and generally keep in touch with the outside world until after she'd moved out and so couldnt stir it any longer.

I ask for an agreement before workmen come that they will not play a radio in or around my house. They have all agreed happily and luckily.

Tizliz

Was tempted by the £9000 grant until we got the overall cost!

It is also likely that existing radiators won't be big enough and will have to be replaced, having replaced our downstairs radiators last year a heat pump system is out if the question for us.

Cariad, thanks for your cautionary tale re the flooring. Nightmare!
I've been doing a lot of research on this subject as well as talking to friends and observing their floors. I've opted for the Artro type textured non-slip vinyl which I was a little concerned might look a bit 'institutional' but I got some samples and some of the lighter colours are okay and a couple of them would work well with my chosen wall tiles. I like it because it can be coved up the wall and eliminate that difficult-to-seal join where floor meets wall. The house is a bungalow built on concrete so, other than a final screeding when the drain and tray are in position, there shouldn't be a problem. And, thank goodness, the house has more than one lav!
I've been thinking about shower and controls height, too! The shower controls in the poky 2nd bathroom are so high I can only just reach them on tiptoe. One day, that horrible pink space (why pink, fgs?) will be another project!
Right now, I don't need a fold-down seat and grab rails - but I may do one day so they'll be there from the start. Future-proofing.
I'm really quite excited about all this!

I don't think anyone is afraid of tradesmen, are they? I'm not. At the risk of repeating myself, I just don't like having my space invaded - it's really as simple as that.

I’ve been wondering the same thing, MONICA for the last 3 pages.
I’ve always lived by the quote, A stranger is only a friend I’ve never met.

Flippinheck I was not being patronising, but it constantly puzzles me why people are so afraid of having workmen in their house? Would they feel the same about para medics, or similar?

I also wonder whether it is peoples worries about tradesmen actually fosters a lot of the problems they have.

If you have a job which takes you into people's houses where the person in the house so obviously doesn't trust you or is uivering with fear, it must be very disconcerting.

I don't 'other' tradespeople either! I just don't like strangers in the house, whoever they are. For that matter I'm not keen on anyone having the run of the house, which is sometimes necessary if people are working and need to access all areas.

I like to close doors on rooms I don't want people to enter, and know they'll stay closed. I want to know if someone is likely to follow me into a bathroom, or need to be in a room I'm using. I like to know if they are going to turn the power off - particularly if I am on a Zoom call. I don't want to have a choice between complaining and having incessant music forced upon me. I want to be able to wash clothes when the weather is right, and not have to empty a machine of my undies with strangers in the room etc etc.

None of that means that I don't see the people concerned as human beings, or anything of the sort. I would feel the same about all but very close friends and family. Most visitors only use the rooms they are shown into, and don't root about in cupboards to find sockets, interfere with the power supply or leave doors open so they can carry things in and out. They are just doing their job, but that doesn't mean I have to enjoy the experience.

Flippinheck

Well, Keepingquiet thanks for the telling off. FYI, British Gas insist on someone being present while the work is done so I can’t leave. Having a new boiler is not filling me with joy, nor is the extortionate bill. Anyway, have a good day.

You certainly are grouchy and a bit touchy too Flippingheck
!!!

I hate and dread it too.

Just a last update with thanks to you all. The fitter has finished for the day and will be back tomorrow to finish the job. He was a lovely man, careful and tidy.
Just to be clear about the radio. My issue is not that I couldn’t ask him to turn it down but that he shouldn’t have put me in that position in the first place.
But well done all of you on this post for distracting me. I should be in a better frame of mind tomorrow.
More importantly my cat has finally come home. He’s clearly in a mega huff but could not resist the siren call of ‘Dreamies’.