Why do tradespeople constantly let you down…

Sometimes they just don't really want the job because it's not straightforward.

I had a difficult job some years ago abd (eventually) understood this was the case.
It was bitty, needed things doing in stages and the cost for what I wanted was very high in man-hours.

They don't want to say "no" as you may have some straightforward work to follow!

I now always say "if you think thos job is too awkward to fit in with your other commitments please say so.
They generally do.
Being very upfront can help.

Also, if I were to source the xyz myself would that help?

I had some awkward materials in a job recently that took hours to source within budget.

In my experience many tradespeople agree to do a job and then let you down .
I've used ones which are highly recommended by friends.
I think that they hedge their bets by agreeing to do work that they feel like doing therefore picking and choosing .
The worse one worked appallingly slowly and finally left the roof off my shed and stormed off in one of his moods .
The best one was Iraqi -he just got on with the work until it was completed .
Good reliable tradesmen are like gold dust.

Skydancer

They’re all busy as there are not enough tradesmen. More need to be trained but a lot of young people think it’s too much like hard work.

And a great many who claim to be qualified turn out to be anything but! Had my belly full of 'plumbers' who state 'it'll be about £x missus' or ask how much another quote was, or tut and sigh and often don't even bring a note book and pen to record details and measurements!

My GS, who got good Alevels and who’s Sister is now doing a PhD, decided there was no way he wanted the level of debt she will have so he started looking at apprenticeships.
He is now a qualified electrician with a medium sized specialist company where his chances of advancement within the company are good.
He also does many jobs for his aged GM for free!!
Last weekend he fitted me under cupboard lights in the kitchen and a new central light fitting in my old dining room.
He has replaced old sockets and installed new ones.
That is just a bonus of course.

When the UK had a manufacturing base, and before the days of contracting services out instead of having in-house maintenance staff in the civil service/NHS etc, there were plenty of jobs for people with trades and it made sense for people to spend years on low wages serving an apprenticeship.

Nowadays real apprenticeships are thin on the ground, and jobs are low paid and limited. People sneer at 'ologies' and media studies, but we see on here daily how many people are taken in by headlines and scurrilous reporting, or by dodgy statistics that have been skewed to create a biased story, and apparently can't tell the difference between journalism and research. I think that it is vital to democracy that people study the media, and that subjects like Sociology are also important to an understanding of how and why social trends happen.

My husband worked in engineering, and the company he worked for (a large and profitable one) employed 'apprentices' on one-year contracts during which time they were paid less than minimum wage - less even than the young person's rate. He was embarrassed at how little they were taught - basically they fetched and carried, which was ok in the days of old apprenticeships when they also helped the qualified people with increasingly complex tasks, and had three years to learn the trade. He said that the apprentices would arrive eager and keen to learn, but by the time they left (to be replaced with another source of cheap labour) they were jaded and resentful, and he didn't blame them.

This was nearly ten years ago, and maybe things have changed, but at the time the then government was encouraging these 'apprenticeships' which were YTS schemes in all but name.

People can 'qualify' in trades in as little as 6-9 months on accelerated college-based programmes, but they don't get to see people solving the sorts of problems that make a difference in the real world of work (a door doesn't fit, or a wire is too short) as these things crop up in different ways all the time in different ways and take experience to handle.

An old-fashioned time-served tradesman (or woman, but there were fewer of them then) is different from someone with a 6-month course and no experience behind them. Conditions of service can be difficult too, with shiftwork and low wages in industry, and insecurity in the domestic market. If we want trades to be respected we have to start respecting them.

None of that is any excuse for basic bad manners though.

Just give the chap another call, as your partner suggests. I'd call three or four times to push a tradesperson. There are far more jobs than people to do them here and I've found persistence works. Either that or you'll never get the job done.

I know this sounds daft but it took me back to being stood up when I was a teenager and that awful feeling you get where you reach the point of realising that they’re not going to turn up! I think it only happened to me once but it obviously left a scar .

J52

MayBee70 yes asbestos removal I’d eye wateringly expensive, we once had it stripped from a whole house.
It seems to be quite a small job to patch, possibly a job for a handyman rather than a roofer?

My odd job man had a go but it didn’t work. I did ask him to do further work on the roof but he has selective amnesia when it comes to jobs he doesn’t want to do. This guy seemed to know of different things that might to the trick eg a sort of rubber solution he could use. His advert makes a point of them dealing with leaking roofs. It’s just where the felt meets the roof in two places and the slope means that both areas hold water. My partner always says I should phone people and say ‘oh, did you forget to come round’ but I can’t bring myself to do that.

MayBee70 yes asbestos removal I’d eye wateringly expensive, we once had it stripped from a whole house.
It seems to be quite a small job to patch, possibly a job for a handyman rather than a roofer?

I think that’s the height of bad manners MayBee70. You phoned him so he has your mobile on his call log. 2 minutes to say “sorry I can’t make it after all”.

We use Which Trusted Traders and have nearly always been lucky. In particular dh found an electrician we’ve used several times, who recently handled a very big job to perfection, viz. installing electricity - inc. car charging points - to half a dozen garages that had none at all.

Should add, my oldest GS in Australia has qualified as an air conditioning engineer, same line of work as his dad.

It’s just the same over there, no one wants the ‘tradie’ jobs, as DD puts it.

GS will never be out of a job.

Skydancer

They’re all busy as there are not enough tradesmen. More need to be trained but a lot of young people think it’s too much like hard work.

This is true, but how many young people are encouraged to go into a trade?

How many parents, (and grandparents!) somehow see these types of careers as ‘second best’ and much prefer to say their offspring are doing computer studies, media studies, an ‘ology’ or similar, then wonder why we can’t get hold of a decent electrician, plumber, car mechanic, joiner….?

And we are so thrilled when we find a good one!

J52

Have you tried contacting an Asbestos removal company first? Some building contractors won’t touch asbestos. Once it’s removed you might have more luck with a roofer.

Yes I’ve done that and I know what grade of asbestos it is. Removing it is far too complicated and costly so I just need the two areas where the rain is coming in repaired (garage has to be sealed, garage door has to be removed and replaced with a new one but the removal company don’t deal with that; whole job is going to cost at least £10,000) in some way. I discussed it with him on the phone and he had an idea of what could be done to remedy it. The roofers that were initially going to re felt the whole roof aren’t interested in just patching it up; I phoned them up yesterday and it was obvious that they didn’t want to do it. I’d given up on sorting the problem out but yesterday decided to have one last attempt having seen the advert on Facebook.Whats the point of having a property repair company if you don’t want to repair properties! Maybe he will just drop by. I can’t really put something on the Facebook page because he knows where I live and he lives nearby; I was tempted to.

No idea, but I agree. Partly I think it’s a shift in mindset across the board. Many people have no compunction about letting people down socially either, and drop out of arrangements at the last minute.

When I have freed up a morning (for a tradie or coffee with a friend) it infuriates me when they cancel. Fair enough if something has happened, but lame excuses (and downright lies in some cases) are a different matter. The assumption is that the person being let down has nothing better to do with their time, or that it doesn’t matter if they do.

In this day of mobile phones there is no excuse if a tradesman can’t attend on the day he is supposed to come. Years ago when my son in law started his own building business I said to him that the important thing was to always to let the customer know if he was unable to turn up. He always did that. He never had to advertise and was always busy. At the time I was remembering the frustration of waiting in for someone who was in the middle of a job but not turned up as they were probably fitting another job in. Why not keep your customer in the frame? If they phone you know they are still working for you.

It drives me mad too. It costs nothing to text to say they are delayed or can’t make it, but there is really no excuse- if something is in their diary it should happen. Why not have a set time each week to write quotes and visit potential customers, so both parties know where they are?

I wish there could be a reliable review system- something like on eBay where you can grade various aspects of the work separately. So reliability, quality of work, price, tidiness etc. I don’t trust Checkatrade and similar- my imaginary one would screen out relatives and friends giving fake reviews, too.

Another thing that annoys me is when they post the job on Facebook with pictures of your house. I think they should ask permission first, and let the customer decide which shots are used (if any). I know they want to advertise their work, but I think it’s disrespectful to do it without asking, and most do if you aren’t very firm about it from the start.

Good luck, MayBee. I hope you find someone soon.

We have lived in our current home 15 years after many moves around the country, we have had the best tradespeople ever but we are sadly moving.

I will miss them all so much, the father and son decorators, the fabulous handyman who talks to us about his lovely late wife, our fearless roofer who once had to rescue the sweeps brushes and so it goes on!

We always have a bacon butty or a piece of homemade cake and lots of sugary tea and coffee.

In our 15 years we have had great loyalty, perhaps we are just lucky.

When we moved here we needed several different tradespeople and tried the usual routes (Facebook, adverts etc) and really struggled to get anyone to commit to even coming to look.

Then we found two ways of getting really reliable, excellent and cheaper tradespeople. Firstly we asked around our neighbours who all seemed to know someone they'd used successfully. Also, I started volunteering in the RNLI shop....well all the people there are local tradespeople in their 'real' lives and couldn't be more reliable or decent.

Something we've definitely found was that the most reliable, reasonably priced and nicest people to deal with were semi retired folk who just 'keep their hand in'. Our electrician used to be an electrician in a nuclear power station before he retired so we can trust him with our bungalow.

They’re all busy as there are not enough tradesmen. More need to be trained but a lot of young people think it’s too much like hard work.

Should say ‘ they are all ‘ very honest, don’t know where the ‘pass’ came from!!

I feel your pain MayB70 it is so frustrating. 30 odd years ago we bought a house in total need of renovation, wall knocked down, new kitchen, bathroom, windows etc so nice jobs for tradesmen. We contacted several for estimates and, those who bothered to turn up, promised us estimates within a week. We waited weeks but not one estimate arrived even after chasing them up. We then started the whole thing again with different tradesmen and still had no shows or promised estimates. We did eventually find some excellent people but I’d almost torn my hair out by then! Luckily we now have a list of excellent people in our village who we treasure. They’d pass are all very honest as to when they can do the work and we are prepared to wait.

My son has been a painter and decorator for over 20 years. He doesn't advertise but relies totally on word of mouth recommendation. And that's how I find reliable tradespeople too.

Maybee if he doesn’t turn up at all then comment on his FB page ‘very disappointed xx didn’t turn up for appointment made to discuss xxx’

I agree it is infuriating. As I have moved around quite a lot, one of the things I always make up is a small book , which I give 2 or 3 pages to each room. Then as and when I decorate or do anything I make a note of how many rolls of wallpaper and curtain sizes etc. This is very helpful if you see something good in a charity shop or an end of run that would be worth getting. I also putat the back all the people we use, bakers plumbers etc., so that the new owners can at least start with someone if there is a problem.

So after a short time living somewhere, I will meet other women at the womens groups, people in the library or wherever and if they seem sensible people or on my wavelength, I ask them which person they use , especially if they are talking about just having a job done. I try and get opiions from perhaps 3 people and if they all say such and such is very good, or hopeless, tend to go on their advice. At the same time I do the same. With all the awful saga of the bathroom before christmas the plumber was excellent. Did what he said he would, came when he promised to , and was happy to give advice without pressurising me to go for a specific item. I have passed his name on to many people and as he has his own small firm, am pleased to pass work on to him and support a local tradesman.

I have seen this check a trade advert but prefer to do things my own way. It works out very well especially if you visit someone and really like something just done, you can see that it is your style. If I contact a tradesperson myself I am very clear. If someone has recommended them, I mention that. I tell them that I am very straight, and will pay them at the end of the job and not keep them waiting for ages, as some large companies tend to do. However I also warn them that I have no problem if they are unable to come for some reason, so long as they either phone or email m e and let me know. I am prepared to be as accommodating as possible and as I wake early, if they want they can come quite early. But I do not want to be messed about. So far I have done very well (fingers crossed) and I keep cards of anyone who has been very helpful, especially for things that you only need someone once in a while. So for any important job I would say look amongst your friends and acquaintances at any meeting you go to , church , wi, whist drive or whatever and if you introduce the subject you will usually get some advice worth listening to.