Is it me or...

[Captain Jack]

...are people just idiots?

I don't know if I am just the unluckiest person in the world or whether absolutely noone is capable of doing their jobs?

My biggest issue is how difficult it is to find a competent, reliable and, most importantly, responsive tradesman. We still have a few bit and pieces to do around our house and getting someone in just to get a quote for what we asked to be done seems to be rocket science.

The latest blunder is us trying to find someone to replace some of our internal doors. We have two non-standard width ones, so we wanted someone who can tackle such tricky jobs. Most tradesmen promise the moon on a stick on their website but after coming in and looking at what needs doing say "nah, can't do that, mate". Or go away saying "we'll come back with a quote" and never hear again. A few don't turn up at all and all the quotes that we were lucky enough to get contain mistakes and discrepancies from what was originally promised or requested. How hard can it be?

Last year we wanted someone to investigate our gable wall which was letting damp through inside. Most people, who bothered getting back to us, wanted £4+ to repoint the whole wall, saying that brickwork was faded and was letting water through. While brickwork isn't in best condition, any water that came in should have drained away. Some said that the damp proof course was a little too close to ground level outside and wanted to redo the whole paving on that side... for £2k+. Only one single, semi-retired bricky was able to hit the nail on the head - there was probably a tonne of snot at the bottom of the cavity and was bridging the gap inside. He was right, he came out the following week and spent an age getting rid of a foot of snot - all under £1k and everything has been dry since.

Electricians, although better (in my experience), still take an age to come back to you. Plumbers have been OK though (thankfully).

Furniture Village - we made an order with them in April of this year for some living room furniture and every single piece of furniture was damaged upon first delivery in May. Second delivery was better but one of the chairs was still cracked. Third delivery attempt showed the replacement chair had a huge scrape around the age, fourth delivery attempt showed a load of paint chips - they didn't even bother bringing inside. Fifth delivery attempt didn't happen, since after moaning to them they said they would inspect it before loading onto their van and that had damage as well. We are now in October waiting for our sixth delivery. How do these idiots stay in business?! Aaaarrrggghhh...

The last straw that broke my back was an Indian take-away delivery blunder. Since we were out, we made an order in advance - for delivery at 7:30pm, because we wouldn't have been back home till 7pm. Upon arriving home at 7pm - we found a delivery lady frantically ringing our doorbell..... #youhadonejob

Finally, the welder... ordered one unit, received another completely different. Apparently an upgrade but didn't come with ancillaries that the old one did. You don't buy a people carrier only to get a 2-seater sports car and being told it's an "upgrade", right? It may be quicker but it only carries 2 people, instead of 7.

Am I really the only one who has the least luck with just about everyone?

Rant over... for now.

[PeterN]

It happens, I have spates of this happening and then all goes well for a time, if only one thing goes wrong you tend not to notice but you get weeks when everything does and just as you are thinking what else can possibly go wrong - it does.

I don't very often employ anyone to do jobs I can still manage most of them myself but I agree, finding someone good is difficult. Fortunately we know quite a few tradesmen that are very good. Which? do a scheme called 'trusted traders' or something like that and I think there are a few others if you need someone might be worth a try.

Peter

[Bailes1992]

Being a tradesman is just as much of a nightmare.

I'm an electrician, I'm commercial/industrial so usually any chasing or work to the building structure is done by others. I have no issues working on my own house and I'm slowly starting to do DIY dry lining and plumbing which saves me a fortune.

I'm often asked to do hobbles but turn them down, you'll be amazed at how offended people get when you turn down hobbles.
I had one bloke ask me yesterday if I would add an earth to his aged lighting circuit in his house as he wanted to install brass light switches. I had to explain that I would have to rip carpets up, floorboards up, chase walls and if I was going to that extent I might as well rewire the entire lighting circuit not just add an earth cable. Then there's cost, there's probably a weekends work in it for me. Do I really want to loose a weekend getting stinking pulling a house apart for at most £100? I explained my thoughts and the guy got all arsey with me "F**ing hell... I won't ask twice" and just walked off. Am I being unreasonable there?

Last week I was asked to do a simple shower pull cord replacement. No worries except it was in 10mm cable, had a 35mm deep back box and there was no slack on the cables. Took me 2 hours that one did and I made £10. What's the point?

I also notice the quality of building services install in domestic situations is nowhere near what I would install commercially. My Cousin is a domestic plumber, I had him to install an electric shower when I moved into my current house. After 4 months I had to rip it out and reinstall it, the pipe wasn't level, the saddles were just thrown on the pipe with no thought to spacing and he made a right mess of the cut out at the bottom of the shower where the pipe entered. I see it everywhere in houses but if that was in a factory or office there would be hell to pay.
Again I had a well recommended plumber in to install my boiler. It works fine and the install is 'satisfactory' but pipes aren't quite level, saddles are spaced all over the place and I can't help feel I would have done a better job.
My new house I'll be installing all the plumbing myself and just getting someone to do the gas pipework and commission the boiler I think.

[PeterN]

That's the problem, many of us could do a better job than the tradesman because we are doing it for ourselves so we want it right, good conscientious tradesmen are few and far between, sign of the times I'm afraid.

I repair my own cars, not because I don't trust the local garage, he is a nice chap but I simply can't afford to pay a garage for repairs. I run two 406 estates which I paid very little money for but they are reliable, comfortable and economical, a not even major repair would cost more than I paid for the cars. I am fortunate in having storage space here and have kept my first 406 that gave me good service for about 6 years befor it succumbed to an immobiliser fault for spares and it has save me a small fortune in spares for the others.

I think the old saying 'if you want anything don do it yourself' is still good advice.

Peter

[PeterN]

That's the problem, many of us could do a better job than the tradesman because we are doing it for ourselves so we want it right, good conscientious tradesmen are few and far between, sign of the times I'm afraid.

I repair my own cars, not because I don't trust the local garage, he is a nice chap but I simply can't afford to pay a garage for repairs. I run two 406 estates which I paid very little money for but they are reliable, comfortable and economical, a not even major repair would cost more than I paid for the cars. I am fortunate in having storage space here and have kept my first 406 that gave me good service for about 6 years befor it succumbed to an immobiliser fault for spares and it has save me a small fortune in spares for the others.

I think the old saying 'if you want anything done properly do it yourself' is still good advice.

Peter

[Welly]

I do everything myself as, like Peter said, I can't afford to pay others and if I'm unsure there's usually someone on youtube to assist with how-to's.

The only every-day jobs that may benefit from an experienced tradesman in my opinion are: Tiling, Plastering, hanging doors, fitting Kitchen worktops and perhaps wall-papering at a push. Everything else I believe is doable yourself and mostly to a higher standard.

Coming back to typical tradesmen I often wonder if its this country that breeds this sort of negative attitude you find. Is everyone under too much pressure and stress? there's also this culture of greed where everyone wants to earn top money and have new fancy cars to keep up with the neighbours. I don't care what other people think of me and I keep myself so mysterious that no-one knows much about me at all. I like this.

[Captain Jack]

My saga continues. This time with BTO engineers.

So, I've been having a long ongoing issue with my landline, where there was a lot of crackling noise on the line. A fault had been raised with Zen twice already and twice BTO 'fixed' the issue - temporarily. The test on the line always comes back as "battery contact" fault.

A few weeks ago, I, again, raised a fault with Zen who raised it with BTO. Today, I received a message saying that "Andrew" has started working on my fault and I would be notified when it's finished. Two hours later, without Internet or phone line, I get the said message saying that he finished hacking away at cables randomly until something broke. I say hacking because I still have no dial tone and my router is syncing at half the speed it used to.

Are these people serious or what?