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Twigman

Tradesmen/Brickies - a mini rant

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In March some old codger in a Skoda decided to park his car in my front garden. To get there he drove through my Mazda6, writing it off, and my front garden wall. Admittedly my front garden wall was only 3 or 4 courses of bricks but getting it replaced is proving a hellish task.

A few days after the incident I had a brickie come around and quote. This quote was sent off to the old codger's insurance company, who paid out, no quibbles. So I then tried to get in touch with the brickie to get the job done. He never answered his phone, nor emails, nor returned voice mail messages, not even to tell me he didn't want/need the job. It's like he disappeared off the face of the earth.

So I get in touch with another tradesman, recommended by a friend. A week or so after getting in touch he comes round to estimate the job and is a mere £25 dearer than the original brickie, so i ask him when he can do it and he tells me that he can do it when he's done with the job he's doing at the moment. That was back in June, I think. Anyway I chase him up a few times - he's always busy - his last message 13th August was that he'd be in touch.

So I mentioned this to the bloke who came to fix my boiler. I've known this chap for many years and he's never let me down. He told me him and his brickie mate would do it - 'we've got a few days at the end of September'. - well it seems they've got a kitchen to fit instead.

What is it with fucking tradesmen? Why are they happy to quote but never follow through with actually doing the job they quote for?

7 months now I've been waiting to get my pile of rubble rebuilt.

 

How the fuck do I get my wall rebuilt?

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With your own fair hands? It's hard work and messy, but at least it happens at your own pace. I wonder if you're getting bumped because the job is small. We have been lucky using mybuilder.com to find people so far.

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It's a small in fill job. Your work is probably quite low down on their list in terms of profitability. I think in general tradesman are in high demand, they can be picky. I had some plastering done at the start of the year and out of the 5 people I contacted only 2 ever got back got back to me.

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As mentioned above they'll be happy to quote and say "they'll do it" - but once somebody comes around with a bigger job they'll jump on that instead. I don't particularly agree with that approach as it's money grabbing & you're less likely to recommend them. 

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Stuck an ad on ratedpeople.com and have 2 chaps coming round to quote.

Let's see if either of these get beyond the quote stage and how competitive they might be.

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