Was that for someone working alone?

My chap, who is gas safe registered and does all other plumbing/heating charges me £200 a day here in the southwest (Bristol), hes nearly re-tired (but dont tell him I said so......)

Are we talking a technician (plumber) or an engineer (chartered) here.
Probably get a chartered engineer with vast amount of thermal design experience for less than a dodgy unqualified plumber

I think that writing off other people's trades as obviously overpaid and underskilled is to miss the details involved in doing it right, eg having to order rolls of cable or lengths of pipe at several hundred pounds per go sometimes, or training and certification and so on...

Rgds

Damon

<blockquote><cite>Posted By: djh</cite>Sadly, unlike architects and doctors and some others who were sensible enough to brown-nose politicians centuries ago, engineers kept their noses to the grindstone, with the result that anybody can call themselves an engineer.</blockquote>

This is UK-specific, though. In places like Germany engineers are on a par with doctors, for example.

Curiously, within UK government engineers were always paid more than scientists, despite not needing the same level of qualifications. Then again administrators were always paid more than both, and they needed no serious qualifications at all.............

When I was studying (on a pittance) a good friend was equally poor, as he was an apprentice joiner. However, when he finished his (pretty long) apprenticeship his earnings jumped massively, unlike mine as a scientist. It took me around 20 years to catch up with the earnings of my joiner friend, although it has to be said he was bloody good at his job.

Posted By: JSHarrisThis is UK-specific, though. In places like Germany engineers are on a par with doctors, for example.

The 'though' makes it sound like it doesn't matter, though. I think it does and perhaps in part it accounts for Germany's relative success. I'll admit I'm as bad as the rest. But it's all extortion. If I paid my money, I could be called Eur Ing ... and confuse the hell out of most website owners by standing on my right to be addressed as such. As it is, I'm proud to pay less money to call myself CEng, but it has had absolutely no value in my career.

joe90: no, no, there might be splinters too!

Rgds

Damon

Believe me, architects get paid WAAAAAYYYY Less than heating engineers, plumbers, electricians etc etc

You get three quotes and go with the lowest. What's the problem here?

A guy quotes for five days work and gets it done in four. You quibble and withhold the "unreasonable" amount you'd actually agreed to.

A guy quotes for five days and something wholly unforeseeable comes up and it takes six days. You going to offer to pay for the extra day? No, you'll threaten to withhold payment for what's already been done and haggle your way into paying what was originally agreed and blame the tradesman for not having x-ray eyes. It's VERY rare that a customer agrees to pay for such an "extra", or even a proportion of it.

Numerous occasions when my quote included an ass-covering clause in the event of a half-anticipated problem, only to find myself not getting the job because someone else played the potential problem down, saying what the customer wanted to hear and then both of them coming unstuck. Not very nice of me, I'm sure, but I took a perverse pleasure in hearing about those incidents. On two occasions that I still recall with some amusement, I was actually asked to go in and put the job right. Now that WAS profitable, both at the time and subsequently because those particular customers always came to me first thereafter and became very good customers indeed. And no, I never ripped them off.

In a lot of respects I was damn lucky with my customers in the last decade or so of my working life, and that was largely down to working in what used to be the specialised area of conservation, a situation that came about by accident not design, as all the best situations tend to do.

As a lot of threads testify, conservation work is highly regulated and when the financial climate was more amenable and grants more readily available then customers had no choice but to get three quotes for work over £5,000. Councils used to keep lists of 'preferred' tradesmen, which they'd send to the customer. As those early lists (they're no longer used, it's all down to Trading Standard's "approved" trades list now, and anyone can get onto it if they agree to TS's mediation procedures) comprised people who'd been invited onto the list because they’d done work to a standard approved by the council, then the quality of the work was more or less assured. But a list is a list and you therefore found yourself quoting against the same people if the work was grant-aided. Customers had no choice, they HAD to get at least three quotes which often proved impossible if the trades on the list were too busy to want to quote. Jobs were often under threat because of that, and with COs reluctant to allow quotes from companies outside their known area whose work they weren't familiar with, impasse was reached. An inquiry was made of the CO as to the reason for the delay, especially if it looked as if you might lose the slot allocated for the work being quoted for, pushing it to the back-end of the year with the risk of losing the grant. Once you knew the reason was the difficulty in getting that third quote, then it was a simple matter of phoning around the guys on the list you knew and discovering who amongst them hadn't quoted. Within days a highly inflated third quote would appear on the CO's desk and events progressed from there. If you were the best quote you got the job, otherwise it went to the other guy. Swings and roundabouts, but at least the fairground ride was kept turning.

Whether or not you accept a trade quote which you consider inflated depends on whether or not you accept that the tradesperson has a right to the standard of living they consider they have a right to. As ST is always telling us, the market is there to decide these things, it’s all about supply and demand.

As to those lists and the “specialised” area of conservation?

Well, the Trading Standards lists are pretty meaningless because anyone can apply to get onto them.

The previously specialised area of conservation is now full of guys who’ve at last woken up to the potential that previously niche market holds. Whereas at one time my van was the only one in the area with “conservation” on its magnetic signage, every other van you see carries the word, all being driven by “specialists” who expect the same middle-class standard of living as their customers.

For “conservation” read “green” or “eco”.

It’s apparently the way of the New World Order.

Exactly, James. There was a measure of irony in there.

I have never advertised my trade apart from business cards to give to people. I always say get a recomendation from a person thats had work done by a tradesperson. My customers always come back to me and are prepared to wait because they know I wont rip them off. They even call me if they need a trade I dont do because they know I will only recommend someone I trust.

end of trumpet blowing!

To be honest all my work comes through personal recommendation also. I have never advertised although I am beginning to think I should. I for one am very happy to listen to what and who owlman recommends!

From the perspective of someone who has frequently had difficulty finding a good, trustworthy, reliable and skilled professional to do things like building work, joinery, roofing etc, I have to say it's a bit of a minefield. It's got to the point where I'm really reluctant to use anyone who hasn't been personally recommended by someone I trust, as my experiences from picking people from adverts has been pretty dire.

I'm getting to believe that any skilled trades person that needs to advertise is probably not up to the job, as the people I know who do a really good job get all their work by word-of-mouth and can't even be found in Yellow Pages. I'll gladly pay over-the-odds for someone who does a good job, having learned the hard way that going for cheap nearly always means ending up with more hassle and grief.

Finding good people remains a big problem, though, especially if I were to move to a new area.

Posted By: JoinerYou get three quotes and go with the lowest. What's the problem here?

I disagree, you get what you pay for (peanuts/monkeys)

Joe, if you have no experience of any of the ones on offer and they all come across in the same way, which one will you choose?

Bear in mind also that the most plausible option is usually the one that screws you.

And Alec, those schemes are a rip-off for the trades and meaningless for the consumer in terms of their representing a guarantee of good work. At least the Trading Standards scheme(s) have been brought up to something like the old lists I was talking about...

e.g. http://www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/kent/bwc.htm

In Shropshire they run this scheme and traders get the sticker for their van...

http://www.shropshire.gov.uk/tradingstandards.nsf/open/0CB6C3BD93F90501802574AC007A6AEC

The problem with the Shropshire scheme is that it's a "too late" one, whereas the old list could be used in the knowledge that whoever was on it had proved themselves and their work. The current scheme offers mediation if the promised good behaviour doesn't materialise, which is a bit late if you've got half a job done that you're not happy with.

"To join the register, you must demonstrate your commitment to fair and honest trade by agreeing to abide by the Trader Register Code of Practice. This includes:

complying with all relevant legislation
treating customers in a polite and courteous manner
not using high pressure selling techniques

Members must also commit to working with consumers, Trading Standards and other partner agencies to seek positive solutions to issues and problems if and when they do arise. Members are also asked to provide evidence of appropriate insurance upon application."

In other words, if you can write your name you're in. Hardly a comforting thought.