Plumbers!

[Dee]

No wish to tar all plumbers with the same brush but....one straight forward new bathroom plumbing job, one plumber started and never returned, second plumber did another part and told me straight he would be back for second fix having already agreed to return. Both were recommended to me.

I'm getting a complex!

Edited November 21, 2023 by Dee

[JohnMo]

5 hours ago, Dee said:

I'm getting a complex

No that how must trades seem to work these days from experience also. Their bosses have contracts with other companies that pay better, have call off penalties etc. You are just a fill in job, between better paying ones

[Dee]

Yes, I get that but these were sole traders. I woukd understand why they abandoned me if I quibbles about prices (I didnt) or the sight was difficult or hazardous (it isnt) or I didn't bend over backwards to accommodate them ( I did) or paid late ( I paid both the next day)....I'm fed up with trades

[ToughButterCup]

3 hours ago, Dee said:

....I'm fed up with trades

 

The first plumber I dealt with on my build was awful - to the extent of being actively mendacious. Knew his stuff (ostensibly) but was over-trading and under-capitalised. He might have turned up, but luckily - and with the help of colleagues - we cut the relationship short. The next plumber was ( is still) the exact opposite. Polite to the point of shyness, does what he says he will do to a proper (standard?) local price. And his company has just won a national award for excellence. And drops in on his way homne to fix my daughter's dripping tap.

 

To your point @Dee: my example is the  exception that illustrates the rule. It's nothing to do with you. Your experience is common. Trades also tell me that many customers are less than straight too. But we're not talking about customers here......

 

If our joint (communal) experience  of working with trades folk were the opposite, this Board would have no - or many fewer - members. So many of us are here because of the £uck-it-I'll-get-on-and-do-it-myself and the How-much?-Do-you-think-we-are-made-of-money? aspect of the build experience. This place is to a large extent - How the Hell can I get round this problem?

Would you have posted here if all had gone just fine and dandy? 

 

And - short term - there's no satisfactory solution to your problem. Thats what grates.  

 

There is one partial remedy: pay an appropriate proportion of your bill - and keep the rest as a retainer, payable (say) when the next stage of the build is complete.  Uncomfortable, i know, but if the tradie is coming back - it's (or should be) no bother should it?

Edited November 21, 2023 by ToughButterCup

[Dee]

Sage words.....infuriating but true!

 

[Alan Ambrose]

>>> pay an appropriate proportion of your bill - and keep the rest as a retainer

 

Yeah, I've only done one piece of work with a supplier where there was an incentive arrangement agreed. In that case it worked well and everyone was happy. So, I'm also wondering about an after-the-fact incentive payment at the customer's discretion?

[Dee]

43 minutes ago, Alan Ambrose said:

So, I'm also wondering about an after-the-fact incentive payment at the customer's discretion?

For just doing their job! I get what you're saying but whatever happened to professionalism?

[Kelvin]

My plumber is excellent. Has even dropped by to see how things are going when he’s been passing. Plasterers have been pretty unreliable. Quality of the work is good but I’m weeks behind now because of them. 

[Dee]

59 minutes ago, Alan Ambrose said:

So, I'm also wondering about an after-the-fact incentive payment at the customer's discretion?

For just doing their job! I get what you're saying but whatever happened to professionalism?

[ToughButterCup]

This thread is about trust, not plumbing. 

 

@Dee,  Forgive the change of focus to my experience: I write this to illustrate the point about trust.

I paid my way round my first degree by cleaning the windows of the Great And the Good in Oxfordshire. Often, I (stupidly) gave a year's credit impressed as I was -then- by  customers' status - many of them landed gentry. Think of the largest estate in Oxfordshire - it's an offical palace linked to Wellington. Well I cleaned there, and the Lord Lieutenants, a very famous bankers house(s), and a good few Peers of the Realm, not far from where Clarkson lives now. 

 

I had been working there for two or three years. At the end of one  year, I asked for payment. The non-resident owner  (he lived in Charlbury nearby) asked me how much it was. I've forgotten how much now..... He grunted, took a large roll of £20 notes out of his back pocket and peeled off £100 LESS than he owed me.

 

"I'll owe you the rest" he said looking at the floor.

I looked  at him and his wife who was standing nearby. Her face flushed red, and glared at him . 

 

"Your Grace," I replied, "Gestures like that are designed to remind me that I'm down here, and that you are up there - and we knew that before I stated cleaning your windows: could you pay me the rest please"

 

He hadn't heard because he had disappeared down the corridor.

 

His wife silently took out her checkbook and wrote a cheque for double the difference.

 

Next job, that day was the  The Lord Lieutenants place - as it happens right at the end of the estate private drive. I was still angry when I got there. He sensed it and asked what was wrong. I told the story.

"Hmm , he grinned " he just wants to make sure you come back: had he paid you in full, you might never go back. And he knows half the Board at St Cross  (my college)- if you put  one foot out of line, you'll never work in Oxfordshire again - you're not just cleaning windows - youre selling TRUST AND clean windows. Now, pop down to the wine cellar and choose yoruself a good claret"

 

Top bloke. Sir Ashley Ponsonby that was. When I got my degree, he put on a silver service tea for my whole family at his private residence. 

Taught me an unforgettable lesson. 

 

Unless you have come to know and trust a tradesman, initially retain an appropriate amount. For the first time someone works for us,  I usually ask for the trades day rate, and pay promptly for the labour. And pay for the materials after 30 days if all is well. 

 

[Dee]

Fascinating....thanks for sharing the moral of the story

[SimonD]

2 hours ago, ToughButterCup said:

Unless you have come to know and trust a tradesman, initially retain an appropriate amount. For the first time someone works for us,  I usually ask for the trades day rate, and pay promptly for the labour. And pay for the materials after 30 days if all is well.

 

Love the story, but as someone who now works in the trade as a result of my own self-build experience, I would not accept that from a customer and would not go back. For me, trust works both ways and that means a customer that pays for the labour and materials when it's due without holding anything back just in case. Cash flow is just so important for any business let alone a small one and I know from experience that any delay in payment can cost me in terms of charges with my suppliers and credit lines especially when 60% of my invoice is for products and materials. For this reason however, I don't separate labour/materials but charge for the job in one sum.

 

For me, if you're planning on retaining something post completion of work, then that needs to be agreed upfront with the tradesperson so it doesn't come as a surprise to them.

 

If you want to build trust, then by all means ask them to complete some smaller pieces of work on a day rate as part of that process.

 

But with all that being said, I still have no clue about how to actually manage trades I'm paying for as they're all just a law unto themselves and I keep on getting let down too!!!

[Alan Ambrose]

>>> that pays for the labour and materials when it's due without holding anything back just in case

 

Actually I'm thinking of an arrangement where the customer pays, say, up to an extra 15-20% if they are super-happy with the work. Call it a bonus.

 

From the customer's point of view - I don't know whether I'm going to get the quality/results I want until the job is finished. Let everyone have a stake in a positive outcome.

 

Otherwise with a totally fixed price, unless you're going to work together on a regular basis - you are creating a incentive for the contractor to do a quick and dirty job - that is, one that gives the max return per hour.

[Kelvin]

Agree with @SimonD. A retention only works if it’s agreed up front. I had a situation where the trade couldn’t complete the job because it needed another job finished which couldn’t happen because of a delay in getting a window replaced. I retained 20% of the total bill. They weren’t happy with this as we’d not agreed it up front and their argument was it wasn’t their fault. My argument was they should have reasonably known they couldn’t have done the job in a single visit as they knew the situation and that how could I be sure they’d come back if I paid 100% of the bill. They did come back and  I paid the remaining 20% but then added about 18% to the bill for the second visit making me commit in email that I’d pay it or they wouldn’t come back to redo an area that had failed. I’m now in dispute with them over the quality of the job. Therefore while I’ve paid 100% of the original bill (plus another £800 on top for a different reason) I’m withholding £1200 due to the quality of the work.
 

It can all get a bit complicated. 

[SteamyTea]

My 14 year old washing machine has got so noisy over the last month that it is basically unsable.

So I called 3 repair companies, one less that 1/4 mile away.

They all wanted between £130 and £160 call out, up front, just to look at it.

Two where honest enough to say that the drum bearing was now unlisted by Bosch, but they could probably find one that would fit.  When I asked about the total cost to repair it, was around £330.

Bought a new machine from Argo for £435 delivered.

 

So look on the bight side, at least you are not paying a plumber £150/day to turn up, regardless of doing an work.

If I could get away with that, I would turn up at 10 different sites, every day.