Terms for handymen... but from the customer!

[hargreaves56]

Maybe I'm dreaming but how about the customer calls the shots a bit more. Especially with handymen services - eg electricians, plumbers, carpenters/fitters. Terms such as: They incur costs due to their mistakes or delays, payment on completion and satisfaction.

Highly unlikely to work. To be fair if I was them and didn't need the work, I'd say no thanks. Which answers my own question. But thought I'd put it out there as a good topic of conversation?

 

[The Byre]

These are not handymen as you call them but tradesmen that have taken years to learn their crafts.

They mostly know their customers and only start charging in advance or asking for large deposits when they either don't know them or have heard bad things about them. And they are 'too busy' if they have been mucked about by that customer in the past.

You forget that these people talk to one another and news about a bad or fussy customer soon spreads!

 

[Newchodge]

Maybe I'm dreaming but how about the customer calls the shots a bit more. Especially with handymen services - eg electricians, plumbers, carpenters/fitters. Terms such as: They incur costs due to their mistakes or delays, payment on completion and satisfaction.

Highly unlikely to work. To be fair if I was them and didn't need the work, I'd say no thanks. Which answers my own question. But thought I'd put it out there as a good topic of conversation?

It is always open to both sides to agree the terms of a contract, and either side can say no if the terms proposed are unacceptable. As the wife of a tradesman I have seen appalling customers who change their spec with no notice and demand extras for no extra cost and refuse to pay anything because of a minor snag they refuse to have put right. It is not always the tradesman at fault.

Incidentally, electricians, plumbers and carpenters are not handymen, fitters is too loose a term to comment.

 

[hargreaves56]

Ok tradesmen, probably "tradesperson" to be quite right. My point is the same. I'd say for every bad customer there is a bad tradesman so it's probably 50/50 to be fair.

I'm not saying the tradesperson doesn't have terms, they definitely should to protect them. Most agreements have terms on both sides or joint terms, hence my OP.

 

[Bob Morgan]

Dealing with 'Trade' always seems so vulgar

 

[hargreaves56]

Does anyone have any opinion on the OP? Be interested to know if you think it would work? More a discussion around the topic than anything serious. Seems to have got stuck on terminology

 

[DWS]

It’s called negotiating, and always has been, the customer says what they want the tradesman says what they want, if they agree then the work is carried out if not then it is not.
The customer will usually hold money back until completion and they are happy with the job and then make final payment.
Not sure exactly what you are asking to be honest!

 

[MBE2017]

ATM any client is struggling to get good tradespeople, so it is a seller in command on the whole. If you don’t agree, good luck in finding a replacement.

I was speaking to a guy last night who had just lost his preferred builder, planning permission came back too late, the builder is booked over a year ahead. He either postpones his build, or looks for another builder, but the good ones are stacked up with work, even with 20/40% material cost increases.

 

[The Byre]

A friend of mine runs a 'high-end' kitchen fitting company and he is booked out for the next nine months. Another friend is a plumber and I had to pull on friendship favours to get a new pressure boiler fitted within three months. His brother-in-law is a builder and is booked out for the next two or three years.

the good ones are stacked up with work, even with 20/40% material cost increases.

Holy Moley! Just 40%??? When I built my barn 12 years ago, two-by-four was 50p a meter wholesale. About four years ago it was £1. I think we paid £3 last year.

As I want to build all kinds of wooden buildings on site and we have loads of trees (most of which turned out to be wooden) it made sense to buy my own sawmill and it arrived yesterday.

 

[hargreaves56]

You could get a quality supervisor for your blocked toilet lol. I feel like that's what is needed with some tradespeople.

 

[MBE2017]

As I want to build all kinds of wooden buildings on site and we have loads of trees (most of which turned out to be wooden) it made sense to buy my own sawmill and it arrived yesterday.

You lucky so and so, always wanted my own onsite sawmill, bet you will have loads of fun with it. Make sure you get it level.

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

Does anyone have any opinion on the OP? Be interested to know if you think it would work? More a discussion around the topic than anything serious. Seems to have got stuck on terminology

There would need to be some consideration of the principle 'the customer is always right', and from my experience they're not?

 

[MBE2017]

You could get a quality supervisor for your blocked toilet lol. I feel like that's what is needed with some tradespeople.

You seem to have a problem with tradespeople.

Tradespeople are just as skilled and necessary and any other profession, only people with no idea of their skill level think they do an easy job. The only reason it looks easy is because they are so skilled.

I had a rich banker moaning about a sixty year experienced tilers prices, lovely old boy who did fantastic work. At this bankers house warming he mentioned how he had done the tiling in his bathroom, after having refused the £7k quote.

I simply commented, “Yes, you can tell” The whole house ruined by an amateur penny pinching. None of the tiling lined up, and was cut very badly. After a couple of years he had the lot ripped out and replaced by the old tiler he thought expensive, at £13k.

 

[The Byre]

You lucky so and so, always wanted my own onsite sawmill, bet you will have loads of fun with it. Make sure you get it level.

It's going into that barn and will have a nice concrete floor to sit upon. I have to assemble the thing first! Lifting the motor-saw assembly will be interesting as I have yet to find a hoist point on the thing. It looks as if I am actually going to have to read the instruction manual! Shock! Horror!

Its' first job will be to cut the wood for a ramp and a dolly cart for logs up to 5m so that they can be wheeled into the barn and pushed by our tractor. Then we start making planks and beams.

As for our OP, yes he does seem to have a problem with tradesmen. Trying to talk them down in price is seldom a clever idea, certainly not today when they are facing 12% inflation and 24% and more for materials. Then you end up in peanuts and monkeys territory!

 

[hargreaves56]

Oh dear, most replies have taken this the wrong way. It's not about terminology or the quality of services, it was a question about terms and conditions from the customer.

Cringe made-up story from @MBE2017 ??

 

[bodgitt&scarperLTD]

You lucky so and so, always wanted my own onsite sawmill, bet you will have loads of fun with it. Make sure you get it level.

It doesn't need to be level, but it does need the bed to be all the same plane.

I've mounted mine to a frame welded from RSJs. Stick it anywhere you like with the forklift- it always cuts true.

 

[Mark T Jones]

Oh dear, most replies have taken this the wrong way. It's not about terminology or the quality of services, it was a question about terms and conditions from the customer.

Cringe made-up story from @MBE2017 ??

I do wonder how you engaging tradespeople?

Admittedly we recently paid for a heating engineer on the basis of call-out fee and hourly rate - we were desperate (our usual one was on holiday) and the rate we paid reflected that.

The norm for any trades type job is that we will get a fixed quote for them to do the job - they can take tea breaks and chat away to their hearts content - we know what we are paying.

 

[hargreaves56]

Thanks Mark. Yes that's how I go about it, the normal way. Sometimes tradepeople (and all services/product providers before the others start) just don't go a good job. There's a good account on tiktok, a quality supervisor ripping apart dodgy shower installs, a lot on new builds actually. Little things like not lining showers up spot on so the additional gap is filled with too much filler which ultimately doesn't hold water and degrades as it's not designed to fill a bit gap. Little "tricks of the trade" you won't know till you know. It's the same with say websites. Most people don't know how to make a website so you trust the expert, most people don't know how to fit a toilet. But you generally have tighter terms when instructing a website designer. I wouldn't think twice about sending a website designer my terms of business, but I would a tradesperson.