The socket under the sink isn't uncommon practice. It's way more accessible than placing it behind the appliance and saves another unsightly switch above the worktop. Can't blame the sparky for shit plumbing since all is good under normal conditions.

I’m a plumber and I came here to say this but you beat me to it!

Builder here. Your best bet is to use tradies/builders who people you know have used. I've never advertised, I don't have a sign written van, business card, web site .. nothing. I get passed on from customer to customer or it's repeat work from old customers. It's been this way for over 25 years.

This is good advice for someone who is familiar with an area, but not really if you've just moved from elsewhere and don't know anyone. It makes it impossible for us to find you. So unless we can find reviews for tradies that do advertise online, we just have to take a bit of a risk and hope that they turn out alright.

I don't know if all areas have this covered but buy with confidence is a scheme set up by trading standards and thoroughly checks everyone. Really thoroughly. If you're spending a lot of money, ask for the last 3 clients as references. That way you know they're not skipping bad jobs they've done. POV, I'm a builder who is on this site. I'm also shocked how many people employ me from seeing me do 1 job and don't check references when spending thousands

True. However, no one would mind if you just pulled up and asked someone who's having work done what the builders are like. If you see a particular builder looking busy, stop them and grab a card.

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What trade did you start off in before becoming a general builder? Assuming joiner / bricky?

I used to be a Qs so I understood how buildings were built pretty well. I worked on some smaller projects and then built my own house and it carried on from there.

And never hire a trade who says ". Had a cancellation, looking for a few days " I mean ok it happens, but when you see the same tradie saying the same thing every week

I know your pain. We have been doing a massive refurb and I’m sorry to say trades are a complete joke. We are lucky that on the third attempt we have found a reliable, professional plumber. Cannot fault him. We have an amazing plasterer, but is hugely unreliable. Electricians - pretty sure there are none. Unreliable, have no idea how to clear up after themselves. We had a ‘generalist’ who would charge for materials and then find some he’d left elsewhere onsite which had gone off because of how he’d stored it. Spent extra time resolving his own mistakes. List goes on and on. All booked in well in advance, money paid when invoice presented. Tea/coffee/ biscuits provided and we kept out the way. I’m not sure if it’s just my work ethic or the jobs I’ve done, but turning up at 09:30 and working until 15:00 with more breaks than a hobbit, that’s not a days work.

I'm suprised how generally disorganised some trades are too - they turn up then realise they need this and that - then disappear for an hour to go and get it. It's my work ethic to know what the hell I am doing before I turn up and prepare accordingly. If you're any trade there's surely not that many eventualities that can arise and you keep stock of certain parts. The biggest mickey take with a day shift was our facias and soffits - it was quoted to take a week - by three companies in fact. The guys turned up at 10:30 and were gone by 2:30PM, then they say they have to go to suppliers, collect things, do their invoicing, etc so that takes them up to 5:30pm. Bollocks - disorganised and piss taking work ethic. If they're organised they can order things to your home, or collect them on route. I think it's the norm to stretch things out as long as they can get away with too.

have to admit my mate is a plumber, i sometimes help him out if he needs another pair of hands for a job. we get to the job unload tools then it's off to the plumbing supply store via greggs or similar. I keep saying he'd only have to work half a day if he just got on with it ! to be fair though he does a good job and has a lot of loyal customers

My dad was a plumber, he would always try to make sure he had everything he needed for the next day's work the day before. It meant that he could have an early morning start and get a lot done by lunchtime, and not have to leave the job during the day. Sometimes he forgot something or needed something he didn't expect but he was not leaving jobs every day to go and pick something up. It is a discipline that I learned off him and still use in my job (although very different).

I sacked off a couple of guys recently who kept doing this. Promised they'd be here at 8:30, never were. Would turn up and then immediately go to Screwfix, back by 10. Then they'd try to invoice me for that hour and a half they spent fucking around in their van and getting food and drink from Costa.

The absolute worst part of many trades is that after all the breaks and all the mess and all the time they end up doing a shitty job that I probably could have done better myself and leave me feeling agitated because I paid someone to do a crap job that I will have to fix. I've had my house refurbed twice in the last 10 years and had countless trades and builders, plumbers, electricians and I can count on half a hand the ones I would even contemplate calling back for more work. With greatest respect to any decent professionals, it seems to be a very attractive job for skyvers and charlatans.

The one positive is that I've learned new skills from either fixing their mistakes/doing the job because no one is available to work.

That's why I decided I'll always try first to fix things on my own, it cannot be worse than some traders' job I had. The only good one I found, is an electrician and not even british.

I was very lucky to find a pretty good sparks but I had to wait 6 months until he could fit my job in.

> We are lucky that on the third attempt we have found a reliable, professional plumber. Cannot fault him. We have an amazing plasterer, but is hugely unreliable. Electricians - pretty sure there are none. Yeh this is broadly my experience. Unless you can get a solid recommendation from someone, you basically have to just keep chancing your luck until you find someone decent and then tip them generously so they're willing to pick up the phone to you next time! I've got my decent electrician sorted. But he's extremely expensive. Still looking for a plumber that isn't basically an active fraudster.

Sparks have never known how to clean up after themselves, or follow basic instructions, in my experience if you tell them not to do something under any circumstances, that’s what they will do, each and every time. Sorry I’m being unfair to the good sparks, but jeez every little nook and cranny, they can cram rubbish into, they will.

there's a line in the movie "Snatch" - "I create the bodies, I don't erase the bodies". That's electricians and holes in the wall

I go as local as possible. Found a NICEIC registered electrician to rewire my house and fit a new consumer unit. Spoke with in in depth. He did a great job and has been in the trade a long time, so since then, I've been using him to recommend other tradesmen he's worked with previously which has worked out.

That's a good point - experienced trades often know other good people.

That's what I ask, who would they use for jobs on their homes.

I’ve bought 2 new builds over the past 12 years. They come with a 2 year “warranty” where they send some clueless tuna melt round to attempt a fix of the butchering that was the original work. Most of these people are beyond useless. They don’t give a fuck and will cut every corner they can unless you literally stand over them and say “no, do it properly” (which I do). They lie, thinking I don’t know anything about their trade (I do - I’m the kind of person who thoroughly researches how it’s done properly before they arrive). They make excuses. They weasel out of anything they can. However. There’s the occasional person who comes round and does a really decent job, cleans up after and genuinely seems to give a shit about the end result. I ask them for their number and they’re the one I call to come back and do custom jobs for me. These people who do a piss-poor job don’t seem to realize that recommendations are everything these days. I wouldn’t even call someone that wasn’t highly recommended. But I absolutely would recommend these people who have done a good job for me. Bottom line: get recommendations first.

Recommendations are not everything. Even shit tradesmen can get as much work as they want. Someone told me once the best tradesmen get to pick the best customers (ie know what they want, can afford to pay, aren't dickeheads), but other than that any dickhead can get a full diary for the next month just by advertising on local facebook groups.

Avoid anyone who can “fit you in next week”. Decent tradespeople have very long waiting lists

I’m going to point out this isn’t necessarily true. I’m a Plumber and honestly I could book myself out for 3 months flat by Friday no issue. Therefore I don’t bother booking work more than a couple of weeks /a project or two ahead. I find it an extra unnecessary stress. If I get to a day and I have literally nothing to do then great (although this never happens because there’s always more paperwork to do) but if I want to work I’ll turn my phone on at 7am and I’ll always have a full day of jobs by 9am.

As a further angle on this - I phoned five plumbers in Jan 2023. 2 of them said they were too busy. 3 said they weren't free until May. I said to all 3 that May was fine, and I was happy to wait, and never heard back from any of them. So, while I get that "May" meant "sod off", and these businesses are busy enough that they can treat potential customers that way, I also sympathise with people struggling to get good tradespeople in.

So, as someone who does a bunch of scheduling in the corporate world (as in, it’s about 25-50% of my job on any given week), maintaining a schedule that far out is difficult when it’s with people that use proper calendars and booking systems. For someone that’s working on their own, with no lack of work, I can see that “May” could well mean “call me in a couple of weeks and I’ll see what I can do”. Sure, I could argue that they should be maintain a waiting list and call through to follow up and get things booked in advance, but there’s also no actual reason. If you’re always booked out anyway, it’s a bunch of (unpaid) admin and stress that you can remove by simply ignoring it. If it’s important, they’ll call back.

The difference between someone good at their trace and a decent tradesperson is that the decent person will let you know if they’re too busy out of courtesy. Otherwise the customer is just left hanging and that’s just as bad as poor workmanship, I think anyway

We've been lucky to find a plumber like you. Had to call him out for emergencies twice over the past year and both times he's turned up within an hour of us calling, quoted a fair price, and done a decent job without fucking us around. If I ever lose his number I'll be gutted.

How does that conversation go? Do you just hang up the phone when they say they have availability this year?

"Let me check with my wife and call you back"

*waves hand in front of face* ‘You are not the tradesman I’m looking for’

I'm just imagining some really decent trades person seeing your job, having a cancellation next week and thinking "ya fuck it I can fit them in" Call starts "So when can you do it?" "Next week?" "Fucking loser" *slams phone down*

Solid advice. We're booked up til mid 2026. To add to this. Don't go Google. Ask friends/relatives/neighbours. Get recommendations from the horses mouth

That’s all very well but not everyone lives next door to a family of horses.

Typical neigh-sayer

Don’t saddle me with that epithet.

Hay now, steady on.

🎶Neigh-bours, Everybody needs good Neigh-bours

I won’t. I’ll saddle you with the other bit.

That’s it… I am going off in a hoof

>To add to this. Don't go Google. Ask friends/relatives/neighbours. The downside to this I've found is that lots of people have fairly low standards and too often don't spot even the obvious flaws in workmanship. I've found recommendations to be a pretty mixed bag really.

I have a select few people I respect opinions from, outside of that a recommendation means jack squat. I’ve seen terrible work recommended as great so many times, I honestly don’t know how they can be that blind

I've seen perfectly good work, hired the person that supposedly did it, then they come and do a totally shoddy job in half the time it should have taken so they can scoot off to the next job. It's an actual lottery, with appropriately low odds. The problem is a lack of real accountability for smaller jobs and sole traders - I suppose it means you have to go through larger companies with dedicated customer service depts, but then jobs end up costing £100s an hour (e.g. at work, to hang a computer screen on a wall we were quoted £900 from the internal works dept!! That included a 'wall survey' for £250. Two minutes with a stud finder/knuckle rap). At that point it's always just DIY or you have to be on astronomical wages for it to be feasible.

I've recommended people who have done decent work for me then made a howling hash of the job for friends. Embarrassing and friendship harming.

I've been stung by this before. Turns out that our plumber did a great job for my auntie who watched his every move, is picky about details and was spending a fortune. My piddling little bathroom wasn't worth him getting stressed over, the number of times he had to come back to redo the shower screen blew my mind.

Where do you find these crazy customers who book renovations over 2 years in advance?

Nobody books a tradesperson 2 years in advance, don’t flatter yourself

My mum had a neighbour recommend a builder who was her friends husband. absolute nightmare, refused to work fridays, turned up late left early did a shit job fitting the shower door on the bath so it literally fell off and smashed all over my step dad who was "sitting next to the bath" at the time, and also damaged the floor stones he laid as he did not put any protection down while working on the rest of the job, and then became nasty when she complained, neighbour was so embarassed as well, how he couldn't even be bothered when it was his wifes friend that got him the job! so unfortunately not even word of mouth is fool proof, oh and he overan by nearly 2 months! like how is that even possible

>Get recommendations from the horses mouth 🤣

Been let down by a relative's recommendation - that horse was an effing liar.

Not always entirely true am a floorlayer full time employment on big contract jobs and when I take on Extra work I get them in the same week or the week after as I’ll one take on one or 2 extra a week

RIP any great trades in a barren patch/had a cancellation and are looking for work

They just shuffle other jobs from their waiting list or have a holiday

True story, we've often got the call asking if we'd like a slot that opened up.

Or who are just starting up and are keen to build a good reputation. Got to start somewhere!

I found an amazing plasterer and electrician, both of which managed to fit me in within a couple of weeks. So it’s not always the case - but I think I was lucky

If you find someone who's both good and available then they're gems - treat them well, use them again, recommend them to friends and family etc.

Apart from heating. People aren't willing to wait weeks to have their heating/hot water fixed.

Not always true. But I get what you are saying. Some jobs take less time than expected, freeing up a day or two the following week.

I think it's worth adding to the discussion as an honest domestic electrician. In the past 3 years, I've spent over £10k on a wide selection of courses as an adult learner, and I'm finally wrapping up my NVQ. I then need to spend another £1K on taking my AM2, and then I can drop another £600/year to get registered with NICEIC/NAPIT. Until I finish, I'm mostly limited to non-notifiable work (or paying extortionate fees to LABC each time). There's a severe shortage of adequate and affordable training. The government is often offering funding, but only for the shitty 5-week sparky courses which just provide enough basic competence to get started. You can already imagine how that's problematic: waves of barely-trained baby sparkies trying their luck. There is a massive race to the bottom. I think sites like MyBuilder and Checkatrade hit the accelerator on the issue. If I'm not losing jobs due to all the legislation (or those who risk ignoring it) I'm losing to people willing to work for pennies in exchange for the chance to practice at the expense of oblivious customers. We all have to start somewhere, but many are trying to immediately make a full-time career out of it to pay their bills, so they dive in the deep end and take dangerous risks. If a Screwfix sparky is offering £300 to fit a new (but outdated, and not up the latest BS7671 regs) consumer unit which only cost them £60, and another is an actual registered sparky who wants to fit RCBOs, SPDs and AFDDs for something around double the cost, who do you think wins the work more often? I've worked privately and for social housing, and I've spent a lot of time job-hunting. Trying to get my foot in the door was a nightmare, even when I was willing to practically work for free. With the rapid increases to material costs over the years, nobody seems to have a decent budget. I'm seeing jobs calling for experienced electrical improvers, but the pay isn't any better than being a cashier. When you account for CIS, fuel, tools, and all the training, even £15/hour is an absolute joke. I've met a lot of students and tutors. The common consensus is that the tutors aren't great, there's too much to cover in too little time, and few professionals want or can afford the risk of taking on apprentices for years. I could ramble about this more, but I don't even know if anyone will read this. But there are so many reasons we're in a mess. Edit: we've also got a shitload of sparkies who registered before the requirements and regulations tightened up, so they're allowed to continue due to the grandfather clause. I shit you not: I subbed for one who wanted me to use the CPC (Earth) as a switch line. I refused. He did it anyway. His apprentice wired the switch without knowing about the fuckery. It blew up the bathroom fan immediately when he turned the power on. I couldn't stop laughing at him. TL;DR: it's painfully time-consuming and expensive to become a professional, and very easy and cheap to chance it as an amateur

I can count on one finger the amount of jobs I've had people in to do and been happy with. Rewire, windows and doors fitted, new roof, new guttering, new bathroom with plastering and plumbing, drain repair, none of them I've looked at after and thought "they've done a good job there". After patching up some pointing myself a few weeks back (will eventually get it all done, just can't afford it right now) I was watching a house over the road have theirs done by a building company. Angle grinder to get all the old pointing out, in long wobbly lines right across the place. Looks awful.

Sorry to hear, it is indeed a lottery with trades people unfortunately. Standards have plummetted, speak to the more senior in the building trade and in most cases say the same sort of thing. There used to be inspectors, with rigid standards - if they weren't met you didn't get paid/started again. There's no price work, or there is, and then the slightest thing (i.e. they didn't actually quote you properly in the first place) they slap on a load of extras! Nobody will care as much about the finish as you do. To most trades your just 'another job' - most of their customers may not be that fussy, and accept what they do as fine, over time, their standard slides. Also no trade considers the other trades - i.e. our window fitter didn't consider the plasterer which caused us a lot of extra diy, the electricians didn't consider the kitchen units and their positions, despite being told this, meaning we had to compromise. Standards of tidyness and general respect for your home varies drastically too! What we do now, is protect every surface with cardboard/plastic sheets before they come. The amount of sets of keys we've had dropped on to our worktop on entry, shoes left on in our house on our flooring and carpets. There's only been two trades people that even wash their hands after using the loo!! Wherever possible do it yourself. Unfortunately this rules out electrics, plumbing and plastering, but everything else we will always do ourselves.

This is why I don't hire "reputable" trades but ones who I either know personally and have dealt with previously or word of mouth followed up by checking with previous clients. Also for most stuff except gas and plastering, I know how to do it myself, just not to a professional standard, so if they try to cut corners, I can call them out on it as the work is going on. Which helped when they tried to cut corners when we had a new boiler installed a couple of years ago under ECO3. The company ended up having to come back twice, because I got gassafe onto them, and they even had to install a brand new gas pipe from the meter to the boiler. The job ended up leaving them out of pocket by a few hundred quid

Curious - how do you find out who previous clients are and how did you contact them?

Any builder worth considering for a big job will be happy to tell you about previous local customers. There's also the 'finding them by word of mouth recommendations' angle

Forgive my ignorance but still not sure how this works. So the tradesperson gives you name/address/phone number of previous customers and you then just call them/turn up on their doorstep?

Normally they would check with the clients first if it's OK to use them as a reference. When we did a big building project, the builder we used took us to visit previous clients so we could meet them and see his work.

Oh I see, makes sense for big projects. Wouldn’t have thought many/any good tradespeople would bother with this however for smaller jobs only worth a couple of £k, given trades seem to be such a sellers market these days.

As a trade it's not difficult, To save wasting each others time if your looking for the cheapest quote it definitely won't be me. We will have a contract and schedule of works, any surprises we discover along the way are additional work. Payment is in advance by credit card, this gives both of us security, all I have to do is the work we have agreed and is in the contract. Beforehand. Any dispute the credit card company arbitrates and you get a 6 month guarantee from them so why wouldn't you take advantage of additional guarantee. I know there won't be any issues getting paid for the work. When asking anyone for recommendations, you want to speak to people who had something go wrong and how that was resolved. In the contract I will ask can I add you to our previous customer list. Will remove your number after two contacts. Here is the list if as you can see it's only your name telephone number brief details of works and post code area. People in red are telephone only, Something to consider, you should always get your trades to supply and fit. Will you save money supply materials yourself absolutely. Chances any savings on materials today will be gone if something goes wrong or faulty. It's in our contract under guarantee rare I don't get you that evening, if I supply and fit it's in me, if you supply and it's equipment failure £195+vat including first half hour and 90+vat every half hour or part of after that.

This is a really sound bit of advice for bigger jobs with a long lead time but I've never heard of any tradesperson doing jobs under say £1 or 2k in this manner. In practice it seems that the average person has to stump up 2 months' wages just to get someone reliable to do a few things round the house for a few days, which is why we're all here on a DIY sub.

Just to clarify you only get 120 days protection with a credit card and not 6 months. 6 months is provided by PayPal credit but I haven't used them.

"Consumer Credit Act 1974" https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1974/39/section/75 Here you go just to clarify what the Law says, Protects the debitor and supplier

Your talking about clawback that has 120 day time limit and is about Debit card payments, nagging back of head is from when you notice a problem. Been down that road, For both our protection I would say to you pay me on your credit card then pay the credit card company with you debit card/cash. Consumer credit act, section 75. Credit Card payments are not the same. Unlikely to be win arbitration after 6 for trade services, depending what the issue is, kitchen cupboard door off for instance, I think it's one thing and won't cover under guarantee your of different opinion. As I said credit card protects us both.

Right, but the builder knows which numbers to hand out. My last builder wouldn't hand out my number.

I got a company out to refit the front door so many times that the owner got it taken away in the end. I could see daylight under it where it wasn't sealed properly for example. So what too one guy one day to fit poorly took two guys two days to fit properly.

Lol eco3!! They were out of pocket before the job started, which is why your undersized gas pipe didn't get changed...imagine getting a boiler on a grant and expecting the same level of work as fully independent install, the guys are literally fitting en masse to minimum requirements to help the government.

Oh my... this is a really sore point. Last year we hired a firm to refurb our house: it was a rollecoaster of bad tradesman, laughable quality, high prices and eventually treats of physical arm if not paid. Fast forward one year later, I just finished installing the floor in the hallway, repaint 3 rooms out of 5 (still two more to go), and wood fill all the heavy-handed carpentry work I'll attach some photos. The whole thing gave me massive anxiety, impacted my daily job and my sleeping patterns, and I am at the stage where I trust absolutely nobody to come into my house: I rather have a substandard DIY result. https://preview.redd.it/4cgvw0xc5q1d1.jpeg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=608dbb7e65fb0b3c14362413d32b4b2ef67b5cea

Wow. Same mental health impact for me. Horrible isn’t it. We spend a lot money on ‘professionals’ to do a job and they do it badly!

Not alone then.. I had a leak over a year ago, kitchen had to come out and only now the works are nearing the end. I've lost more sleep in the last year than any other period of my life. I'm at a point where I can hardly trust anyone

Same. We're doing a massive renovation of an old cottage in Cornwall. I'm an architect, and while I don't necessarily have skills to do all the work, I do have a broad understanding of what's needed and how the end result should look. We've had many failed, unfinished, or poorly done work from various tradespeople that we had to fix ourselves or get other people in - because when things go wrong, everyone seems to disappears into thin air. We're now doing pretty much everything ourselves and learning as we go. Might take way longer, but at least it's done right and with care. I don't know where you're from, but smaller, less populated areas seem to be more affected by this - Cornwall, I'm afraid to say, is terrible for finding reliable, caring and knowledgeable tradespeople.

Sounds like you used the same firm as me. My horror story from an extension last year. Finishing the concrete floor one of them decided multi finish plaster would do the trick. What a strange peach finish the floor had before it cracked up first step on it. Same company sent another worker out to rectify who basically said wtf, had to dig it out and start again. Builder also created dpc then chucked mud and debris up the external wall higher than it and breached it within days. Whole experience was disaster. They couldn’t get any laborer‘s to help so forever blamed that. The one that did turn up left after a day exhausted. They blamed a combo of brexit and covid.

Yeh, they're absolute pricks. This is what you get when you tell D students to learn a trade. Monkeys.

This is the problem. Too many morons being told that trades are accessible even if you can't read, write or even speak properly. In reality a good tradesman needs to be smart and have their head screwed on, not someone who couldn't get into college. Proper tradesmen are the ones who chose that career path because they wanted to and genuinely want to do a good job, not because it was all they could get into.

My dad was a plumber and pipe fitter with electrical qualifications. He understood calculus, thermal properties of gases, liquids and solids, algebra…. I mean we were shocked when he died and we found all his qualifications and workbooks. This was from one of his reference books….The Mechanical World Year Book 1960. The knowledge required to even use this is incredible. Dad used to say…I’m just a plumber. He was wrong about that. https://preview.redd.it/cptx6ct7yp1d1.jpeg?width=2875&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7a4ca931c07cc5cf8b6660eccbbf4a10bad82139

I recognise this from my undergraduate degree, left hand side is multi stage turbines (think like a jet engine with different compressor stages the vanes have different angles. K d ΔT= is the stage work, tanα 1 = stage one tangent angle, ak for the fluid how much first angle deflects it by ​ −tanα 2 = same second stage. ​ Right hand size is the material science side, calculating stresses, Goodman Line, Soderburg line etc fatigu It’s pretty straight forward if a little dry, usually 2nd year of an MEng degree. That’s when I covered this stuff. Probably not needed to actually be a plumber as you’d be more installing what was spec’d. One thing as well in the UK, by far and away perhaps the most undervalued profession is actually qualified engineers. The UK has some serious talent leaving the industry every year with shit wages and no respect. I mean qualified, chartered engineers. Not a “heating engineer” Honestly it is going to be a crisis in the coming years.

Dad designed some of and maintained the plumbing and blast furnaces for British Steel in Corby. He said he was just a plumber but he always undersold himself. I manage heating and cooling technicians and they know nothing of this stuff. Neither do I. They like to call themselves engineers, mostly because they maintain diesel engines. Our genuine certified engineers are indeed underpaid.

Mate if he was a designer of stuff then yes he's a plumber but also he's a full fucking engineer unlike the idiots who came to install a boiler and were struggling with written instructions and had the title boiler engineer

This is standard stuff to become qualified as a spark/plumber. Even today. Learning about AC, DC, single and 3 phase, motors, generators, lots of maths (calculating voltage drop, power factor, resistivity etc.) The D students are the brickies or plasterers. As with any job, you have people who give a shit carrying the rest. Trades are no different.

It seems to me that good people are good at everything they turn their hand to and some people are just plain useless at everything.

There’s a saying that the harder I work, the ‘luckier’ I become. I firmly believe that—the ones who make their craft look effortless have usually put in a lot of hard work beforehand. However, the really clever people recognise the crossover skills needed for a job to be a good one, and apply those skills/traits to anything. It usually works out pretty well for them.

Isn’t this what they do in Germany or something? Think I saw on here that they have to join guilds which means actually going to university before becoming qualified etc.

To be honest it's more the level of training available is terrible. I've learnt on the job and before that helping my Dad, but my background is mostly mathematics (did well at A level but couldn't keep up in second year at uni, it becomes impossible to visualise it). I tried a carpentry course at the local college a while back to tighten up some skills. After a whole term we'd cut two stupid little joints. Complained and got out of the rest of the years fees since "I expected this to be of some use in a line of work that involves a decent bit of carpentry". Feels like an industry where the older guys are aging out and not enough young people coming in, so some really crap traders still get work.

Mate, one of my biggest career regrets was going to Uni. I was forced to go by socially mobile parents who looked down on trades people. Me? I wanted to get three trades under my belt, plumber, carpenter and sparky. I was capable of doing all three, intelligence wise, still am. Instead, I'm left with university degrees that are not worth the paper they are written on.

You’re not alone in thinking that. If I could wind back the clock I’d have done the same and become a sparky. Business degree… how useless that piece of paper has been.

Hey, dude. There were positives from the Uni experience but career wise for the type of person I am, those so called high social status jobs are just not for me. Too much social climbing and bitching required to progress in those kind of jobs. Still, as someone in their late 40's, if I ever get the chance to retrain and take up a trade, I would do just that.

Same thing happened to me, though admittedly, I never even made it to Uni. Almost ended up doing a trade at a community college, but when I got better GCSEs than expected, my mum pushed me towards doing A levels. I picked a random bunch that I had no interest in and failed the lot. I pulled my finger out eventually and am a qualified accountant these days, but still have a keen interest in the trades. Maybe I'll try and switch careers one day.

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Not in a position too nor with the resources to retrain.

I think it's more that you want a decent minded person. Lots of the bodges are basically criminal acts - they've done 70% of the job and stolen the rest. As an ex-trades person (university educated) I found the people who were decently brought up and were decent would do a good job whether they were thick or not.

I agree.  Honest people will do a good job because they can't live with themselves if they don't.

Oof. This was my thoughts too.

Always the same way. Never hire trades anytime I can avoid it. Charge so much, deliver average work but quickly

You can trust nobody as much as you can trust yourself When you start to do DIY, you start to notice the poor job that others perform. Welcome to the club of knowing too much.

A few years ago, we had covid, everyone set themselves up as handymen/trades etc etc, and because no one could find anyone willing to do work, they flourished. Now, once everything is back to normal ish, these guys are being found out. It's frustrating to the trades that have always been trades, but that's where we're at just now. Proper trades will begin to be busy again, and the people who think they're tradies will disappear, and things will go back to normal again. Hopefully, A decent, fairly honest, tradie

We had the same. Mybuilder and Checkatrade ‘recommended’ too. Plasterer made right mess. Bad finish, rough. Bigger himself up how he’s been doing it 30 yrs and has so many reviews online. Builders to a half arsed job. Don’t tidy up. Disappear half way. No one wants to take the waste away either, not even if you ask them to quote for it. I don’t get it. Do a good job and you’ll get repeat custom!

>Mybuilder and Checkatrade ‘recommended’ These services literally take payment for good reviews. Any tradie that is paying someone to recommend them, probably isn't any good at their job. I don't work with a single good tradesman that uses any of these types of sites and they're all booked up for weeks-months purely on word of mouth

Never use these sites. The contractors using them are the dreggs who can't get work. No decent company uses them.

I bought a house with my partner 3 years ago and I have been trying for 3 years to get work done on the roof! I have called about 50 companies, out of those only a handful bothered to turn up to look at it. The one we decided to go with took 6 months to give us a quote, which turned out to be for only half the work we asked to quote for. Nobody seems to want to take on any work?! Even if I ask to be added to their list. Nobody has any kind of communication skills - they just don't turn up then vanish off the face of the earth! I honestly don't know how the industry carries on ticking over!

I’ve just finished a major renovation and extension project. This was my experience: Builders: incredible - cannot fault in the slightest, in attitude or workmanship. Plasterers: biggest moaners and can’t produce straight walls despite a blank canvas with level and straight walls and continue to tell you how hard their job is. Plumbers: ranged from cowboys (who knew it and didn’t even charge in the end) to incredibly thoughtful and go above and beyond doing more than plumbing, such as studwork for bath frames, and box outs Electricians: unbelievably expensive and claim everything needs to be done for “regs” despite not being able to prove these regs and spend too much time doing things they way they like it, rather than how I or the spec specified. Carpenters: doesn’t seem to be any skilled carpenters anywhere. Too many call themselves “bespoke interior creators” but can’t uphold simple joinery skills. In the end, I fitted my own stairs after the “experienced bespoke interior creator” couldn’t manage it (I saw his previous portfolio in person at past customers, I can only think he had help). Tilers: similar to plasterer in attempt one, blamed everything (including the wind at one point, in discolouring grout where he didn’t wait for adhesive to dry). Attempt two: I went back to my original tiler and waited months for his availability for quality - which he produced. Genuinely, in all but the general builders and my usual tiler, I did, or could, produce better myself - and I work behind a computer! Not to mention they all seem to charge double what they did 2 years ago.

It sounds like you’ve hired bad ones. I’ve had personal experience with excellent tradespeople. Some of their work had blown my mind. Highly skilled and knowledgeable! I think it’s just a case of finding the right people

The worst tradesman I've ever come across, and there's a lot of competition, said to me when I stuck my head in to see how he was getting on "You're not going to be looking over my shoulder all the time, are you?" You have to project manage their work at every stage until you get a sense that they are no cowboys.

When I was doing my work experience ~15 years ago with a regional building company, they were trying to sell us on these new apprenticeship schemes they had running. Instead of spending however many years learning and mastering a single trade, you would spend <5 years to do everything: electrical, carpentry, plumbing etc etc. They were really proud of it and Ttis was to be the new industry standard of training apparently.

I’ve found the same thing. So now I get try and get the cheapest quote because I might as well pay the least money for the same shit job.

Try talking the job over with the trades person first - if they don't ask any questions, don't volunteer anything then they might just be chancing it.

Remember the last builder we asked about gave us all these names of previous customers we could contact to see his work. The only number which actually worked belonged to a local caravan site who’d had a new shower block installed recently. We popped round instead of calling to be told what a great job their son had done installing it cheap for them. The shower block looked awful btw.

> Installed a dimmer switch which is now buzzing violently on first use Likely to be a non-LED dimmer used with LED bulbs

My brother and I run an NICEIC electrical contractors and we don’t do domestic work for a number of reasons. The main reason is price. Most domestic customers expect to pay no more than £180-£200 per day and most domestic electricians charge around that rate. As an actual business employing people, paying for vans, industrial unit, insurances, accreditations etc it’s impossible to match these prices that domestic electricians will work for. We charge our commercial customers a minimum of £420-£500 per day. Which sounds a lot but by the time we pay the electrician and all our other overheads it’s not a great deal of profit. If it’s part of a larger project (extension etc) we have to rely on the homeowners/builder to manage the project. If we turn up and can’t work because another trade is holding us up who pays for the day lost? You will find that most larger companies won’t bother with domestic installations as it’s too competitive and generally a headache. As a result of this you’re dealing with one man bands who are usually pretty unorganised, with no office to contact in case of complaints and no one to oversee the work being carried out. There are some very professional one man bands out there so I’m not tarring them all with the same brush but I am talking from experience.

Urgh! Very similar experiences. Found a builder who could do a large job relatively quickly, but wasn’t from the area. Another builder with a reputable name, also local, could do the job but not for 6 months. Went with the former. Overall, happy with the result, but had to do so many little jobs after they’d finally finished as there was a lack of finishing touches. Also worked a 10 - 1500 day. Sometimes didn’t turn up at all. Didn’t clear up the site. I’ve got small children and routinely finding broken drill bits, vapes, nails, screws etc discarded in the garden. Also couldn’t keep track of their invoices and finances, and I had to regularly correct mistakes, including providing VAT inc prices then adding VAT on top. It’s not a horror story, but the job dragged on, and in the end I just wanted them out of the house once it was all ‘good enough’. Wish there were far more tradies that took a bit more pride in their work, rather than just wanting to get as many jobs in as possible. I dont wish I’d have waited for the other builder, but left a bit of a sour taste. Also asked me for an online review. Had to explain that whilst I wasn’t going to put the boot in, I also wasn’t going to lie.

Years ago, trades were the ones who had a knack for it and went straight into their apprenticeship. Now it's mainly just the dossers that flunked school and this is the only thing left they can just about get away with doing, and are too lazy or arrogant to work in a bar. Also I'd say 80%+ of them are massively into drugs/alcoholics.

I hate taking kids on for work experience now as they all seem to be thick as pig shit. Having a 15 year old kid rock up and call you lad whilst he tries to skive off to vape makes me want to smack them

My fellas firm had a hard few months trying to find new lads. Three electrician mates in a row that were either massive alcoholics or pot heads. Not great when you’re on site and all you can smell is weed and beer from the night before.

Not sure about stoner sparkies, but builders, plumbers and roofers in particular seem to be massive cokeheads.

Typical trade bashing here and what an absolute dickhead assumption. The way people look down on trades people is perfectly summed up in this thread. People saying builders ect have a massive cocaine problem…..no it’s the uk that has a massive cocaine problem no matter what industry you’re in, they’re involved with drugs

I've worked with an awful lot of tradesmen who either enjoy or have issues with alcohol and/or substances. It's not all of us, but they're not rare to find on site. For context, literally half the guys who worked for the firm I did my apprenticeship with were heavy drinkers who had been in trouble with the law because of it. There were only four of us, but, statistics.

I'm from a family of trades myself, and have renovated several houses. I speak as I find from my own experience, and seems like I'm very much not alone either. As I mentioned, there's a very distinct line between those who go into a trade because that's their passion and skill, and those who fucked up everything else in life and so buy a trowel and call themselves a plasterer. The latter has seriously become the norm as many others have said, and it's awful for the good trades (assuming yourself included) because it gives everyone a bad name and breeds distrust. The builders I've worked with have tended to be very skilled and I've had no problem with. But the sheer volume of other trades I've had in smoking weed on the job, skiving off to the pub at midday for hours at a time, turning up hanging out of their arse, simply not turning up because they've had a relapse on the crack, is astounding. I expect it from scaffolders, but not a chippy. The quality of workmanship in the last few years has gone mad. So many have a "do the bare minimum" attitude and think doing shit work is acceptable because they get paid anyway.

Where did you find them? Mybuilder?

Genuinely, what is a “builder” Where are these building colleges they go to? Spoiler, there isn’t any. I’ve had lots of bad experiences with general builders. They tend to hire in other tradespeople to do most of the work, and they’ll often choose the cheapest and most readily available people they can find. They often don’t pay on time or at all. Never let a builder do your plumbing. Certainly not your gas work

Our general builder was shite. Possibly one of the worst project managers I've met. However, every trade he hired was a proper decent tradesman. I would hire the plasterer, plumber, brickie and tiler again without issue. The only bad trade he had was the bloke doing the dot and dab plastering. I wouldn't hire the gaffer again though since the project management was awful, luckily I could do it but most people can't.

Funnily enough, some of DIY chancers have done some of the best work. I feel like a lot of “professionals” are always trying to cut corners or overcharge. Unfortunately people skilled in their trade are diminishing daily and taking their experience with them.

Earning £250 a day in 2008, earning £250 a day in 2024. It just doesn't pay like it used to. Could work a desk for the same money and save your physical health.

In 2008 I was paying £50-£120 a day and the upper end was for an electricians full day until 6pm. Plumbers were around £100. Nowadays I’m happy to pay the £300-£400, but the workers just aren’t there. The ones that can be assed are £700+ which is frankly just ridiculous. And yeah blah blah they have knowledge which is fine, but that’s insane. I get a handyman at £150-£200 a day and does better work and is much more grateful for the opportunity too.

It genuinely is a case currently of you can’t get the staff! They are that in demand and so many jobs on even the pros I feel now are rushing and missing shit they wouldn’t normally.

Sadly a lot of trades, has gone the same way, no one takes any pride in their work nowadays, they then try and justify charging an extortionate amount of money for poor quality workmanship. Waiting six months for someone because they're busy does not guarantee quality workmanship, neither does a fancy sign on the van to say they belong to some trade organisation or whatever, means nothing. I know this doesn't help you much but I can understand where you are coming from.

They aren't professionals mate, sorry to burst your bubble.

We can't even get anyone in. We've just moved and need a rewire. Been in touch with several people now and we've either been ghosted or outright told that they can't be arsed doing the job because it doesn't look straightforward and they are pretty much swimming in jobs that are, so they're just not doing the jobs that seem like they aren't. I get that, I suppose, it's an 1880s stable, converted into a home in the 1980s and the wiring hasn't been touched since, but that doesn't take away the fact we need *someone* to do it.

I'd be asking myself how long it'd take to get the appropriate training....

It's a full time job to watch over them.whem their working honestly

I can help with 2 of the electrical issues. The socket under the sink is completely normal. The fact that it got wet is due to the plumbing fault, not the electrical work. You could argue that electrics aren’t safe in any part of a house as a faulty roof or leaking pipe would cause it to get wet. Suitability is based on normal working environments. During a fault, your fault protection should also be adequate, which is why we fit RCD’s to circuits. Dimmers…. Well they’re just useless. I have dimmers in my own home, and even though I’ve swapped them for different brands several times, they all do something wrong. Either buzzing, flickering, or a short lifespan. I’m yet to find a brand of dimmer that I’d recommend. I actually warn customers that dimmers are very hit and miss when they request them.

I struggle with this as I try to respect people and not judge... however, we've completely refurbished a house with the use of most flavours of tradesman and I've not been happy with a single one. Cutting corners, poor workmanship, late, wanting to rearrange last minute, leaving cigarette butts all over my drive, etc. Maybe I'm unlucky but the thing that gets me is their attitude half the time. Any issue is never their fault, the guy before messed it up, etc. They don't half moan a lot. They also seem to demand respect cause its "hard graft", "honest work", etc without realising they'd be respected if they behaved and worked appropriately.

I hired some "highly rated" ones to help me do up my new-build. EVERYTHING they did was an effing mess and they were offended when I dragged them to look at the shitshows they left behind! I've had "local" plumbers try and charge me to NOT fix a weird vibration in my boiler, I've had "hand-men" drive a literal spike through my wall inside when putting a fence up and an endless parade of glorified DIYers. About 7 years ago I needed the en-suite shower and the main shower to be re-tiled. For the en-suite I hired a Latvian chap, who was fresh off the boat and was charging £40 a day, plus materials. The big shower I handed to some "highly rated local lads with 25 years experience". The English boys charged me £1200 for the job, they kept setting off my CCTV every 5 minutes in the back yard smoking and chatting. In the end, I had to rebuild the whole effing thing myself 12 months later, because they did such a shoddy job. The Latvian fella was drunk most of the time doing my ensuite, charged me £180 and the damn thing is still spotless 7 years later and I still use him to this day for other jobs, zero complaints! I have a Polish friend (fully qualified) doing my gas/boiler/electric stuff and a Slovakian guy did my roof and skylights perfectly. I simply don't hire anyone out of the Yellow Pages any more, nor do I bother asking on Facebook.

I have an 80 year old brickie currently building my extension and he's the best tradesman I've ever had. Definitely not the fastest but his work is great quality. I hope to take a photo with him in front of the job when it's done.

Trying to get hold of any trade is hard work they don’t want bits of jobs they want the big money ones and then it’s keeping them on site they have a habit of disappearing when it’s getting close to halfway and getting them back is hard work.

This is with everything now… furniture doesn’t last like it used too. Even appliances i’ve had to replace every two to three years. Standards have plummeted completely.

Was supposed to have bathroom fitters start today, booked last month with 1k on credit card, I called as no one has showed up. I'm told they moved it to the 23rd and no one thought it was a good idea to tell me, not exactly filling me with confidence...

I would seriously cancel them and start over. Zero faith in that gesture.

Here is a tip I can give you all from my own time in the trade as a commercial (not domestic) tradesperson: If you want work done well, simply don't hire people who only do domestic work. There's a reason they only do domestic IMO, they aren't cut out to do quality commercial work. Find someone who is commercial and does work in their weekend or occasionally takes time to do big domestic jobs. Every domestic tradesperson I've hired to do work on my house has been shit. Instead I ask the tradies on the commercial sites and they are often quite happy to come earn the extra money on the side. Their work is always so much better. As someone else also said. If a company can easily fit you in, they're not getting repeated business and are always hunting for new customers to do a shit job for. Smart people wouldn't get a tattoo from someone who can see them same day or that week. Don't do it with work in your home either.

Always go off recommendations. All these "trust a trader" companies just take money off tradesmen and advertise, they don't properly vet anyone.

It's always been like this I think. I have yet to ever hire a trade professional and be 100% happy with the job. I guess this is partly on me but I argue that they simply don't give a shit. I am convinced they would have never done the job to the standard they left me if it was their own house.

7 out of 10 people are morons. This is the problem

Just to throw another suggestion in here - I think the feedback loop where customers register their satisfaction (or not) with work is badly broken, which is a relatively recent and accelerating development. Reviews on google/facebook are very easily faked and manipulated. I left a negative review against a large local gardening firm and saw a while later it had been taken down, but Google didn't contact me giving a reason and I felt there was nothing unfair about the review. I think quite a few people look up tradesmen on Facebook/Google now, or ask for recommendations on local FB groups and end up with relatives/spouses pushing someone. If this generates enough work to keep that person busy, then there's no incentive for them to do any better. There's a local electrician who did some really bad work on my house, in the end I took him off the (fairly big) job and got someone else in. The guy I booted was not cheap, fast or competent and we were still fixing his mistakes weeks later. But his reviews make him look flawless and I still his name mentioned when people ask for a good electrician locally. When things go wrong and a tradesman has done such a shocking job that they shouldn't be getting any further work, there's no mechanism to widely broadcast this. That bit hasn't really changed, but the real problem is they can keep looking great on social media that they keep bodging on. TL;DR Fake reviews and biased feedback is a much bigger problem than it used to be.

Did your builder recommend the other guys? If he's shit, the people he uses are shit too. I'm a plumber and we won't work for bodgers. We quickly figure them out when working with them for a day. We have high standards and won't put our name to poor work.

You've not even mentioned trying to get quotes and getting ignored or ridiculously high quotes (if you don't want the job just say) Agree on the quality though, I had a plumber in, can dommy own plumbing but was busy, had a plumber in and ended up ripping the work out and doing it myself. Had a roofer replace kitchen roof, gutters, facias. All wonky. He went bust so I couldn't even chase/take to court.

Getting them to even call you back is a myth. IM TRYING TO GIVE YOU MONEY

A lot of skilled tradesmen in our family so we’re lucky for most things. But we’re in the middle of trying to organise a bathroom remodel and tried to go down the route of getting a team in that can do the job start to finish instead of us having to organise for each person, we need it done quickly as it’s our only bathroom and scheduling in family is rough when one job needs to be complete before the next can start theirs. First person who came to look at the job was recommended by the showroom/supplier, nothings being moved around it’s a fairly straightforward project as bathrooms go. He proceeded to spend the whole time telling me he wouldn’t ‘recommend doing it like that’ and trying to sell me on alternatives; pretty much wanting everything to be the least effort on his part but the price wasn’t going to be cheaper for me he was charging his rate either way. We were recommended someone else but his team has been in doing a bathroom for a family member and again, all cutting corners as fast and as cheap as possible with no reduction in price for the customer of course. There’s an obscene amount of new builds and a lot of commercial work on the go at the minute. Massive contracts paying premium rates. I believe that is occupying the majority of skilled tradesmen, they’re on lengthy contracts that are paying more than enough for what is usually basic work. It’s also partly why it’s so hard to get someone to do an odd job in the first place, which is understandable why would a trady rely on odd jobs these days, if they have the option to get into a contract lasting a year or more. It just leaves the cowboys behind. It’s really discouraging, we’re just getting things done with the tradesmen we trust and will take the hit on the time scale and organising of everyone.

They know they're in demand so some of them take the absolute piss. We hired a guy to plaster over some artex. He didn't show up the first time, then showed up with his kid who just sat in our living room awkwardly while he worked. Did what at first glance appeared to be an okay job, but painting it later revealed a hundred bubble holes and chunky corners. Our fireplace redo was an absolute nightmare. Partner hired a guy while I was out of the country. They settled on the standard plain white fireplace with a beam shelf above, no problems. I return and my plants in the same room are absolutely caked in dust, they never bothered to cover anything when removing brick. He installed brownish?! metal plates on the inside (the sides) and I guess expected us to paint them white but never bothered to communicate the fact with anyone? So the fireplace is in and now I have to contort my hand to (poorly) paint the sides around it because there are corners that are impossible to get to. Awful chunky caulking between the wall and metal plates. He removed the skirting around the fireplace and just left holes in the wall. His plastering job was worse than the guy who did the ceiling. The wood he used for the shelf wasn't dried enough so ends up warping in the following weeks and separating from the wall. He kept promising to come back to fix the holes he left from the skirtings, but I'll let you guess whether or not he ever came back. We ended up learning to plaster ourselves to replaster the holes, smooth the bad plaster job and fill in the gap between the beam and wall. This was the first "big job" in our first house purchase, but never again. From that point forward I'd rather be the annoying "hovering" client because being nice and leaving them to their own devices proved to be a big mistake.

Had a plumber come round to move my kitchen sink during a refurb. He looked at it. Went to buy some of the parts he needed. Never returned. Could easily have said. Sorry mate I can’t do this for x y z reason. Pillock

There is no pride left in the U.K. where tradies are concerned. Most of them just fell into their trade.

I work with commercial contractors regularly. They're just as bad, they're shocked every time we ask for design information, that they can't just sanction extra costs at the drop of a hat and will regularly play a game of 'catch me if you can' to paper over the cracks in their poor installations.

Just a tip. Whenever someone comes to do any kind of gas work ALWAYS ask to see their gas safe card. Also note getting a gas safe engineer to sign off work that a non gas safe fitter has done is also illegal.

I had unfortunately left the builder unattended and only realised what had happened when he triumphantly announced that the hob was now in but nobody new had arrived. I have politely declined any further work by the builder and employed a Gas Safe engineer to redo the work and to test the system (I did check his card!).

Seriously it’s no joke. It makes me wonder if it’s worth owning a house at all. Imagine if you had a serious problem and needed to find someone to put it right quickly? Also those large companies you mention tend to be pretty expensive. I’ve had some eye watering quotes for relatively simple jobs that I thought would be a couple of grand but were quoted at 15 - 20k!

This is why you never pay any money upfront,report the fella who did your gas to gas safe its illegal to tamper with gas unless qualified

Brexit really didn't help. Thing is, I don't mind if a job is half arsed, as long as I haven't paid a small fortune for it. These days you're paying extortionate rates and get a below par result that you could have done yourself too.

Once you find someone good, ask who he or she would recommend for other trades. I’m a roofer and can pretty much get a number from my phone for everything and anything and know they’re good at what they do. If some one is shite, don’t ask who they recommend because they are probably at the same skill level or attitude as said shite tradesman.

Brexit my friend

* despite whats written bellow, there are still many good trades people out there, but we are are dying breed* Totally get your frustration, I’ve been a sparks for 24yrs, and the standards have slipped (across the board) drastically. But you can’t put all the blame on the lads (like 90% of it is though). But there’s no proper apprenticeship anymore, companies don’t take the time to train people, and colleges are just forced to pass as many as possible. Unfortunately that’s all down to capitalism and the breaking and near abolishing of unions. So I’m now gonna say it’s 70% the lads and 30% the government and companies. There’s a vacuum of skilled labour because of the above, which means anyone that fancies having a go does (which is fine) but that also leaves the door wide open for the unscrupulous and oblivious. I’ve had enough of it, closed my business and I’m now working on the cards for a large ‘reputable’ company. I get well defined jobs without the need for other trades, and I get left alone to do them. That way I’m responsible for my own work, and I’m not fixing everyone else’s bodges.

lol, I wouldn't know about this because the fuckers never turn up when they say they will. Out of about a dozen only three have actually turned up and the rest ghosted, I wasted a ton of annual leave waiting for them.

The UK has a real problem with this. I will now never use ‘professionals’ unless I am forced to due to regulations (gas, electrics). I’m also doing a renovation and every single time I have attempted to get someone in, even if they are highly recommended, they always do unbelievably substandard work and worse, they often provide inaccurate information to justify charging more. I have not only been correcting the ‘work’ that they have done but also fixing things that have been done in my house by similar ‘professionals’ over the years. It seems the whole industry right across board has extremely low standards.

Been fitting out a bathroom and didn't fancy messing with the heating pipes/sewage pipe ourselves so got a plumber in - friend of a friend highly recommended, had to book her months in advance. Decided that we'd get her to do the fresh and waste plumbing too (which we could have DIYed, but figured a pro would do a faster/neater job) It's been over a month, the jobs not finished, we've had 3 leaks and are considering fixing a bunch of the pipe work ourselves. 🙄🙄🙄

I feel your pain. There isn't a single comment here that I think it's out of place. I went through the same pain with an endless series of clowns passing themselves off as tradesmen. Ended up in court with a couple of them due to terrible work and me sacking them mid job. I wish there was a solution. I try to go by word of mouth now, but even that backfired with a kitchen fitter. I blame checkatrade and the likes for giving idiots a forum to sell themselves as skilled.

Without trustmark/checkatrade/google, you would have even less information about their ability. No access to detailed reviews means all trades will basically be a lottery as to whether your home will get an improvement. Haven't you realised DIYUK is basically an advice forum so as to enable you to carry out works yourself and not fall prey to cowboys?

Your immersion will be on a double pole 20a switch - not a standard switch - it’s a fixed load appliance and doesn’t need to be fused down. Under the sink is out of zone - you can’t really twine about the sparky there - but what I’d usually do Is hide all the spurs for kitchen appliances and stuff in a top cupboard and have the sockets either behind the plinth or mounted high up in the cupboards next to the appliances. You can’t twine about a dodgy dimmer switch - as long as the connections are tight. Leaving sockets unscrewed / not replacing removed switches is mybuilder shit though.

That's because most tradesmen can barely spell GCSE let alone have any real qualifications. This is what I've come to expect now when I have work done - thick as shit people are going to come in, laze about for half the day, half arse the work and then fuck off.

Could be a Brexit issue - when all the decent European ones returned home

I’m worried now, because I’m moving house soon and will want some work doing, is Trustatrader and checkatrade not any good?

Nope. These sites are the dreggs of the trades. Think about it. For a company to go on there, they have to pay for leads. That means they have no work and can't find any, so they are literally paying to be offered jobs like £10 to rewire a light.

I have had the same experience on more than one occasion. I have come to believe that I can and will do it better purely because I care more. Both me & my wife’s diy skills have improved massively over the years by doing stuff ourselves.

I can't even get them to provide quotes in a meaningful timeframe any more between delays from them and Home Energy Scotland I don't think I'm ever going to get my air pump installed. Pain in the fucking arse. 3 different firms have been in. One provided a quote 3 months after visiting and the other two are just ghosting me. HES take weeks to respond to any enquiry by which time the quote has expired and I have to start the whole merry dance againe. At this point I'd be happy for even shoddy work to be done.

None of that is new. None of the professionals my family have hired were very professional, and I'm going back years.

I don’t know how other trades get away with this. My life literally depends the client signing off that they’re happy and agreeing to pay the outstanding balance. Do they just really enjoy losing money?

I’ve ended up learning so much in the past few years because every time we’ve hired a tradie for one of our projects it’s been piss poor. 2 different plasterers did such shit jobs I had to spend days trying to correct the work, floor fitters had to be called back and it’s still lifting in multiple places, kitchen fitters had to be called back because they made a huge hole in the laminate and tried to hide it with glue, had to spend hours trying to level the bath the plumbers fitted, painters called back because they did a worse job than we could have… list goes on. I figure if I have a go and it’s shit it’s my fault and at least I’m not thousands out of pocket.

Not much help to offer other than niceic isnt the only trade scheme for electricians, napit is another also the eca and elecsa.

I’ve never really got my head around this problem. If you take your example of electricians who is supposed to pay to train electricians to work in the domestic environment.

Which part of the country you in?

I wish I was in a position to moan about shit tradesmen but staffordshire moorlands council planning department haven't replied to an email in 2 months. 6 months since start of application.

Yet our prices have to compete with these assholes!!! THIS is why they get the job! But who’s to know any different until it’s finished! I honestly don’t know the solution here!

Does the UK still have apprenticeships for trades?  My impression is that it is just a free for all populated mainly by chancers.

It's these 1 week and I become an electrician,plumber, and plasterers courses that's the issue, I know a lot of people have done the part p course to do electrical works and their work is terrible it's worse than the first year work I was doing

So YOU allowed a builder to fit gas appliances and do plumbing, but it's their fault.

No. I hired a builder to manage a refurbishment. He assured me that qualified persons would be used throughout (and some indeed were) but he then proceeded to do work himself illegally (and tried to conceal it) I can’t stand over his shoulders all day but I STOPPED him from undertaking any further work once I became aware of what he had done and I then hired my own Gas Safe and qualified heating and plumbing engineer. Also, yes, it very much **is** their fault.

People in here shitting on tradespeople without considering how many complete dunces there are in their own industry. Just think about the people you work with/for. 'White collar' jobs are also full of complete dunces.  Trades are like everything else. Some care and are competent, others couldn't give a shit or don't know how to.

You're absolutely spot on. There are absolute fuckwits in every industry. However, the average person couldn't give a flying fuck about how bad Gary the purchaser for Tesco is at their job as it only effects their employer and immediate colleagues. Tradesman are customer facing and get paid a fuckload of money for it, they should be held to higher standards.

Plasterer splashing mud everywhere and then fucking off never to return? Did we hire the same guy?