"How much for building work / taxi run / hedge trim"

[Rupert_Baehr]

As a consumer, I would want the tradesman to come around and give me a quote. I want a realistic quote which would require the tradesman to use his expertise to give it. And as I said earlier, I'd get more than one quote.

 

Carrots are carrots. The grocer who sells them doesn't need to use much expertise when he sets the price - and I, as a consumer, am quite capable of working out how many carrots I need. If I wanted some work done on my house, for example, I might not be able readily to identify any potential additional problems. A 'quote unseen' would be pretty meaningless (to me, anyway.)

[biotechpete]

As a consumer, I would want the tradesman to come around and give me a quote. I want a realistic quote which would require the tradesman to use his expertise to give it. And as I said earlier, I'd get more than one quote.

 

Carrots are carrots. The grocer who sells them doesn't need to use much expertise when he sets the price - and I, as a consumer, am quite capable of working out how many carrots I need. If I wanted some work done on my house, for example, I might not be able readily to identify any potential additional problems. A 'quote unseen' would be pretty meaningless (to me, anyway.)

 

Sure, I would never expect to have a quote sight unseen, but a broad ball park figure, for example in replacing a boiler (the cost of a worcester bosch boiler is roughly X-X and I'd charge between X and X for fitting depending on the length of pipe runs, situation of the appliance, difficulty etc. It's not an unreasonable thing to ask.

 

I might add, tradesmen on other forums (eg diynot.com) are more than happy to give such ball park figures, often because they are not interested in quoting for the job. This makes me suspicous of these 'call me for a quote' & 'I'll look any job for a bit of cash but never turn up to do the work when I figure out I've no idea how' types.

[ronthenekred]

 

If you don't know you're probably not capable of douing the job. If you won't say, why? Is it that you are much more expensive than other tradesmen but want to con me into parting with my hard earned cash with a bit of blarney about the thingemyjig.

 

It's attitudes like this that actually serve me up a living because of paranoia. People with this attitude also expect favours/additions not included in the specification...favours/additions which actually cost me.

 

 

The problem with many customers is they generally have no interest in the specification...just the price alone.

[ronthenekred]

As a consumer, I would want the tradesman to come around and give me a quote. I want a realistic quote which would require the tradesman to use his expertise to give it. And as I said earlier, I'd get more than one quote.

 

 

As an addition you may even learn something that may just cost you less. The times I've advised against previous specs that really weren't necessary is an eye opener.

[anywebsite]

You can't give a quote without knowing how much work will be involved & how much it'll cost. Some types of businesses need a lot of information before they can make that judgement, not everybody is selling carrots. Costs can often vary quite wildly depending on specific details that will be a lot of work or require expensive materials.

 

For the building work/taxi run/hedge cut they're often missing vital details, like that starting point & number of people for a taxi run, size of the hedge & how much they want trimming, etc.

 

I think there's also some confusion on SF rules, as I understand it you're not really supposed to advertise or post prices for your business here, except in your signature. That's another reason people prefer to discuss specifics in private. It's not really a trade person's forum or an auction place, it feels inappropriate.

 

If you give a 'ballpark' figure before knowing all the details then you can look foolish if it turns out to be a lot more because of something that wasn't mentioned when you gave the ballpark figure.

[biotechpete]

It's attitudes like this that actually serve me up a living because of paranoia. People with this attitude also expect favours/additions not included in the specification...favours/additions which actually cost me.

 

 

The problem with many customers is they generally have no interest in the specification...just the price alone.

 

How do you make a living out of paranoia?

 

I think you are misuderstanding my attitude though. I know there are some good tradesmen out there, problem is they're worth their weight in gold becuase they're actually pretty difficult to find. That's not exactly paranoia.

 

I'm more than willing to pay for a tradesman who know their stuff and are good at their job. Problem is, you have no way of knowing from a forum who the good and reliable ones are. That's the reason I'd hire on word of mouth more than anything else. I wouldn't try to hold someone to a rough price on a forum and I'd be surprised if a tradesman wanted to work for such an individual. The good ones I've found are extremely busy, even in this climate.

 

Also, I don't expect favours and I wouldn't expect a quote for building a house unseen. But a good builder might well know, depending on the spec that a 3 bed house might cost, say 100-200K to build. Is that an ureasonable expectation from a public forum, which after all is not here soley for tradesmen to advertise their services?

 

Not all jobs (especially small ones) necessarily have detailed specs, and it's sometimes difficult to rely on a guy to do some of the small things in the way he might have said. For example, I had a roofer who quoted for removing the waste from site and painting the guttering and was somewhat perplexed when I refused to pay until he had actually painted the guttering and removed the 5+ sacks of slate rubble he had tried to hide under the loft insulation.

EDIT TO ADD Sometimes it's also about the way the job is done, I had a firm of electricians who more or less destroyed the floorboards they lifted because they were in such a hurry. Took a few weeks of dodging the lose boards before I could lift the carpets and fix them myself.

[Kthebean]

Well surely it depends on what the quote is for.

 

I would expect a taxi driver to be able to tell me the price for taking two people to skeggy and back on a sunday afternoon. I wouldn't expect an electrician to tell me how much it would cost to rewire my whole house without looking at the house.

 

I dont personally care if someone wants to pm me the price or put it 'in public' as you say. I'm the one responsible for making sure I dont get ripped off, so I'll get several quotes, and find out more about what kind of work they do.

[ronthenekred]

Well surely it depends on what the quote is for.

 

I would expect a taxi driver to be able to tell me the price for taking two people to skeggy and back on a sunday afternoon. I wouldn't expect an electrician to tell me how much it would cost to rewire my whole house without looking at the house.

 

I dont personally care if someone wants to pm me the price or put it 'in public' as you say. I'm the one responsible for making sure I dont get ripped off, so I'll get several quotes, and find out more about what kind of work they do.

 

 

Doesn't take much to apply logic and common sense does it.

[HeadingNorth]

Well surely it depends on what the quote is for.

 

I would expect a taxi driver to be able to tell me the price for taking two people to skeggy and back on a sunday afternoon.

 

Only if you tell him up front where you live... the price from Kiveton Park and the price from Stocksbridge are not going to match.

[tinfoilhat]

How do you make a living out of paranoia?

 

I think you are misuderstanding my attitude though. I know there are some good tradesmen out there, problem is they're worth their weight in gold becuase they're actually pretty difficult to find. That's not exactly paranoia.

 

I'm more than willing to pay for a tradesman who know their stuff and are good at their job. Problem is, you have no way of knowing from a forum who the good and reliable ones are. That's the reason I'd hire on word of mouth more than anything else. I wouldn't try to hold someone to a rough price on a forum and I'd be surprised if a tradesman wanted to work for such an individual. The good ones I've found are extremely busy, even in this climate.

 

Also, I don't expect favours and I wouldn't expect a quote for building a house unseen. But a good builder might well know, depending on the spec that a 3 bed house might cost, say 100-200K to build. Is that an ureasonable expectation from a public forum, which after all is not here soley for tradesmen to advertise their services?

 

Not all jobs (especially small ones) necessarily have detailed specs, and it's sometimes difficult to rely on a guy to do some of the small things in the way he might have said. For example, I had a roofer who quoted for removing the waste from site and painting the guttering and was somewhat perplexed when I refused to pay until he had actually painted the guttering and removed the 5+ sacks of slate rubble he had tried to hide under the loft insulation.

EDIT TO ADD Sometimes it's also about the way the job is done, I had a firm of electricians who more or less destroyed the floorboards they lifted because they were in such a hurry. Took a few weeks of dodging the lose boards before I could lift the carpets and fix them myself.

 

If you give most consumers a ball park figure, most will expect it to be the lower end of it. Especially as most threads on here asking for quotes end with the phrase "must be cheap". Not must be trained, skilled, honest or reliable. Cheap. Or free !!!

 

In my line of work I can give some ball park figures but most jobs I need where and when and how big. It's also staggering how many people can't measure properly or even own a tape measure.