Builders

It is just me or is it a nightmare to get them to quote. They either dont turn up, keep re arranging times & wont br pinned down to a written quote.

Also after been told off for giving an indication of my budget I got one builder to quote without talking money & he came in WAY more than the others. Am I missing a trick here (1st experience of dealing with building trade!)

Can you ask around for recommendations from people you know?

I'm always much happier to have someone who's done good work for someone I know.

my hubby is a builder and hates the ones that do that.

what wilkie said try and get a recomendation. And if you can get them to come round, get about 3 quotes done minimum.

I get the problem with not turning up or constantly needing to rearrange times, but its almost impossible to fix a quote on a building job. There's far too many variables and unseen factors which can bump a price up.

Not to mention you almost always find the people employing the builder try to add on additional items later on and can be extremely picky at the smallest of things. Often the 'opinion' of the employers can also have a detrimental effect on progress because some contractors will refuse to work on particular jobs if the employer is giving the builders contractors a particularly hard time.

Quotes are also likely to vary depending on how big the builder is. Bigger builders can buy in bulk so they get greater discount on materials so their quote might be lower. And then it also depends on the profit margin which a builder needs and/or wants to make on a particular job. This can vary hugely depending on the overall size of the job (i.e. one builder might aim to make an 8% profit on say a £20k job but another might aim to make 12%, that 4% difference is going to be considerably smaller than a 4% difference on a £200k job).

Thanks all, managed to get 4 quotes, 3 within 200 quid of each other & one 2 grand more Decided to go with neighbours builder. Just trying to finalise quote as Iv'e noticed a couple of the jobs are "missing" Seems like a decent bloke though so I'm sure its a misunderstanding 

There seems to be a pre-occupation with getting the cheapest quote...   that's natural in some aspects of life but in my experience it is totally irrational where building work is concerned.   Your choice should be based on quality and meeting your expectations and not simply getting the cheapest quote.

Its tough though...  most trades are subbed out..  so...  even though a friend using a local builder might make a recommendation it doesn't mean that the same people from the same company will do your job.   Its a good place to start though.

Attention to detail from the start, before work commences is what will produce a smooth job usually.  Know what you want from the finished job and tell the builder what you expect...   don't leave it to chance.

Site supervision during the work is the next thing.  Keep on top of it, especially at critical stages.   Once it's plastered, you'll have no idea what they have done.

I suppose you could argue once its plastered its out of sight out of mind, Not that that excuses bad workmanship!