plasterers, joiners, roofers and bricklayers wanted in Newbury

[Seaford Saint]

Good people, we have bought a bungalow in Newbury and are in the process of getting plans drawn up which should allow us at the end of building to have a large 4 bedroomed house. Basically the roof will be removed, the internal/external load bearing walls will raised a few feet, and a new roof, taller and steeper placed on top.

 

Can anyone on here recommend any plasterers, joiners, roofers and bricklayers?

 

Thanks a lot

[TopGun]

Sounds like an architect might be useful too!

Edited 4 December, 2008 by TopGun
oops, you have one. My bad!

[Seaford Saint]

Sounds like an architect might be useful too!

 

Yep, we have and he'll be producing plans for us.

[norwaysaint]

All tradesmen are unreliable deceitful, dishonest, lazy ******s. In this I include builders, carpenters, Electricians and plumbers. That is all.

[Master Bates]

Good people, we have bought a bungalow in Newbury and are in the process of getting plans drawn up which should allow us at the end of building to have a large 4 bedroomed house. Basically the roof will be removed, the internal/external load bearing walls will raised a few feet, and a new roof, taller and steeper placed on top.

 

Can anyone on here recommend any plasterers, joiners, roofers and bricklayers?

 

Thanks a lot

 

I employ all those types of staff, had about 24 people travelling from So'ton to Thatcham everyday.

 

PM me if interested.

[Master Bates]

All tradesmen are unreliable deceitful, dishonest, lazy ******s. In this I include builders, carpenters, Electricians and plumbers. That is all.

 

Depends what type you employ, I work in this industry and the English are exactly as you described, but the polish, now that's a different thing altogether.

 

You see, english moan all the time that foreign people take all the work, yet at the end of the day from my experience and probably Jillsaints aswell, the english are unreliable yet the polish, somalians, zimbabwians, eritreans etc, will do the work with no problems.

 

If I get infracted for the above statement then meh, truth hurts.

 

p.s. I know it doesn't include all english people.

Edited 4 December, 2008 by Master Bates

[Saint George]

Good people, we have bought a bungalow in Newbury and are in the process of getting plans drawn up which should allow us at the end of building to have a large 4 bedroomed house. Basically the roof will be removed, the internal/external load bearing walls will raised a few feet, and a new roof, taller and steeper placed on top.

 

Can anyone on here recommend any plasterers, joiners, roofers and bricklayers?

 

Thanks a lot

 

If you have no real construction experience then you're really going to be better off getting a Building Contractor to do the work as a complete contract for you....Will be more expensive but the work you're talking about will involve co ordinating and supervising a lot of trades. More than just the ones you mention ....plumbers, electritions, scafolders etc, maybe drainage too...Not to mention local authority inspections

 

If you dont know what you're doing it could all end up a very expensive mistake

[bridge too far]

If you have no real construction experience then you're really going to be better off getting a Building Contractor to do the work as a complete contract for you....Will be more expensive but the work you're talking about will involve co ordinating and supervising a lot of trades. More than just the ones you mention ....plumbers, electritions, scafolders etc, maybe drainage too...Not to mention local authority inspections

 

If you dont know what you're doing it could all end up a very expensive mistake

 

I'm an experienced Project Manager. Never done a house, mind, only hospitals

 

But critical paths are critical paths after all.

[St Landrew]

All tradesmen are unreliable deceitful, dishonest, lazy ******s. In this I include builders, carpenters, Electricians and plumbers. That is all.

 

Remind me not to give you a competitive quote for an honest days work to be done. I'm sorry to say that, but you obviously wouldn't appreciate it mate. There are exceptions to every generalised cliche, and I apologise, but I can't take your kind of comment in good heart. My work is of good quality, and I get all my business from customer satisfaction referrals. So please don't pit honest, hard working individuals along with the cowboys. Thank you.

[bridge too far]

Sadly I'm awake at 4.30 because my ridiculous cat climbed all over me and now I can't get back to sleep

 

So I'm sitting here thinking about your project. If I'm about to tell you what you already know then I apologise. If I'm helping, then I'm happy to do so.

 

Your architect may well be able to act as your project manager - they often do. You should get at least 3 quotes. Try to find companies that belong to recognised trade bodies. It may be that the 'main' contractor (the builder) will sub-contract the other packages. Even so, it's worth asking around for local recommendations and there is an on-line reference thing called, I think, Which Neighbourhood that's worth checking out.

 

Once you've got your contractor, you might want to consider a JCT contract. I'm pretty sure there's one for 'minor' private works. And I think this will refer to stage payments. Once you've agreed the scope of works and you and the contractor have signed up to it, be careful to note any changes you ask for, and get them priced, otherwise the contractor will use the opportunity to charge you over the odds.

 

Make sure you apply a retention (5% is probably realistic) and hold on to this for 12 months to ensure that the contractor comes back to address any defects. It might be worth checking out with the NHBC if the 10 year guarantee applies to private, individual dwellings.

 

Oh - and good luck

[Dog]

Get onto the polish, they are jack of all trades, work for £20 a day, they will sleep on site, and they only eat sausage, noodles, cabbage and vodka.

[norwaysaint]

Remind me not to give you a competitive quote for an honest days work to be done. I'm sorry to say that, but you obviously wouldn't appreciate it mate. There are exceptions to every generalised cliche, and I apologise, but I can't take your kind of comment in good heart. My work is of good quality, and I get all my business from customer satisfaction referrals. So please don't pit honest, hard working individuals along with the cowboys. Thank you.

 

 

Actually my brother is a tradesman and has built up a big, successful and reliable company in the Southampton area and has won awards several years in a row for being England's top window fitting and conservatory building company. So it wasn't meant to be taken literally, more of an angry rant.

 

We had a house built a couple of years ago. The builders/carpenters did a pretty shoddy job in many places and we had to pester them day and night to get them to do the basics. They would not even bother turning up for days/weeks on end, then when we complained, they would put about 8 men on it for a few days, then it would stop again. When they said the house was ready, we went through it with an independent building surveyor who helped us list 73 separate items that needed sorting before the house would be ready.

The plumbers were even worse and while I was working on floors and walls, there was a constant smell of raw sewage coming from behind a wall. It took months to get them to bother to come out and fix what they had done after they kept trying to blame everybody else. They also managed to place the sewage outlet pipe for the toilet so it was half under a wall, so the concrete floor had to be partly dug up to fix it. We had to redesign our kitchen because they put the pipes in the wrong place and also move a bathroom wall for similar reasons.

The electrics seemed fine and we thought he was the only reliable one until earlier this year when the underfloor heating in one of the bathrooms stopped working, then the other followed suit. He said he'd be out in a couple of weeks to fix it. That was in June. After hassling him on the phone he gave a couple more appointments he didn't keep. Then he said we should get somebody else to do it and send him the bill. We told him we didn't trust this as we couldn't be sure he'd still be around to pay it. He said he'd come the next day. This was a couple of weeks ago.

The next day he doesn't show up so we call again, he says he's just declared bankruptcy and no longer has any obligation, even though we'd been waiting for months.

 

So yes, I have some issues with tradesmen. Three out of three were lying, cheating, unreliable, lazy, dishonest ****s.

 

Funnily enough, after what Bates said, we had some Polish people come around to fix something the builders had done and they were very good but said they were really busy fixing the rubbish work local tradesmen were doing. Obviously these are Norwegian rather than English tradesmen by the way.

[hamster]

Actually my brother is a tradesman and has built up a big, successful and reliable company in the Southampton area and has won awards several years in a row for being England's top window fitting and conservatory building company.

 

May be a silly question, but why did you not use your brothers firm in the first place?

[Bud Fox]

May be a silly question, but why did you not use your brothers firm in the first place?

 

I'm going to guess at house in Norway, Business in Southampton?

 

(and the business is Windows & conservatories, not sure they would be much good at plumbing? :smt102

[Andy_Porter]

Depends what type you employ, I work in this industry and the English are exactly as you described, but the polish, now that's a different thing altogether.

 

You see, english moan all the time that foreign people take all the work, yet at the end of the day from my experience and probably Jillsaints aswell, the english are unreliable yet the polish, somalians, zimbabwians, eritreans etc, will do the work with no problems.

 

If I get infracted for the above statement then meh, truth hurts.

 

p.s. I know it doesn't include all english people.

 

What a load of rubbish, there are just as many lazy, unreliable foreign workers in this country. Sounds to me like you're just trying to justify taking work away from English people and giving it to cheaper foreigners. I don't care who anyone employs the Polish are just as entitled to work as anyone else but don't go making out like English workers sit on there arse and drink tea all day moaning.

 

My family has run a building company for two generations now along the south coast, well over 20 years. We hardly advertise at all and nearly all our work is found through word off moth, referalls etc. We're a predominantly English company and we've never been accused of being lazy, dishonest, deceitful etc

[St Landrew]

So yes, I have some issues with tradesmen. Three out of three were lying, cheating, unreliable, lazy, dishonest ****s.

 

Funnily enough, after what Bates said, we had some Polish people come around to fix something the builders had done and they were very good but said they were really busy fixing the rubbish work local tradesmen were doing. Obviously these are Norwegian rather than English tradesmen by the way.

 

There you go. Not EVERY tradesman is a liar, cheat, unreliable, lazy and dishonest. I'll admit I've come across plenty myself. But there are plenty who do a fine job of work, and I've seen those too.

 

And incidentally, look around you at the people on this forum. The ones that are employed and sitting at their office desks are doing exactly the same thing to their employers, and ultimately, to you.

 

The only person who I'm cheating at the moment, is me. I wouldn't dream of being on the Net at all if I was employed.

[trousers]

Tradesmen I've used through the site below are usually reliable. It works a bit like EBAY...you put up a job and up to 3 tradesmen get back to you with quotes, or to arrange a site visit, and then you rate them at the end of the job so that people can see what they're like.

 

www.ratedpeople.com

[Al de Man]

Let me know if you need any data cabling installation and certification. Cat5e, Cat6, fibre optics, telephony, etc.

[Seaford Saint]

Thanks very much for the responses so far received. I have overseen and project managed extensions to houses I have lived in before before, but this will be the biggest one. I need to know a reasonably accurate cost of completely removing the roof, building up the walls and putting the roof back. I have an excellent electrician and plumber and I know what their charges are likely to be.

[bridge too far]

Thanks very much for the responses so far received. I have overseen and project managed extensions to houses I have lived in before before, but this will be the biggest one. I need to know a reasonably accurate cost of completely removing the roof, building up the walls and putting the roof back. I have an excellent electrician and plumber and I know what their charges are likely to be.

 

Your architect could possibly put you in touch with a QS.

[Robsk II]

I know a boiler specialist. Good if you want a new boiler.

[Special K]

If you are going to extend the walls up, i wouldn't rely on an Architect to assess the structural capability of the existing foundations, walls and floors; get a structural engineer involved.

 

Architects are ok at budgets, but as BTF says, a decent sole trader QS will be able to give more accurate figures.

 

Contrary to popular belief, not all builders will charge over the odds for variations. However, what you ask them to price for is dependant upon a) the quality of information b) defined ideas of what you want and c) realistic expectations of what can go wrong.

 

There is a contract form for domestic works issued by the JCT under the new suite of contracts, i may have a copy if you need one, should you employ a builder / contractor and wish to use it.

 

Don't bother with retention, it's a wind up for small builders and you only end up paying more for the works as a result, but don't pay any money up front. Builders will have monthly accounts (at least) with their suppliers, so pay at regular intervals after the work is done.

 

IF you want to go down the road of employing all the trades individually yourself, you'll need a fair idea of the interface of trades in order to make sure everything goes smoothly and a word of advice; if you have to send them away, don't expect them to come back to your site at the drop of a hat, they'll probably have other jobs on.

 

And i think MB was right in what he said, but only in relation to the temporary trades market, not permanent workers.

[bridge too far]

Special K - I think a retention would be a good idea in these 'difficult economic times'. Contractors are going bust left right and centre and you've got no come-back if something goes wrong after completion and the bloke's bankrupt.

 

I held a retention on some work I had done on my house some years ago and the guy refused to come back to rectify defects. At least I had the money to pay someone else to do it in his place.

[Special K]

Special K - I think a retention would be a good idea in these 'difficult economic times'. Contractors are going bust left right and centre and you've got no come-back if something goes wrong after completion and the bloke's bankrupt.

 

I held a retention on some work I had done on my house some years ago and the guy refused to come back to rectify defects. At least I had the money to pay someone else to do it in his place.

 

But "that's life". Who is to say you wont go bankrupt/loose your job and not be able to pay the poor old builder his 5% retention? Will you hold the retention fund in a seperate account as a fiduciary interest? I very much doubt it.

 

I don't know how the current economic situation is affecting the numbers of builders that do smaller domestic works. From anecdotal evidence i have heard, there are still plenty of jobs out there, in fact more so because less people are moving house and are choosing to extend / do up their current properties. Certainly larger contractors and subcontractors/suppliers are finding life tough at the moment, but the domestic market is still just about ok i think.

 

Personally I don't believe in retention, certainly not on small domestic jobs. If you are going to stop a builder 5% of his money for 12 months, the chances are he is more liable to go bankrupt, so he'll only add 5% up front to finance it. He won't be able to keep 5% on his suppliers and his labour costs. I think that providing you have copies of his insurances and an understanding that defects are attended to, then it should be ok.

 

And a clear understanding of what a defect is is also handy. Shrinkage cracks, settlement cracks and failures due to lack of maintenance are not defects and should be budgeted for by an enlightened client. (This is not saying that your defect wasn't a genuine one of course )