Apprentice

[Goldspoon]

During the last couple of years we have had various reasons to call a plumber. They have always been so busy that customer service, to us, has invariably suffered. Never have we had good service done swiftly.

The plumbers we know are up to their necks in it and have stacks of work.

I was at somebody's house the other week and a guy came to service the combi. He stayed 90 mins and serviced the combi and was paid £80 cash. One and a half hours for £80 cash!

Everybody I talk to, when I mention I am doing some plumbing talks about "rare as hen's teeth" or "cannot get hold of a plumber round here".

Friend of mine had a huge unvented cylinder fitted last week. Guy who fitted it is too busy to come back to look at something...

Hmmm...

 

[ChrisR]

Thing is Goldie, in many ways beng a plumber isn't a nice job!
£80 for an hour and a half might sound like loads until you do ALL the sums.
Say 4 jobs a day 4 days a week 44 weeks a year... take off overheads and you have an average wage.

I went to see the doc.
See the hospital man, he said. So I spent just over an hour, treadmill, wires, noises, cosy chat. Bill was £1080.

 

[Agile]

Pie in the sky?

There is no shortage of plumbers except in lower paid site work @£9 per hourin London.

Once I went just 25 minutes after this fellow called me to his boiler. This West Indian was already working on it!!!

I should have sent an invoice for my wasted journey and followed it up by debt collectors!

Tony

 

[Goldspoon]

Maybe it depends where you are? I agree though that there may not be a general shortage.

As an aspirant plumber I'm not too worried whether there is a shortage or if the balance is just right - as I know that there are enough poor attitude plumbers out there who deserve to lose out to others with a better attitude.

I had a guy come to fix our boiler. He treated myself and my house with utter contempt. He seemed unable to do anything other than grunt. He seemed unable to smile. He appeared distressed because the boiler had a wooden cabinet (four screws to remove which seemed to flummox him but only because he worked himself into such a lather about it that he could not think straight). He knocked at our back door and walked in without invite, fag in mouth and stood before me in the kitchen (fag still in mouth). I didn't ask him to put his fag out because we had waited three weeks for somebody to fix the boiler and we were bloody cold and fed up and I sensed that if I asked him to do this he might just turn round and clear off. I gave him an ash tray and showed him the boiler. He got boiler going and cleared off. We paid boiler company a set £150 for "incident". I cleared up fag ash off kitchen floor. Boiler fault returned a few weeks later.

 

[Agile]

There is one CORGI in LLANFAIRPWLLGWYNGYLL and at least two others on the island. Over 20 within 10 miles of your zoo!

I would say that your area is already well covered.

You describe some kind of poor quality employee of a second rate company.

I am sure that if you chose a sole trader or family firm they would be friendly and have respect for your property.

I hope you complained about his attitude. There are still some like that but mostly working for contractors to the insurance schemes like Homeserve according to people I met who say their workers are very rude.

Tony