credit crunch

[wilki]

I have just got back into plumbing after a 10 year break, been abroad. things are slow, how badly is the crunch affecting you. are you having to lower your prices, or maybe put your prices up. Just wondering.

 

[namsag]

Hearing stories about drop off in work but being honest have not seen any down turn at all still working 3/4 weeks ahead of self just now and got 4 quotes to do tomorrow that are basically definites just discussing positions etc. Usually by the end of sept beginning of oct thats us booked till xmas for the big stuff
Think as people decide to stay put they will still find the money for heating upgrades etc and with prices of gas going up its amazing how many people think by spending thousands they are saving money.
Trouble is for people who get work purely on price they will suffer with site plumbers now on the loose.

 

[Norcon]

I have just got back into plumbing after a 10 year break, been abroad. things are slow, how badly is the crunch affecting you. are you having to lower your prices, or maybe put your prices up. Just wondering.

Theres a lot of people out of work at the moment. Heard of brickies charging £1 per block when the going was good. Now many are happy just to get a days work for a fraction of that.
If your in the building trade then you will quite likely be affected in some way and that filters through to an enormous amount of people not connected with the trade.
It was out of hand here in Ireland though. Developers paying £200k for a building site. The farmers were equally to blame.
A group of homes released last year for sale were fetching £220 each.
The second phase released this year for £130k.
To much greed. Hell skelp it into them.

 

[wilki]

I have based myself here in Ireland, went to the heat merchants I use, ie Plumb centre in UK, They were all locked up on fri, closed the place and more are on the cards over here.
Heat merchants abit different from Plumb centre here even though the same company, dont sell end feed fittings,

 

[gas4you]

I'm now booking end of October, still having to work on average 6 days a week and evenings to keep up.

My prices have crept up slightly.

 

[muggles]

We're doing OK, laid a couple of guys off earlier in the year but to be honest they were cr*p anyway so they were no great loss, we're well booked for the next few weeks, had two more definite jobs come in yesterday and a large contract starting in January refitting a 6-bed house from scratch, so there's work out there.

 

[Norcon]

No offence muggles but I wouldn't describe refitting a 6-bed house as a "large contract" !.
You must be joking.

 

[tonybhoy]

Everything's relative though isn't it? That would be a big job for me too nowadays but in the past I've worked on jobs that lasted over two years when I was employed (PAYE).

Use to work for a mob where apprentices served their time on one job.

Anyway,I'm not busy really ,basically working day to day. I get by ok enough but things have gone pretty quiet these past six months.

I'm now spending four times more on advertising but my enquiries per day are down by about 60% from last year. I used to average about 15 calls a day now I'm down to about four with weekends particularly quiet,I've had no calls since Friday.

I am pricing work which I'm winning my fair share of though but I put that down to the time of the year to be honest.


For the past three and a bit years I've basically done a boiler change every two weeks, roughly. This year however, I've done ten since January however there are reasons for this which is not exclusively down to the CC.

 

[htgeng]

Last couple of months have been very quiet, but tbh I haven't cared as found plenty of decorating jobs to do at home. Already have two jobs booked in for Oct and still have 4 quotes to write up

 

[fitz1]

a local client is flying me and my app out to france on thursday to fit a 4 rad heating in an apartment, back next tues. happy days.