"jon" wrote in message
...
There seems to be a glut of posts, mine included, inferring that 'most'
plumbers are chancers looking for easy money. My experiences. I have had
to
contact 14 plumbers to get 4 quotes, of those 14, only 5 replied, 1 of
which
was polite enough to say that he couldn't do the work as he was fully
booked
up unitl late August. The rest, didn't bother getting back to me, despite
me
leaving messages on their answer phones asking for a quote for a supply
and
fit of new combi.

As for the 4 that quoted, well one was British Gas (enough said), but they
were polite. The second was a large local firm, trading on length of
service, they matched BG's price, however it took 2 of their engineers to
work out a quote, it seemed as if they were trying to confuse me, almost
like 'good cop, bad cop' or should that be good plumber, bad plumber.

The third quote, was reasonable, about 2 thirds the price of BG. He
listened
to what I wanted, didn't try to to manipulate boiler choice, etc, and was
prepared to let me do some of the work, basically he was polite, and he
also
knew what he was talking about.

The last quote was from 'dodgy geezer', cash in hand, and unless I went
for
his choice of boiler he couldn't gurantee it would work porperly( his
actual
words).

All plumbers contacted were from the yellow pages in the Corgi section.

You can draw your own conclusions.

Jon



Same with builders. Half of them are uncontactable. Half of the remainder
aren't
interested. Half of the remainder say they will come around and give a quote
but
never actually turn up. Actually I think half is being optimistic, more like
three-quarters
should be substituted for where I've used half. Result, I do all jobs
myself, plumbing,
boiler installation, replacing fascia boards, guttering, painting windows,
building walls,
laying patios, building pergolas, repointing, painting, etc. Also, they
never do a job to the
same standard that I would do it. Mind you, it does help that I'm 'between
jobs'!

Andy.