On Fri, 21 May 2004 10:33:53 GMT,
(Lurch) wrote:

On 21 May 2004 02:52:38 -0700, in uk.d-i-y
(Kevin Chambers) strung together this:

However, it has struck me recently that a lot of people who post
here have an incredibly self righteous outlook, considering this is a
DIY forum. Particularly following the post on legality of electrical
wiring it was quite depressing how many of the replies took the stance
that either you "shouldn't do it without a qualification" or "you
can't legally do it without a qualification, and maybee that's OK".

The problem is that as competent as someone thinks they are at diy,
they're not always. I come across diy bodges on a day to day basis and
the people that install them can't see what they've got wrong and why
it's downright dangerous. There's a difference between telling
everyone you know what you're doing and actually knowing what you're
doing. If you don't know something, how do you know?
I'm not saying everyone is like this, just some people are a bit over
confident.

Fine, but do you think for one moment that adding legislation around
this is going to deter the bodger?

I don't for one moment, and so what little statistical evidence that
there is for part P legislation is highly unlikely to be impacted by
this latest regulatory intrusion.




Maybee It's just me getting depressed about how hard it seems to be to
do things legally without employing some semi-competent "insert trade
here" who has absolutely no interest in doing the job I want done (or
even returning a phone call usually). At the same time as not wanting
my custom most tradespeople seem to think it is their god given right
to be offered it at any price they choose and DIYers are taking the
bread from their childrens mouths. I'm mostly thinking of plumbers
here admitedly, but god forbid that regulations extend their powers to
other trades.

It also works the other way, I don't really want to do work for people
who don't want to pay for whatever job it is they want doing and
assume that the first price I come up with must be a rip-off by
default. I don't have a problem doing small jobs, but the bigger
contracts are more worthwile as you're generally not been hassled
about knocking the price down a few quid.

I can see the benefit of getting major work checked by a certified
person once it's complete but only if there was a fixed (reasonable)
charging scale and a guarantee that there will be someone willing to
do it.

How do you fix a charging scale? Make all the small firms charge the
same as larger firms with more overheads so the smaller firm ends up
with more profit, or the other way round? You can't fix a price, even
if you did no-one would be happy. This country is obsessed with
moaning and whining about everything under the sun, or even the clouds
as it usually is!

Price fixing is illegal anyway.......




..andy

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