On 21 May 2004 02:52:38 -0700, (Kevin
Chambers) wrote:

I've been (mostly) reading this group for over a year whilst
renovating my house and during that time have got some usefull
information from it.

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".

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.

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.

I couldn't even find a plumber who'd run a gas pipe to a new boiler
and do the certification, I'd even have let someone hang it on the
wall. The greedy *******s knew there was a bit of simple plumbing
required which they could charge £500 a day for (plus overcharging for
the parts obviously) and that I couldn't legally do anything unless I
found someone to do the gas and certification.

I absolutely know where you're coming from. My gas fitters charged £40
to disconnect the hob, then two days later another £80 to connect the
new cooker. Total time spent: 30 minutes. The cooker itself only cost
£250. I believe the situation with tradespeople in the UK has become
dire, yet there will come a point when I am just too old to do it
myself and will have to rely on the cowboys. I can only hope that
before then some government will be in power to apply proper
regulations to the entire industry. That stupid programme on BBC where
the guy is driving arund the country in a bus by a driver who never
speaks is a total waste of a half-hour programming slot. The programme
is just making a bit of flippant "edutainment" and not addressing the
problems we all face anything like seriously enough.

MM