Is there really a recession in building trade?

T

txirimiri

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Finding it hard to get my head around this and would be interested in the views of people in the building/construction industry on this one.

I need a job done on my house - new bathroom, install understairs loo, improving insulation, new boiler, new doors and windows, some plastering, sanding, painting and redecorating. Pretty straightforward, no architect involved, in and out in 6 - 8 weeks. I asked 6 builders to quote for the work ( planned to ask 4 and then got 2 other recommendations at the last minute). Last month, all 6 duly arrived at the house when they said they would, had a good look round and a fairly detailed chat about what needed to be done. They all said they would have quotes to me within 3 - 4 working days. One guy I didn't much like and I think the feeling was mutual. The rest I thought seemed very interested in the job and we seemed to get on pretty well.

A month later - and I had only one quote!! Having spent time and money (in phonecalls - am living abroad at the minute) trying to chase the others up, eventually I gave up. Another week on and 1 more quote arrived in (the excuse was 'sorry but there was the builders holidays the week before and after Easter'. Hello? I am a civil servant, who the public seem to believe has a thousand days a year paid holidays and I had a total of two days off over Easter and worked all day Easter Monday with no question of overtime or a day off in lieu!)

What am I missing? The impression in the media is that building contactors are desperately competing to work and trying to stay in business. The job in question is in town, not wildly complicated, not likely to go way over budget or schedule. I think I am a pretty straightforward person to deal with - I was fairly clear about the basic stuff we wanted done without being wildly overprescriptive. I made it clear we had a reasonably tight budget but that we were looking for durable good quality solutions without going overboard.

What really surprised me is that the builders who didn't quote never even got back to me when I emailed and left voicemail messages. Fair enough if anotehr job came up - it takes two minutes to call and say 'thanks for the message, we actually have a big job going at the time you need someone so we won't be quoting. Nice to have met you and give me a call if you have any other work you need quoting for'.

CAn anyone enlighten me?
 
txirimiri said:
Finding it hard to get my head around this and would be interested in the views of people in the building/construction industry on this one.

I need a job done on my house - new bathroom, install understairs loo, improving insulation, new boiler, new doors and windows, some plastering, sanding, painting and redecorating. Pretty straightforward, no architect involved, in and out in 6 - 8 weeks. I asked 6 builders to quote for the work ( planned to ask 4 and then got 2 other recommendations at the last minute). Last month, all 6 duly arrived at the house when they said they would, had a good look round and a fairly detailed chat about what needed to be done. They all said they would have quotes to me within 3 - 4 working days. One guy I didn't much like and I think the feeling was mutual. The rest I thought seemed very interested in the job and we seemed to get on pretty well.

A month later - and I had only one quote!! Having spent time and money (in phonecalls - am living abroad at the minute) trying to chase the others up, eventually I gave up. Another week on and 1 more quote arrived in (the excuse was 'sorry but there was the builders holidays the week before and after Easter'. Hello? I am a civil servant, who the public seem to believe has a thousand days a year paid holidays and I had a total of two days off over Easter and worked all day Easter Monday with no question of overtime or a day off in lieu!)

What am I missing? The impression in the media is that building contactors are desperately competing to work and trying to stay in business. The job in question is in town, not wildly complicated, not likely to go way over budget or schedule. I think I am a pretty straightforward person to deal with - I was fairly clear about the basic stuff we wanted done without being wildly overprescriptive. I made it clear we had a reasonably tight budget but that we were looking for durable good quality solutions without going overboard.

What really surprised me is that the builders who didn't quote never even got back to me when I emailed and left voicemail messages. Fair enough if anotehr job came up - it takes two minutes to call and say 'thanks for the message, we actually have a big job going at the time you need someone so we won't be quoting. Nice to have met you and give me a call if you have any other work you need quoting for'.

CAn anyone enlighten me?
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As regards the holidays, these are part of their annual leave, and not an extra holiday.

It is unusual for so many to not come back to you and I am wondering did they feel that you were being unrealistic in what you wanted or was there something in your meetings that may have conveyed that you were not fully committed?
It really is hard to give an answer without being privvy to what was actually said. Why not try another builder. Bigger builders will do small jobs now and you will more than likely deal with a QS who will follow things up.
 
Thanks for the quick reply.

My point about holidays is that it seems to strange to have two weeks holidays absolutely set in stone when you are apparently part of a business that is competing desperately to stay business. As a civil servant, my boss would not authorise me to take leave if there was a outstanding work that needed to be finished or if there was a busy period coming up.

The builders I asked to quote were on the whole fairly big companies and 3 of them brought QS with them.

Can't think what about the list of stuff I quoted earlier is unrealistic. Also, I made it clear that we had a finite budget but that the money that we did have was there (i,e, not subject to bank approval) and that the work had to be done by mid July.

Having spent a lot of time on this already, not sure about meeting another 6 builders and waiting another month for possibly no more quotes than we have already! One of the two guys that quoted sent in a really detailed and professional quote, price is a bit high for us but if we can agree a price with him, I think we will go with his firm.
 
What may have happened here is that these people you've contacted aren't really 'business people'. Throughout the boom and bubble, they've had work handed to them on a plate, and have been able to command whatever price they liked, and cherry picked their customers. They've probably never had to work to get customers.

I suspect that they aren't too interested because maybe they believe they won't get the work if more than one company is quoting, or that they have indeed got work elsewhere. They obviously don't find your job attractive for whatever reason.

(PS, I worked right through the Easter with no day off)
 
txirimiri said:
My point about holidays is that it seems to strange to have two weeks holidays absolutely set in stone when you are apparently part of a business that is competing desperately to stay business.
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These builders holidays are traditional. Many building firms set these dates in stone and require their employees to take these dates to simplify the scheduling and admin overheads on their part. You have a choice when you use your holiday entitlement, many in the building trade do not.
Leo
 
I can back you up on this one. I had one guy come to measure up for internal doors, supply and fit (10 doors) never to be seen again.

I am also looking at getting garden landscaped - phoned a guy in the local paper - said he would give me a shout to take a look one evening during that week. Never heard anything for about 2 weeks, then one night he rang me in work at 5.20 to say he would be passing in 10 mins - unfortunately I was out that night and told him so - said no problem, he would contact me in the next few days for another appointment. I said he would need to give me notice, so I am there (24 hours notice)

Never heard from again.

Both of these are in the last 4 weeks.
 
umop3p!sdn said:
What may have happened here is that these people you've contacted aren't really 'business people'. Throughout the boom and bubble, they've had work handed to them on a plate, and have been able to command whatever price they liked, and cherry picked their customers. They've probably never had to work to get customers.

I suspect that they aren't too interested because maybe they believe they won't get the work if more than one company is quoting, or that they have indeed got work elsewhere. They obviously don't find your job attractive for whatever reason.

(PS, I worked right through the Easter with no day off)
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Absolutely agree with what you are saying, I needed some work done that was going to cost about €5k this year, found it very hard to get anyone to do it. Finally got a recomendation for an "old school" style builder who had been in the trade for 30 years and they did a brilliant job. We had a number of fly by nights who turned up in 4x4 sand say they'll come back to you only never to be seen again.

Best advice I can give you is either ask around neighbours and friends or walk the area and see if you can find a builder doing a small job and go and talk to them. Our builder ended up getting 2 other bits of work in the estate from people who spotted him working at ours
 
I think you should try tradesmen.ie. I have used the site on three occassions and have always been satisfied with who I got. Basically you put up details on their website of the job you want done and your budget. Tradesmen then contact you.

On the last occassion, I had three electricians out to see the job within four hours...I have no connection with the site except being a happy customer.

http://www.tradesmen.ie
 
Last year very similar experience contacted 4 landscapers to get quotes. Only one bothered to ever show up and quote - to be fair they did a very good job!
 
Did you think of giving each of them the same project spec in writing (typed up in bullet points), or was everything verbal?

We found getting things to suppliers in writing was the best for getting a definite response (we are using direct labour for a new build). Because there are so many 'parts' to your request, they may like most people, get a bit of a mental block about sitting down and tackling the pricing of the request.........just a thought!
 
Can't get guys to quote me for work

I had similar problems getting quotes back for different pieces of work I needed to get done.

I am in the west of Ireland, I was looking for different quotations for the installation of a central heating system, electrical updating and, seperately, wiring for a satellite dish, etc. I had to chase and chase guys to get them to even bother to get back in touch with me, then chase them again to get written quotes from them. The guy I picked to get the satellite dish wiring done I have had to chase for the last two months to get him to actually do the work!

I just don't understand it, there's obviously a recession that has hit the building trade hard, but it's still very difficult to find people who will quote you for the work in any kind of a timely manner if at all.
 
...as someone who prices building projects for a living, I can understand your frustration, but you have to bear in mind, especially if there is more than one trade involved, that a builder is relying on his people to price the individual elements to him. He can't come back to you with 50% of it priced, if he's waiting on, say, the electrician to come back to him.

This is especially so where there is no written spec to work to - in that case the builder has to come up with, and write that, first. All takes time.

That said, they should be more prompt. I can price an entire house in less than a week.

Interesting to see/know how many use email/etc. Gives you an idea of how good they are at communications.
 
Leo said:
These builders holidays are traditional. Many building firms set these dates in stone and require their employees to take these dates to simplify the scheduling and admin overheads on their part. You have a choice when you use your holiday entitlement, many in the building trade do not.
Leo
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They're not just traditional but are set by the CIF.
 
Thanks for all the feedback. We did provide a written spec to all the builders (it wasn´t hugely detailed - a basic one page list of the stuff we wanted done but I appreciate that from the builders side they would need to do a good bit more work on it to give an accurate quote) Likewise, I take glawaytt´s point that the various sub contractors have to com back with their quotes so I didn´t expect that I´d have the 6 quotes three days later or anything like that.

What I really don´t get is the guys who came out, took the time to look at and talk through the job and then just completely ignored my calls and emails! It seems to me crap business sense not to take the couple of minutes to call back and say they are not quoting for whatever reason rather than have me waste my time chasing them.

As for the builders holidays, maybe it is ´set in stone´but so were lots of things during the boom but life has moved on. Since I was also told by everyone who was quoting that there was 4 weeks in the summer builders holidays and I know from previous experience that there is at least 3 weeks over Xmas that builders don´ñt work, why are firms who are struggling to stay in business still effectively closed for 9 weeks a year while their workers are being paid in full? I am a public servant and ever aspect of our pay, entitlements, work practises etc al are being scrutinised in this new economic environement and rightly so in my opinion. So the excuse of ´this is the way things are and always have been´does not really wash with me if we are talking about an industry in crisis that wants to survive.

Anyway, upshot of it is that we are hopefully going with the first firm that quoted - they seem pretty professional and I sent them a fairly detailed list of questions re their quote which they got back to me on really quickly so just need to try and agree a price now - they are not budging from the initial quote!
 
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