FREE ADVICE

CONTENT. • How to find a good tradesman. • Beware of “readily available” tradesmen. • Cold Callers. • Photos. • Transparency. • You Need a New Roof! • General Builders. • Deposits. • Pay Peanuts, Get Monkeys. • Scaffolding. • Guarantee. • Hedgehogs & Gutter Grills. Here I give you some free nuggets of advice that I hope you find useful. Please do feel free to contact me if you need more, I’m always happy to help. How to find a good tradesman. The most common advice I give over the phone, when I cannot help a client in need, is how to find a good tradesman. The best way is by recommendation but if that’s not an option, try platforms like “My Builder”, “Checkatrade” and the like. The best way to find a reliable tradesman is to post your job on one of these sites. When the tradesmen reply you need to do the following; ONLY short list the ones who; 1. Have a profile photo (not a company Logo). 2. Have at least 50 POSITIVE reviews. 3. Have no less than 100% positive reviews. 4. Have a fair amount of photos showcasing their work. 100% positive may seem a bit harsh but at the end of the day a tradesman won’t sign off a job until he’s 100% positive that the client is 100% happy with the work, so it’s not that hard for a good tradesman to get 100% positive reviews. If you like the sound of one with less than 100% then you must trust your gut. Beware of “readily available” tradesmen. Normally a good tradesman will be busy, very busy. For me if a “good” tradesman says he can start right away, (in other words has no work) that’s a warning sign. Don’t hire! There are of course instances when a busy tradesman can be free. I for instance just had a materials order delayed for a job and I now find myself “readily available”. Most of the time a good tradesman won’t be able to carry out a job for at least four weeks, he can however come to meet you, look at the job and provide an estimate. So, it’s up to you to make an educated decision and trust your gut! Cold callers. Never, EVER give work to a cold caller, especially someone who knocks on your door. I have heard terrible stories of people who have fallen for this. “Knock, knock”, a lovely gentle man kindly points out that one of your tiles has slipped, or you have too much moss on your roof. Say “thank you so much” and call a reputable roofer for advice. No good tradesman has the time to wonder around knocking on doors unsolicited. Photos. Any self-respecting roofer will show you photos of the work carried out before and after. A roofer knows that you cannot see your roof, therefore we want to show and prove to you that something needs doing or has been done correctly. Ask before you give the job if they could take and show photos, if they refuse or make up some excuse, don’t use them. Transparency. When it comes to an estimate, total transparency is important. An estimate must show a good description of the work that they intend to carry out, outlining the problem, it’s causes and the solutions. Even with a new roof the labour and the materials cost should be separate, and everything should be itemised. If it’s a repair job, possibly some options for you to chose from, as there is always more than one way to crack an egg! You need a new roof! No, you don’t! The number of times that I have visited a job and the client says “the other roofer said I needed a new roof” is astounding. Very rarely is a new roof necessary. There are many ways and many things we can do to keep your house dry before a whole new roof is needed. Be it a tiled, pitched roof, an old flat garage roof. General Builders. I find many clients using general builders for their roof work. Although some general builders are very knowledgeable and perfectly capable of carrying out all sorts of roof work, general builders are not roofers. Most corrections I’ve had to do have been due to this mistake. A good analogy I put to my clients goes; “If you have a brain tumour, will you go to a GP or a Neurosurgeon?”, well it’s up to you but I know what I’d do! So, building for builders and roofing for roofers. Deposits. Deposits in my opinion are necessary for several reasons. It all depends on the size of the job and the size of the company you are dealing with. If a sole trader must carry out a medium to large sized job and there are a lot of materials to buy, you cannot expect him to pay for them. This is where the transparency on the estimates comes in. Most sole traders and small companies will ask for a deposit for the materials amount, which you will have been aware of when reading the estimate. This should be payable either shortly after accepting the estimate or a few weeks prior to commencement of the job. Another reason for the deposit is that it “locks” the job into the tradesman’s calendar, and there will be no fear of the client cancelling or finding a “better deal” Pay peanuts, get monkeys! One of my wife’s favourite sayings. Not much explanation needed here. Never go for the cheapest option! In the end the cheapest job will become the most expensive. The “middle road” is always a good bet, but you should combine the price with the reviews, their presentation and trust your gut! Scaffolding. For the safety of the workers and the people around the job scaffolding is essential, in most cases. However, a roofer has a roof-ladder, and a harness and most small jobs can be carried out without use of scaffolding. Jobs such as chimney pointing, ridge pointing, Velux fitting, moss removal and many other jobs. Sadly, when a tradesman suggests scaffolding the client rarely has grounds to question it. If you have a small job to be done, scaffolding should not be needed. Guarantee. Any sizeable job should come with either the tradesman’s personal guarantee, or even better, their personal guarantee backed by a third-party insurer. The personal guarantee should look like the one on my page (look on my “Booking” section) and is legally binding. The insurance-backed guarantee will protect you if the tradesman ceases to trade for any reason, so if anything goes wrong ten years after the job was completed, and your roofer has gone bust, the insurance will cover it. There is no excuse for a tradesman not to have this, they are very affordable. Hedgehogs & Gutter Grills. Although they seemed like a great idea when they first hit the shelves, these options have not stood the test of time. The hedgehogs are these bristly things that sit in your gutter and are designed to stop leaves and moss from clogging it up. What is now happening however is that the bristles are blocking tiny particles in the gutters, and these are piling up and turning up into a gunk which in turn blocks bigger chunks and ends up completely blocking your gutters. In addition to this, the leaves that fall on top of the hedgehog just sit there, caught in the bristles and rot, further contributing to the “gutter-gunk”. The grills aren’t any better. The sit across the tops of the gutters and prevent leaves and moss from dropping into them, and although they do a slightly better job, they just delay the inevitable. Some leaves sit flat on the grills and completely cover them and water rushing off the roof just bounces off the leaves. Then you have moss growing happily inside your gutter is this perfect, protected biome created by the grill, and because there’s a grill fastened to the gutter, clearing them is nothing short of a nightmare! So, it’s back to good old elbow grease and getting your gutters cleared every year or two.