Have we lost all skill?

Johnnyhpipe

Interested to hear from other construction professionals on this.

Recently I'm finding that the quality on some sites is dropping rapidly. Some of the absolute rubbish I've come across is beyond words! The design, specification and detailing of construction has become such a detailed science in recent decades that it seems foolish leaving the final piece of the puzzle to an inexperienced young lad on site. "I didn't think i needed to put those bars in..." "i had to cut that off so i could get the pipe in" "i had to take the bracing out, i thought it'd be ok"

It seems to me that we've lost consideable experience, talent and skill to the recession and are now reaping the consequences. Some of the absolute crap I've seen in the last month (on a number of jobs) has me tearing my hair out!

Before I'm slated by contractors, I must of course say that most of the contractors I work with are excellent. But overall, do you feel that we're suffering from a loss of skill, knowledge and experience?

Metric Tensor

Or the classic line:

"This is the way we've always done it"

I've actually been quite lucky of late. Most of our recent jobs seem to have pretty conscientious contractors. You'd still find a few things wrong but there seems to be a "think before you do things" attitude on the jobs on my books lately.

Of course that could be just luck of the draw because I've seen a fair few stinkers in my time. You're in Dublin aren't you? I'd imagine the boom there and shortage of good experienced people might be part of the problem. The slower pick up elsewhere might mean the chancers haven't seen the chance for a quick buck yet!

hannible the cannible

Where is the education of these guys ye talk about , they've been shown poorly how to do a job and bad workmanship is always going to go hand in hand with poor prices , as long as contractors have the mentality of 3 quotes and going with the lowest the workmanship is not going to be up to standard , contractors can't expect top class work when they always choose the lowest price

Also new regs are proving somewhat difficult to implement because of lack of training at the ground level , thereby leading to work that would have been accepted 10 years ago but is obsolete now

I've seen it recently in a project in a hospital that was being plastered , the plasterer wasn't informed about the fire regulation , how was he to know about it ? The foreman didn't know because he hadn't been informed , it only came to light when it had to get a fire cert off the fire officer , how are things like this slipping through the cracks , it's still a race to the bottom , get the cheapest price out there and suffer the consequences

I've seen contractors ask the carpenters to do the air tightness in new builds , no training , no guidance , the carpenter will do it as he's going to be paid a long time before the test is carried out , it's all very well and good blaming guys that have zero training and being sent out to do jobs they just aren't capable of doing but a lot of the blame has to be carried by contractors and clients who without fail always go for the cheapest option

Johnnyhpipe

You're right with regard to the cheapest option. Unfortunately most contracts are ultimately assessed on the basis of cost/programme only - govt contracts included. Only a few self respecting clients will go for quality/experience.

You can have a high quality design team, drawings, specs etc and then its often left in the hands of the cheapest possible guy on the framework. Because he was so cheap he then goes off to the cheapest possible subbies! A disasterous race to the bottom leaving me with jobs I really have no interest being involved in or even associated with!

hannible the cannible

Agreed , I've taken a step back from a couple of contractors and clients I was involved with because it just seems like it's not about doing something right but about how much can be saved on manual labour , it makes me laugh to see clients put in 100 euro a square metre marble tile or build 300 square metre mansions but bargain a lad down from 200 to 150 for a days work

I priced a job lately where the client wanted a job done in a house , my price came to 3250 , I priced it at 150 per man per day plus some materials , he said I was profiteering , I sent him 3 separate emails detailing my costs and overheads only to be told he had a budget of 1800 , I told him there was no middle ground and that was that , but the funny thing was included in the job was the preparation to fit a free standing stove , the cost of the free stove came to 2400 , bullin money for a stove I thought , but fair enough .

The point I'm making is these people don't see the value in paying an experienced tradesman to do a job right and only want to get his cost down but have no problem paying huge money for shiny trinkets that can be talked about at a dinner party

BryanF

I think you have to look at the whole design team and ultimately at the client when you criticise workmanship.

Brief
Design
Material spec
Install
Payment
Supervision
Handover

Gumbo

hannible the cannible wrote: »

Where is the education of these guys ye talk about , they've been shown poorly how to do a job and bad workmanship is always going to go hand in hand with poor prices , as long as contractors have the mentality of 3 quotes and going with the lowest the workmanship is not going to be up to standard , contractors can't expect top class work when they always choose the lowest price

Also new regs are proving somewhat difficult to implement because of lack of training at the ground level , thereby leading to work that would have been accepted 10 years ago but is obsolete now

I've seen it recently in a project in a hospital that was being plastered , the plasterer wasn't informed about the fire regulation , how was he to know about it ? The foreman didn't know because he hadn't been informed , it only came to light when it had to get a fire cert off the fire officer , how are things like this slipping through the cracks , it's still a race to the bottom , get the cheapest price out there and suffer the consequences

I've seen contractors ask the carpenters to do the air tightness in new builds , no training , no guidance , the carpenter will do it as he's going to be paid a long time before the test is carried out , it's all very well and good blaming guys that have zero training and being sent out to do jobs they just aren't capable of doing but a lot of the blame has to be carried by contractors and clients who without fail always go for the cheapest option

It should have had a fire Cert prior to commencement, so that would mean the location and build up of compartments would have been located and drawn and the compartment wall should be well in place before the plasterer gets there.

tradesman

I think its a simple sum. These figures are hypothetical as an example - Buy land 100k, build house with labour & materials as cheap as possible, 50k, amount for customers who complain 5k. Profit............ as much as possible & move onto the next site! Happy days

Bonzo Delaney

most trades have their orgin in a craft based skill along with that comes a genuine interest and enjoyment the craftsperson has in their chosen skill.
Which means the craftsperson has genuine pride in their skill and name
Unfortunately that pride in your name and pride the work you leave behind is been substituted for how quick the job can be done and the profit made.
New Apprentices wont fair much better i fear as a lot of the contractors employing now were trained up during the boom where profit was king