Whats going on with Plumbers

jambo9421

Lads I've had so much hassle with plumbers in my area..I've rang 2 different plumbers today and when I finally get them to answer the phones I'm told there's a 2 to 3 week wait at least..I've looked for recommendations on Facebook and private messaged a good few and the either don't reply or don't turn up..I work in a breakdown service type of industry and if we were to give that sort of customer service we wouldn't be in business that long..is there a shortage of plumbers or what

Buddy Bubs

Yep there's huge demand for plumbers and not enough of them. Along with other trades.

Sleeper12

First things first. Most plumbers are a one man band. If they took all the calls as they come in they would never get any work done.My phone rings dozens of times per day. If I'm working I don't usually answer it. I return calls when on the hands free while driving.

Not turning up is a terrible thing to do & I'm sorry to say many tradesmen do this. A simple text message is the polite thing to do if can't make it.

If you post what part of the country you are in & what sort of work you want done someone might reply via PM with a good plumber

CathalDublin

Same boat, haven’t been able to get a plumber either, I’m not exaggerating, I’ve contacted well over 25 companies in the last 2 months to try get my gas boiler swapped out with a combi, I’d say I’ve had 10+ not interested as are too busy, 7+ no shows, 1 that wasn’t able to do it but did at least call out and have me a recommendation or a company which would do it but they were far too expensive and 2 that called out and said no problem at all, will send over a quote in the next few days, even followed up on a few things and never have a quote and stopped taking calls.

Bellie1

Am in cork city and 3 plumbers have all called to quote,no hassle. Swyft are very aggressive looking for the work which is off-putting . Once I decide who to go with,might be a different story getting an actual installation date though.

Laszlo Cravensworth

our hot water tank element and thermostat failed at the start of December.

I called about 20 different plumbers and all said after Christmas before they could do it. Between cancellations and no shows we finally got the job done and got our hot water back this week.

we had 5 no shows and 3 cancellations

we have children under 3 and have spent the last 3 months boiling water on the hobs every time we need hot water for baths etc….

Rowley Birkin QC

I had need of a plumber lately. Posted a job up here (https://www.onlinetradesmen.ie/) and had two call out to price it within 48 hours.

Went with one of the quotes and the job was done within a week, at the agreed time and with minimal hassle.

Sleeper12

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118761963#Comment_118761963

Not such a great idea I'm afraid. Run by the same shower that run handyhardware. There is at least one thread on this. In a lot of cases tradesman doesn't have the qualifications they claim. I tried them 10 years ago. Set up an account just for shower repairs & installations. Online tradesmen decided to pad out my CV & all of a sudden I did all plumbing work & they made me RGI. You can't believe everything in the ads. You have no way of knowing if these are genuine or rogue tradesmen. You should ask yourself how these "tradesmen" can get to you when every other tradesman in the country is so busy.

The thing to be careful about is, these online trade websites are ad sites. Not unlike Dunedeal & Adverts. You have no comeback when things go wrong. Everyone. There are genuine tradesmen on these sites but many are not.

Rowley Birkin QC

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118762198#Comment_118762198

I can only offer my experience and it was positive, I got an RGI cert after the boiler repair and everything is working as it should since then.

The guy that did my job said he gets about 90% of his work through there so he's booked out for weeks at a time.

Ultimately it comes down to time management. If I can plan to meet my customers at a certain time and place based on my workload, there's no real (apart possibly from weather and supply chain issues) excuse for trades to have such a bad rep around no-shows and ghosting.

enricoh

Rang a few plumbers to fix a leaking tap n leaking toilet in the folks house. No joy with any of them, they ended up getting the neighbour to fix it. He's 80, fair play only for him it wouldn't be done.

bleaks

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118725364#Comment_118725364

Not the OP, but going to need a Triton shower replaced in D12 in the next couple of weeks if you want to PM to discuss.

con747

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118872724#Comment_118872724

Spend 10 minutes on YouTube seeing how to do it and save yourself a few hundred Euro. It is easy to diy if your able to.