DIY
We had grand plans for completing lots of DIY with Ann moving in here to Queens Park but quite quickly realised that we wouldn't have the time to do everything that we really wanted too so instead we opted for DDIY (Don't Do It Yourself). But then that gave us the problem of who to hire, we looked for names through the yellow pages and had a wee search on the Internet to try and find reviews of their services.
In the end we chose four firms and asked each to pop round to discuss our ideas and provide us with full quotes. This was very useful as it not only helped us to cement our ideas - (though we had produced full drawings to explain exactly what we wanted anyway) but it was good way to get to meet the people interested in carrying out the work and allowed us to get a feel for what they were like and whether we felt we could trust them. I find its quite good to get them chatting about themselves and about things other than their previous works first as it gives you a better idea of what they are really like.
One guy turned up nearly two hours late with no explanation which gave him a bit of a black mark to start with and one guy decided to go into lots of detail about a recent job where the woman had tried not to pay him his full bill so he'd gone round and ripped out her toilet - again a black mark for him. After chatting with all the people and having looked at all the quotes, we decided to go with The Handyman Can (0141 419 0851), based in the Southside and who, although they weren't the cheapest quote, we felt we could trust they would ensure we got a good job.
The Handyman Can was the only one of the four who called us following our initial meeting to ask questions about what we were planning and to confirm the details about how exactly we wanted it all to look and that all boded well for a good attention to detail.
Its always a bit worrying hiring to do work to your flat, I think everyone has fears that whoever they hire will either A) rip them off, B) make a huge mess or C) do a terrible job. you hear too many scare stories - my friend hired someone to fit his bathroom recently and in the end had to hire another company to come in and fix the butchers job the first lot did.
Its also quite a strange relationship with the workers - they are amongst the few people who get invited into your house despite the fact you don't actually know them.
Ideally you would only hire in people who came with a personal recommendation from a friend or a company with lots of positive reviews on the net but after having a good search I couldn't really find a huge number of Southside Handymen with many reviews (good or bad) and all our friends workmen had been rubbish.
In the end we chose four firms and asked each to pop round to discuss our ideas and provide us with full quotes. This was very useful as it not only helped us to cement our ideas - (though we had produced full drawings to explain exactly what we wanted anyway) but it was good way to get to meet the people interested in carrying out the work and allowed us to get a feel for what they were like and whether we felt we could trust them. I find its quite good to get them chatting about themselves and about things other than their previous works first as it gives you a better idea of what they are really like.
One guy turned up nearly two hours late with no explanation which gave him a bit of a black mark to start with and one guy decided to go into lots of detail about a recent job where the woman had tried not to pay him his full bill so he'd gone round and ripped out her toilet - again a black mark for him. After chatting with all the people and having looked at all the quotes, we decided to go with The Handyman Can (0141 419 0851), based in the Southside and who, although they weren't the cheapest quote, we felt we could trust they would ensure we got a good job.
The Handyman Can was the only one of the four who called us following our initial meeting to ask questions about what we were planning and to confirm the details about how exactly we wanted it all to look and that all boded well for a good attention to detail.
[Tomorrow I shall post about the results.]
Labels: DIY
posted by Alburt at 12:32
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home