One of them.
VB
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Oof!
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It’s in the nature of plumbing these days. Cosmetic surgery has become almost obligatory if you want to compete. They are the preening peacocks of the home improvement world. Designer work clothes, perfect skin and an immaculately valeted van are de rigeur amongst those really looking to get on.Gaping arse cracks and a diet of Greggs baked products are things of the past now.
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Cockpunch to whoever stole this guys trainer collection.
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“including a pair that he had specially made to commemorate the death of his mother.”
Low life, filthy Scumbags
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Yes but I doubt they knew this. They just took nice stuff.
Plus, having those made is just weird.
Made me think of
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What’s the current threshold for independent businesses getting out of bed these days?
I’ve offered two lots of people, to be blunt, about £10k. “Yeah yeah yeah, we’ll get back to you” and that’s the last you hear of them.
Clearly there’s better business elsewhere, but, weird.
And annoying.
If it’s trades you’re talking about - most of them run a mile from big jobs. For some reason habitually disorganised and chaotic people love to have multiple overlapping small jobs on the go - all with irate homeowners constantly chasing them, rather than settle to one job for 3-6 months. Commitment Phobia: The Career 
Ask me how I know…
{{{dodges falling brick}}}}
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Either that or it is businesses advertising stuff they haven’t got and now realising that they can’t actually get it when it is ordered
One lot of trades anyway.
I did at least get one quote for a job, but it was so loaded with caveats, penalties and threats (basically, you take every iota of risk, hell, you’d still have to pay us if we didn’t bother turning up) that I decided to give it a miss.
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The government’s Green Homes Grant is coming , so I thought I’d look into it. I would really like double glazing, but it needs to be wooden box sash windows and it’s not cheap. The five windows are likely to be about £15k, which I can’t really afford, but £5k off and it becomes plausible.
Looking into the scheme, it’s really quite rubbish. In order to get a grant for double glazing, which is a secondary category item, you need a primary category item. There are no primary category items that I want or need. And the grant for the secondary cannot exceed that for the primary.
The government website also cannot tell me whether I’ll get £5k or £10k grant. If it’s the latter, then it may actually be worth getting solar thermal (hot water) installed at a cost of £5k just to get a window grant of £5k, especially as the solar thermal also comes with a RHI incentive of a few hundred quid a year - it may actually be negative cost.
I contacted some sash window suppliers. One has actually decided not to bother with the scheme, as it’s fucking useless and their costs for joining it are quite high. Even though I got their details from the scheme website.
It’s a shambles. Our government is so useless it beggars belief.
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I wonder if there’s an element of ‘regular’ jobs vs ‘easy money’ ones ? Every so often a tradesman will get offered a chance to make, say, £1000 for two days work. He may not know when that offer is going to come though. If he locks himself into 3 months work at £800 a week he’ll end up earning £10k but might have had to miss out on three or four really good little earners. Are they just living in hope of an absolute shower of money turning up out of the blue, and wanting to be available for it ?
I once paid a brickie to build me a substantial brick wall - roughly 100ft long, 8ft above ground plus blockwork footings, 9" thick. He said he’d take the job on the condition that he could come and go as it suited him. He explained he had an arrangement with a local high-end conservatory company. They would pay him well over the odds to lay a few courses of bricks on which they would then construct their product. But he said they literally only ever gave him a couple of days’ notice. And it was understood that if he made a habit of saying No they would stop calling him. Perhaps the only people who get true service are the ones paying three times the everyday rate ?
VB
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OK, I’ve sacked off two loads of double-glazing companies now (for it is they).
I decide to try another, very local, company, and great, I can go to their showroom to have a look at what they’re selling.
Only I can’t because the not-very-show-room is open 9-5 Monday to Friday. So if you work we don’t want your business.
Presumably they have a half-day for market on a Thursday too.
Take my fcuking money!
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They’re not exactly making it easy for you are they ?
Under more normal circumstances you might ask a local company for a local reference, where you could see their work and talk to a, presumably satisfied, customer. These days who knows ? But maybe a drive by and a phone call to the punter ?
VB
I just mailed another company.
Got an auto-reply very quickly - “we’re not in the office or answering correspondence cos we’ve got covid”
I very much sympathise and hope they get better soon, but, argh!
Can you not hire @AmDismal? I’m sure he’d do it for a Turan and a warm beer.
Double-glazing accountants?
Niche.
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I’ve got someone coming round tomorrow to quote for sash windows actually. Want details?
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