What is wrong with this country?!

[SolarCity]

I'm absolutely convinced that the majority - not just a sizable minority - the majority of tradesmen in this country are incompetent. Whatever position I try to fill I will invariably end up with a clueless pratt working with me.

The good tradesmen actually come out as a bit of a shock when we get them - they're about 1 in 5 if I'm lucky.

We had an install team work on a job for us today - a team with 80 installs behind them (apparently). I arrived early and marked out the entire system for them and left them to it for a few hours. When I came back, they had messed up just about every aspect of the install. The brackets weren't fully screwed in and the nuts weren't fully tightened on any of them - a pretty obvious and fundamental error you would have thought? I mean, it's like I'm asking them to build me a ****ing rocket, is it? They had missed an entire line of brackets out, purposely I suspect, which meant that the gap between the brackets was too far.

As I was pointing this lot out to them, the electrician shouted up asking for the impact driver. The roofer, staggeringly, broke a hole through the felting and passed the impact driver into the loft space - right in front of me. After shouting out a few expletives, I went to check what the sparky had done:

No bonding to array, despite me telling him that it needed doing.
DC cables tye wrapped to satellite cables (!)
Inverter mounted up against garage wall - which he still managed to get on the wonk.
1 string wired even though I had left him with a wiring diagram which clearly showed two strings.
Wonky DC and AC isolator.
No meter.

I went into the loft and there were more holes through the felt where the brackets were mounted - God only knows how.


I hit the roof and sent them on their way. It is the first time I have ever kicked someone off site for poor workmanship. We are stripping the roof tomorrow to refelt some of the sections and we're going to redo the brackets. The electrics side will need totally redoing.

Absolutely gutted and baffled by it all.

 

[SRE]

We only sub-contract roofers and we're always on site with them - although the guys are really good. But we heard about 3 similar situations today all on local installs. It makes my blood boil.

Maybe you're just going to have to let something give Biggs there's more to life. You'll be having a heart attack before 12/12. 3 years ago I nearly killed myself working all hours God sent to keep the 14 staff I had in jobs. I was ill, another company took over the contract and all my staff found other jobs. The only person that suffered was me!

 

[dansk]

Oh man, that's unreal, what a bunch of ----ers and they told you they had 80 installs under there belt, it doesn't sound like they have 8. The best bit is punching through the felt, now that's going to take some beating. I hope Biggs you can look back on this crazy period and laugh about it one day, but till that day comes, just stand back, take stock and gather your head and tomorrow is another day, at the end of the day you can't please everyone and no feed in tariff is worth busting a blood vessel for.

 

[Markc]

It is a sad fact that no one will work like you. In years gone I worked my Electrical Contracting business up to 5 men plus me still full time on the tools. I had a council contract for storage heaters, smoke detectors and heating systems. Two Diocese contracts for two counties for everything electrical from repairs and breakdowns to full rewires. About a dozen builders all of who built in multiple plot sites not just a small extension and two educational colleges for everything including PI testing. I had five years like this before I snapped and made myself ill.

The number of guys I employed in this time was shocking (no pun intended) I don't have the space to run into details here but needless to say I had problems in abundance and no more profit to show for it. I had guys nicking gear, not turning up, damaging vehicles, loosing tools and plant, running up mobile phone bills to the hundreds calling girlfriends, and so much more. Most of my time was spent running around putting stupid mistakes right. Answering to the client as to why things went wrong and taking the knock for it also.

It took its toll on me I can say. I had not the time to sit on the shoulder of everyone to ensure it was done right and no matter what I said they didn't give a ----. Then one day I made the decision to cut it back to the bone. Drop what I didn't want and keep it that way. So one day after a very stressful week I called them all in and one by one explained what the problems were and what I wanted done to rectify them. If they didn't do as I wanted and how I wanted it done they would be let go. Two weeks later I had one guy left!

My stress dropped, I stopped smoking and I felt better for it. when PV came along I again decided not to expand up but to keep it controllable. One a month or every two weeks and still keeping the contracting side on the go. Fortunately this has turned out to be a good call. Yes we could of took more PV work but at our cost I think. By keeping it small we have kept it controllable 100%.

 

[SolarCity]

I agree with what you are all saying. If I'm totally honest, I don't like delegating ANY of my work to other people - even to my brother/partner.

When I have to pass work to other people they rarely get it right. I only bring in people when I absolutely have to and unfortunately, at the moment, I have to.

 

[JD6400]

I have noticed a couple of things over the years , here are just a few --

Most of our men are long term sub's and when ever we give a pay rise after they ask for one i can guarantee they will have a extra day of a month , i actually asked one the other day why ? And he openly admitted that he did not really need the extra money so thought he would have a extra day off instead !

The law of averages should dictate that at least once in a hundred f""k ups it would cost them some time or money , but as God is my wittiness this has NEVER happened ! I remember one month they killed three site dust extraction units and two sds chasing drills all expensive heavy duty main name brands on one job alone , then they complained it was wrong , when they had to do one chase without the proper kit.

They do not see it as stealing just using the spare bits that they had saved for you from the job that should have gone in the stores but they deserve them because they did the work ( which you are paying them for any way ) bringing them back ?

And i can guarantee that if the **** hit the fan and you put your house on the line to pay the blokes when the last penny has been bled from you they would walk out the door strait into another job with out a thought to you or your now destitute family , i bet if you were to ask for a sub off them to get by they would probably turn around and say that you were a bit to much of a risk on getting it back again !!! This actually happened to a client of ours .

I know i sound bitter and twisted but i prefer to see it as realistic , i see absolute --- hole boss's that every member of staff thinks the sun shines out of their proverbial and i also see others that you would be very lucky to call a mate and their staff s**t on daily , just hope i have it right with our staff who despite what i have just said i would hope most class me the same as i class them - a friend !? Well until i can not afford to pay them anyway .

 

[MorganPVI]

Sounds like our firm is very lucky, i've known our roofer for donkeys years, he's a real grafter and does great work. Both our sparks are great, one is a real stickler for the regs but does great work, the other knows his stuff and cracks on. On the whole all our suppliers have delivered, couple of missed dates, but i'm 100% happy (for a change).

Got a couple of spare days if anyone needs a hand.

 

[Markc]

And then you get the hours YOU do!

Ive been in the office since 5.30 this morning. (woke up and couldn't get back to sleep so thougt I'd make the most of it) Its now nearly 17.30 and that will be a full 12hrs in here! However I can see my desk again and I'm up to date with ALL our installations and ahead on two as well.

 

[SRE]

Stop bragging :smiley2: I've had half a day off, the first since 28th October. Have just got to the point where I'm too tired to do anything!

Catch up again tomorrow ......

 

[Markc]

Just thought I'd rub it in :6:

And anyway whats all this half day off business? Next you'll be telling us you're off at Christmas as well!

 

[SRE]

Recovering from surgery, time off though!!

 

[Markc]

Recovering from surgery, time off though!!

Drastic measures for a day off SRE! Hope you're well on the way to recovery. Take it easy.

 

[SRE]

No, postponed it until 19th Dec so I knew I'd get time to recover over Christmas

 

[edexlab]

I have to agree with all the above concerning tradesmen especially electricians ,most I've worked with have been dire about 90% the 10% were excellent ,it seems to be all or nothing I've been laughed at for taking longer than others but I never have to redo anything unlike others and the customer has always been left happy

Before I went on my own ,the firm I worked for bullied all the kids and made them frightened of their own shadows ,I was the worst thought of employee for two reasons ,one I would never do anything I thought was dodgy and ,two a lot of my time was spent putting the other lads work right so I was an expensive luxury in the bosses view
however I had the last laugh as when it was time for the annual inspection they could'nt find a job which was good enough to take the inspector to ie jobs with no bonding etc the foreman was contemplating suicide, except for the sites I was on (a new commercial unit and new build houses) which the Nic man and his trainee agreed was a good example of how it should be done ,which I took as a sign that I was on the right track but if I'm honest this was down to working with the aforementioned 10% electricians on a car/bike showroom in Solihull where the standard of work was very high and I learnt a great deal

Much of the problem I find is down to poor training both at colleges and poor selection/treatment of apprentices( get the right candidate with the right attitude/aptitude and you won't need to throw hammers at them),
I did an engineering apprenticeship 15 yrs before becoming an electrician and the electrical course I did was that bad I threw the notes in the bin and relied on textbooks
I asked for and along with the others on the course got a 45% refund on two of the three years course fees. and I could'nt believe how low the standards were it seemed to rely on past papers ,basics are'nt taught ie most blokes can't even use a hacksaw or level properly never mind a drill .
I would class myself as what should be in realistic terms an average spark (6yrs qualified) and yet last year worked alongside blokes with 20 yrs plus and I was constantly amazed at the basic stuff, knowledge/skills they lacked and yet they considered themselves to be elite electricians

 

[SolarCity]

Edexlab, I live in Solihull. Are you West Midlands based?