Perhaps some one can help. I've had a plasterer in to plaster a rear room.New plasterboard, taper edge all round. Quoted £400 cash for finish and two days to complete. Finish is awful more places below level. I can see tape between joints. Plasterer says all I need to do is rub it all down with sandpaper. Says this is normal practice for plasterers. I've never heard this before. Does any one else believe this either.
£200 a day labour-only is too much. I've heard of plasterers getting £180 in London, the going rate here is more like £160.
Rubbish. You should be able to shine a light along the wall and see no imperfections. A few "snots" of plaster to remove in awkward places like round cables in inside switch boxes is acceptable, but no rubbing down should be necessary. Your bloke is no plasterer. Did he clean up properly? That's always a good test.
Peter
Thanks for your rapid reply. No he did not clean up. In fact it took two days to remove plaster from floor. He refuses to return and correct work because he says it is a professional finish. Refused to give an invoice and refuses to give me his full name or address. He quoted two days work to complete the job. First day he was at the job for three hours and the same for the second day. Six hours total. Think I've been ripped off.
No. Its crap.
>
around here it would be £50 per wall plus plaster, 4 walls should take a day depending on the size of the room.
bollix, he's just a crap plasterer
Les
Yes, yes you have :-(
Dare I ask - why did you pay him £400 for 6 hours work and an unsatifactory job?
I wouldn't say he was a plasterer. To describe yourself as one implies a certain minimum level of competence and capable of producing an acceptable result. He fails on that count, so he's a cowboy pretending to be one.
W.
Thanks everso for your comments. Yes you are probably right, we shouldn't have paid him when he had finished, but wet plaster certainly looks better than when its dry. He describes himself as a master craftsman and having had plasterers in before some are both quick and very good. Unfortunately our good plaster disappeared some time ago. Any other ideas welcomed. TIA
=============================== Put it down to experience. Go out and get Plastered
Grouch
I don't agree with that action as a first resort.
If I did a job and the customer was unhappy I would far rather that they told me first so that I can resolve the situation amicably. Not all jobs go entirely according to plan (which I hate to admit but it is a fact of life). I live by the promise that if the customer isn't happy with what I do then I don't expect to get paid - period. Furthermore I intend that the customer will not be out of pocket from having employed me to do a job.
I'd be well miffed if I got paid and then found that the customer had reported me to trading standards without telling me first. I try to be completely honest with people I do work for. In this case the plasterer appears to have screwed up - but unless I'm mistaken his handiwork could be easily repaired by another competent person without it incurring additional cost to the householder - which means that if he wanted to then our cowboy plasterer could choose to effect repairs thru getting another plasterer in (which he pays for) without the householder being in any further debt.
Obviously if I was informed of the lack of happiness and didn't do anything about it to resolve the situation I would fully support trading standards and any other bodies being notified - but all I ask for is the option of resolving the situation to the complete satisfaction of the customer. Is that too much to ask?
Take one example. A customer recently asked me to fit laminate flooring. I told her straight that I hadn't actually done laminate flooring before and although I felt it was something I could do there was a risk that maybe it wouldn't go according to plan. I said that if I attempted the job and it didn't work out then she wouldn't be paying me, and furthermore I would buy the materials I'd ruined from her so that she could employ someone else to do the job competently, without her incurring any loss. If it went well I get some extra credentials for doing laminate flooring - and if it doesn't I don't lose any credibility with my customer. Win-win.
Result was that she was delighted to find someone working as a tradesman who was willing to be ruthlessly honest - I'd done some other jobs for her previously which went well so she trusted me to do the laminate flooring. I've not done the job yet (coming up shortly), but even if it goes pear-shaped I have a customer who knows I am never going to set expectations higher than they should be. Perhaps in this plasterers case that's where the real problem lays?
It is rather unfortunate that in todays environment we are all too enthusiastic to reach for litigation rather than employ dialogue. I'm honest (or at least try to be), and it would be no bad thing if customers were the same. We'd all be a lot happier as a result.
PoP
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indeed. Next time try 'OK, youve done the job, but Im not very happy with it. I'm going to get a second opinion on this from someone I know is well qualified, and if youre right I'll then pay you. If not we can discuss our options. No, I wont pay you today. I'll call you when he's been round.'
Bad plastering can be patched up diy, done that before. Just a case of filler, filling knife, and keen attention to detail. Only if its so bad youve got lumps sticking up, or the plaster is coming apart, is filler not going to do it. Little lumps can be bashed off first. Have used this aproach before, and it works quite well. A lot of bits can be smoothed fastest with a finger.
I'm thinking of trying this approach this time using a grouting thing
- a rubber edged spreader thing, to try to cover a whole area real fast. The idea is just to fill the dimples holes and cracks in some poor plastering. I know it sounds optimistic, but it might work fairly well. Anyone tried that version before?
Regards, NT
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