Tradesmen's mess!

I'm buying time. My time. And my time costs a lot more than a tradesman's does. Especially my weekend time, which these days is not purchaseable at any reasonable cost.

Reply to
Huge
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Sorry, but it is and they do, at least the tradesmen I have used recently.

The point is that you don't *have* to quote for removing the waste but you do at least have to detail whether the quote includes it or not so as to avoid setting false expectations. What happens at the end of the job when the customer insists you take the waste away and you didn't allow for it in the quote and didn't say as much? You'll either lose money or risk losing return business. Either way it' a poor way to run your business.

You ask the customer what their other quotes include and make sure they understand what they're being asked to pay for, or quote on a similar basis. It's not difficult!

MBQ

Reply to
MBQ

I suggest you re-read the original

"I'm not talking about the sort of stuff which would readily be taken away by my local bin men"

"6 bags full of plasterboard scraps, surplus plaster and other rubble"

MBQ

Reply to
MBQ

Yes, it depends on what you can charge your own time out for. Cash rich and time poor and all that. Unfortunately, I'm cash poor and time poor. However, I certainly can't afford to pay someone 25-50 pounds an hour for manual or semiskilled labour such as waste disposal, nor could I afford commercial disposal rates. Last week I made 10 trips to the tip with a trailer. That would have cost 500 quid in tip fees alone.

Christian.

Reply to
Christian McArdle

There is a point in our business that you might be taking away material that the customer requires. Although I wouldn't consider making use of it, it's amazing to see that many others will put up tatty contractor aerials and manky cable..

There is also the "waste regulations" issue. I feel disinclined to carry scrap materials on the vans ands very much against having to pay for a permit to do so! We do make an exception if the customer requires it removed, but then we still don't ever carry waste, only second hand stock. :-)

Reply to
Andy Luckman (AJL Electronics)

They get a scrap dealer to call.

Reply to
IMM

Both viewpoints are perfectly valid. What's important is that customer and supplier are clear about the terms and conditions. Imo, it is a poor tradesman who assumes he can leave a mess behind without stating that that is his intention. "Come and do work for me here, but make work for me there" is not the sort of request most customers make.

[I am paying a fiver to have an old mattress schlepped away. I don't value my time, but do value any hassle, and a mid-sized car and a king-sized mattress only amount to a lot of hassle. Besides, there's a slim possibility it might get disposed of in a more friendly fashion than the local landfill.]
Reply to
John Laird

tradesman's

You can't be all that time or cash poor then ...

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

Blimey. In your circumstances, I'd be on your side, then. (Does that make sense. I hope so.)

Reply to
Huge

Good show. That is how you do it. Cowboys do other.

Reply to
IMM

If you employ someone to transport waste for you and they do not have the appropriate licence you are also guilty of an offence.

Reply to
Peter Crosland

Still does not get you off the hook! You are obliged to ensure that he has. In reality not much chance of getting caught but the EE do do spot checks at tips.

Reply to
Peter Crosland

What, so if my plasterer actually had taken my waste away, and doesn't have a licence, then I would be guilty of an offence? !! I find that hard to believe...

David

Reply to
Lobster

tradesman's

So how much are they charging for tip fee, £50 quid a time for a small load? This sounds like a total rip off, commercial fees for bin lorries, skips etc are something like £20-30 per ton.

come to think of it with ten trips would you not have been better off getting a skip in? (but then again I pretty much did the same thing when I first moved into our house:-), when I baulked at the £100 quid for the skip but then had to spend a couple of days between filling up the car and going to the dump.

cheers

David

Reply to
David

Well David take a look at the Environment Agency website. Anyone who transports waste requires a licence, subject to certain exemptions, one of which is taking your own waste to a licensed disposal site. Once you do this for someone else then the exemption is lost. One of the regulatory controls is that there should be documentation called a waste transfer note that identifies the waste for each consignment. If you employ someone to move waste then you have a joint responsibility for it being disposed of legally. It would be quite unusual for an individual disposing of their own waste to be prosecuted but it can and does happen.

Reply to
Peter Crosland

I can kind of see what the intention of the legislation is (and I certainly don't disagree with your reporting of it) but the lack of sensible de minimus limits does cause some ridiculous exposure to unwitting clients and some of the environmental waste legislation is downright counter-productive.

A friend of mine works for a large engineering controls company. During a discussion of replacement laptops for his kids I suggested that he might want to see if he can buy obsolete laptops from the company (they have the normal frequent hardware replacement cycles). His amazing answer was that the company won't sell them any more, because they;re classed as "Industrial waste". The result? They go straight to a licensed recycling company!

Completely nuts! From "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" the company's interpretation of the legislation has eliminated the two most environmentally friendly steps!!!

Perhaps companies taking more than a certain amount of waste from customers should be licensed, and those in the waste removal business, and a statement of conformity certificate to end clients ought to be required, but to require tradesmen who dispose of small quantities of waste infrequently from clients to obtain and pay for a license, and then leave the customer open to prosecution for non-compliance is just plain onerous beaurocracy!

-- Richard Sampson

email me at richard at olifant d-ot co do-t uk

Reply to
RichardS

interpretation

I could not agree more! I must say the company are being paranoid because selling off working items such as computers can hardly be called waste disposal.

Reply to
Peter Crosland

Don't you think that the company might have been using it as an excuse for some reason?

After all, who's checking up on them??

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

"BigWallop" wrote | > It is entirely reasonable to expect the tradesman to remove his | > rubbish. I always make this an explicit requirement when I write | > job specs. when requesting quotations. | It's OK to price for bulk waste removal from a large job, but we're | talking a couple of rubbish bags full of dust and paint tins here.

Now that councils are getting stricter about only taking *one* bag or wheeliebin, leaving any rubbish behind can be a problem for the customer, particularly for anyone who can't easily take stuff to the tip themselves. It's the sort of confusion that can lead to the loss of goodwill or, if waste removal hasn't been included in the quote, wipe out a siginificant part of the profit on a cheap-but-messy job.

I'd certainly expect a tradesman to remove all rubbish (my heating engineer even takes the old central heating pumps away with him[1]) and I think it's probably safer if a contractor isn't going to do this to state explicitly on the quote that waste will be bagged and left for customer disposal.

Owain

[1] I know *I* get a new one because it's nice and shiny and comes out of a new box, and I'm sure all his other customers get new ones too, before anyone wonders if he's a parts 'recycle-resell'er
Reply to
Owain

Ah but in reality the touchstone test is weather the waste arrives by car or van. The notices says clearly.

All vans stop here [outside the tip] and report to the office.

In North London a flat is by no means necessarily an example of 'social housing' it might well be part of a development with a price tag of >£0.5m for just three bedrooms!

The normal domestic rubbish will probably be collected from outside your door several times a week. What I am describing is much more nearer hotel with large suites of rooms.

This is nothing like concrete aerial walkways, contract quality fittings througout. Rubbish overflowing the communal skip or nearby. Large dogs kept unexercised.

Service charges can well run at £3k/year much of which pays 'porters' to give all trades a _very_ hard time. Also to apply Parking controls which make even Westminster Traffic Wardens (Ibitha if they ticket enough vans) look lax.

Reply to
Ed Sirett

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