Large job come through

A large job came through a website enquiry to price up and I thought oh great. Only to find looking at the sender email address way from a blooming national contractor.

Will skip that one then and tell them I'm busy or something or just be honest and tell them I don't work for contractors nor peanuts. Also the thought of someone skimming off the top for my efforts don't go down too well with me either.

I would rather die broke than work for someone else as they say /emoticons/biggrin.png

How about you?

im going to try telling that to my misses /emoticons/tongue.png

Ive only had one job in my life where i worked for someone else and i quit it after six months, so i agree with u smurf, but im sure it suits some people

I tell a lie, i worked for a window cleaner for around a year before starting my own round :thumbsup:

Come to think of it I did operate as a national and was quite happy then to skim off the top /emoticons/biggrin.png

I met a window cleaner yesterday, friendly type, and he was saying all he does is commercial stuff but has had enough with it and wants to start domestics now. He was complaining that alot of the commercial stuff is getting subcontracted by the national companies.

Commercial work has always been very competitive and then you can wait months to get paid.

I must get at least one national a month phone me up asking if I would be interested in some work that each time I pass on. It’s getting more cut throat out there and it seems nationals are helping to drive down prices too. Either that they are getting very greedy and skimming more off the top for themselves

Not window cleaning I know, but I had a chap ring me up in the week that started out promising and slowly but surely went downhill.

"Hi do you do pressure washing?" "Yep I do what do you need doing?" "well I am doing some work for this lady on a large mansion type house and need some pressure washing doing"

To cut a long story short, after 15min conversation it turned out he had two lads on a cherry picker failing to pressure wash all of this mansions roofs and he wanted me to do it sub contract.......

I won't tell you what I said, this forum has a profanity filter, but I reckon you can guess.

So I'm guessing you did not just say no thanks and put the phone down /emoticons/biggrin.png

So I'm guessing you did not just say no thanks and put the phone down /emoticons/biggrin.png

Click to expand...

It was first thing in the morning, I was due at a job in the next 20mins and this guy wouldn't take no for an answer.

I tried "My insurance doesn't cover me" I tried "I don't touch roofs" I tried "I have enough work on with my feet on the ground" I tried several tacks, none worked, he left me no option!

He semed rather desprate then as the lads could have either damaged something or just got fedup and done a runner as you do.:laugh:

The two chaps worked for him, he got my number from my mate who runs a hire firm, my guess is either their equipment wasn't good enough so taking forever and they wanted me gear or they just didn't know what they were doing.

Either way he was very desperate for me to come and help.

Cowboys spring to mind so rightfully so you were better not to get involved for sure :thumbsup:

Myself I would never think of tackling a main roof cleaning job as I'm not a roofer as that skill set is defo required to also sort the roof out where needed too. Especialy when blasting the **** out of one with a pressure washer.

Having the skills definitely helps

a plain no thanks mate hava nice day and hang up lol

Whilst doing gutter & roof valley clearing I've seen many roofs that the fillets of mortar are blown away due to frost damage not to mention broken & loose tiles up there too. Start using a pressure washer on roofs like that you could end up in a whole lot of pain and grief for sure @daveyboy1

Personally, I would not take a power washer anywhere near a roof - too much risk of damage, loads of mess, oh, and standing on a wet sloping roof with a jet lance in hand. H&S nightmare.