advice/rant

[Pugsport]

well last week i paid someone to plaster my hallway and to say its shocking is a bit of an understatement to say the least and it took him 2 days to do the ceiling, and then another 3 days to do the walls to which one of the walls had the plaster fall off. i was then told that it was my fault because i must have missed some bits when i put the pva on the wall but i only put the first coat on the night before so im thinking he never went over it again or he manged to miss some when he done it.

i then had the bloke from next door come round and put the wall right and he also did the ceiling and another wall at the same time as they were really bad, full of marks and bits. while he was there he even said how bad it was.

anyway the bloke that first come round and sort of done the job is now hassling me for money for doing the job. he was wanting £100 and a set of £180 bathroom taps for the job. im not sure if im being unfair but i gave him £40 and the set of bathroom taps but he keeps calling and coming round about the rest of his money. i also had to give the bloke next door £40 for fixing the wall that fell off and the two really bad marked walls. i still had to do quite a bit of filler work and making good on the other walls before i could paint which took 3 or 4 days as i just kept finding bits.

he also used my drill to mix plaster, my steps, my flood light (although failed to move it around on his own) and i had to buy a longer trowel so he could do the walls.

i just wanted to see if you guys think im being unfair in not paying him the full amount for the job he done. he was lucky he got anything for the job as in my view i dont see why people should have to pay for something thats not right and they have to fix.

 

[NeverBackDown]

No i don't think so. You ended up doing half the work and if he is using your tools then he obviously cares little about his work to not have all his stuff on hand. While yeah It's a crappy situation for you to be in, his quality of work would suggest it was his first time and if you end having to get someone else to not only fix it, but to tell you it was bad, and you still having to do it, then no he doesn't deserve it.

Unless you signed papers and other stuff, then legally(at least in the US) you don't have to pay the agreed amount. That's why many people take a deposit that's nonrefundable before working on a project incase something like this happens.

 

[tinytomlogan]

I think your problem was you got someone that was going to do it too cheap. When it comes to tradesmen the cheap ones are just not worth bothering with.

 

[Kilbane]

I think your problem was you got someone that was going to do it too cheap. When it comes to tradesmen the cheap ones are just not worth bothering with.

Very much all of this. Never trust someone who says "I'll do it as a favour", "I'll do it cheap" or "We can do a deal for that". Always ends up being more trouble than its worth!

But to answer your original question, if he had done that sort of work for me, he was lucky to get what he did for the work.

 

[Pugsport]

No i don't think so. You ended up doing half the work and if he is using your tools then he obviously cares little about his work to not have all his stuff on hand. While yeah It's a crappy situation for you to be in, his quality of work would suggest it was his first time and if you end having to get someone else to not only fix it, but to tell you it was bad, and you still having to do it, then no he doesn't deserve it.

Unless you signed papers and other stuff, then legally(at least in the US) you don't have to pay the agreed amount. That's why many people take a deposit that's nonrefundable before working on a project incase something like this happens.

yer that was kind of my view on the subject as id not expect to be paid for something the person paying would have to fix or the next trade in (painter in this case would have to fix)

I think your problem was you got someone that was going to do it too cheap. When it comes to tradesmen the cheap ones are just not worth bothering with.

Very much all of this. Never trust someone who says "I'll do it as a favour", "I'll do it cheap" or "We can do a deal for that". Always ends up being more trouble than its worth!

But to answer your original question, if he had done that sort of work for me, he was lucky to get what he did for the work.

i dont see £280 for that sort of job to be cheap in fair, i had all my kitchen done for thats walls and ceiling and the ceiling in my down stairs toilet for £140 plus the person done it all in one day with his own tools and used nothing of mine. im a carpenter by trade and my old man is an electrical engineer but he dose do a little site work from time to time and we both agreed that we had never seen anything this bad even on a site job where plasters want to get it done asap.

but as i said i have managed to get it to look ok ish for now but its taken some time and filler to get it to look half good.

this is some of the marks left in just a little patch of the ceiling

the wall that never stuck (you can just about make out an outline of the missing bit)

what fell off

how ive managed to get it at them moment

 

[sheroo]

That's pretty shocking, its just not worth skimping if you want a good job. You have to be quite hard faced - stop dancing around with him, if you don't want to pay tell him straight - the job you did was not completed to an acceptable standard, and that's your lot.