help - think my plasterer is trying to rip me off?

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I think he is mugginng you of, after all he says he was aware of the distemper so he should of dealt with it properly, i would tell him to invoice you then say you will pay him lets say within 5 days that way it will give you sometime to see if what he has done stays on the wall
 
It's a shame we can't get a version of events from the plasterers side, as we all know, there can be a vast difference in stories regarding these scenarios and events, the guy has had some good advice, it's his move now
 
steve1903 said:
hud on a minute sounds a tad harsh whats the plasterer dun wrong again???its only the client story weve heared and hes panicking probably about nothing and lets face it weve all had clients trying 2 rip us off
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... and without the plasterers version of events, we'll never know, will we?

Would you pay somebody £500 for an unfinished job? I know I wouldn't. I'd give him £200 and tell him to get ******.
 
firstly i dont know if he s done a good job or not neither do i know that when my washing mashine breaks down and a repair man comes for half an hour says its fixed i want £80 i cant say to him what if it doesnt work next week.for some reason people dont think we should get paid when we ve finished a job.

maybe we shud start pricing as follows on a £200 job its £200 if paid on completion if not its £50 a day extra
 
The guys been and looked at a job for 3 ceilings assessed it gave price ( and not a bad price by the sounds) has rang the guy at work and said i cant do the ceilings coz of what i mentioned when i first came round, i cant solve the problem so come home and give me my cash LOL come on lads hes takin the piss you cant treat customers like that. Yu sometimes have problems but if your experienced you will notice them and price accordingly and 9 times out of ten someone comes along and says naaaaaaaa dont listen to him i can do it without all that extra work. So the customer takes them on then realises the guy cant do the job for the money so they either take a hit and pay or say right ive dropped a bollock and should of took the right advise out of the three quotes (thats if they can get three quotes ). So do they pay and say a lesson learnt or say **** that im not payin twice your getting fuuck all? This guy doesnt sound profesional and to say he is only a plasterer and cant fix it shows that.
 
its a shame we never found out where he is from. But next time you need a plasterer you know where to come.
 
wow - thanks for all the replies, for some reason i stopped getting the alerts so didn't see most of these.

firstly, i understand you have only heard my point of view but i have given the facts and i have dealt with many tradesman from myhammer in the past few weeks and have had absolutely no problems with any of them.

so basically i went home and told him sorry i dont have the cash on me we'll have to sort it out later in the week. he is going away on the weekend (which i knew about in the past) and as such said well i'll need to pay a bank transfer + VAT @ 20% as he is in Ascot, I am in Wimbledon and he cant make it back this week.

I asked him for the final price and he said it was £970, which i questioned as I had written down the amounts he quoted per room and that didnt sound right, however i had misplaced the paper with it written on. I told him it sounded to high and he offered to measure up with me there but i declined and told him no worries, i will do the transfer (just to get rid of him). Once he left i managed to find my paper and phoned him up to say he had overcharged me £300! he questioned it and asked if we could meet halfway, but i refused and reminded him he had written it in his diary when he came out to view the job. he phoned me back shortly to apologise and said he is really sorry he overcharge but he mistakingly quoted me £10 per sq metre instead of £15 and said it was his mistake and as I say he was really apologetic....I told him I would sort him out cash as at this stage i felt bad as he had "lost out".

I made a plan to get the money to him today via a friend who lives near him, however...now i have re-read this post and think i was far to generous and accommodating and am paranoid my ceiling and walls just going to start coming down any minute!

i have been round knocking on them and cannot find any hollow spots yet and most of it has turned from the dark brown to the light brown. ALTHOUGH there was one small area of about 30cm X 30cm which was blown before he started and I have noticed he has just skimmed over it instead of taking it out and redoing it.

so where do i stand...i have a house which is nearly plastered, for how long i dont know, a hallways ceiling which is unplastered and he left it like that and £650 out of pocket with probably no come backs....i guess you live and learn but who knows, maybe he did a good job and it will stick but as you say, he is only a plasterer so surely surely he has come across this before.

the reason he didnt wanna put up plasterboard ceiling is because he said as we have concrete ceilings it would be very difficult.

if only i had known about this forum before....

any of you guys fancy doing our hallway ceiling? Wimbledon?
 
it all seems a bit strange to me. £15p/m seems high. so does £900 for a days work. and he hasnt finished. but wants paying up. and now the price is 50% higher, will you meet me half way. and then hes sorry. just sounds like a bit of a nob really. and its a bit odd that only half the house is distemper. i would have been very inclined to have said to him that you quoted to so such and such, your not getting paid until it is done. if you cant do it ill get someone else. but then again, if your happy with the price and happy with the finish and it doesnt fall down then all is good.
 
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agree - he is a t**t and i naively thought that as it hasnt come down by this morning it woudl stay up (hopefully it will). the ceiling which did bubble, bubbled in 10 mins according to him so the fact the rest hasnt is promising...no?
 
yeah usually is will start to come down when the gear is wet and your still working on it. and if it doesnt sound blown then you should be ok. its more the point uv paid him the agreed amount but he hasnt done the agreed work. or am i mistaken? i havent read every post sorry
 
sorry - i probably wasnt clear, he didnt charge me for the ceiling which wasnt done! it came off the final price, i am not that daft :)
 
ah rite. well in that case, i guess if ur happy with the end result and price, and it all seems sound, then asking for cash isnt that unheard of, its a concrete lid so i can understand him thinking sod that. its just the not finishing off the job bit and asking for extra. but uv paid him the previously agreed amount, so uv just got the inconvenience of getting someone in to finish. its a pain but i guess it could have been worse. its the chance you take when you pick someone at random
 
yup - could have been a lot worse! but thankful for the advice on here. in my defence, we didnt pick him at random as he had some good reviews on my hammer....however just notice he profile has been deleted in the last day or so :S very odd!

what do decent plasterers generally charge per sq meter?
 
nick0412 said:
but i still think that some walls/ceilings being distemper and some not maybe a bit odd
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i think they were all distemper....but some took and some didnt, he said he PVA'ed it before although from googling it that can work but is not necessarily foolproof. It is odd that some took and some didnt.

He suggested we use thistle bond it on the hallway but said it is hit and miss and may not work either
 
do any of you esteemed professionals work in and around wimbledon who would be interested in my hallway ceiling? although i am not sure it is the most attractive job...also have a kitchen floor which needs screeding.

i pay cash :RpS_laugh: hahahaa (at least i make myself laugh)
 
ha. he might have been expectiong a bad review from you.

with regards to sites like myhammer, if you ask the opinion of it on here you wont get a lot of nice things said about it. but then again he may have been a decent spread who just couldnt be arsed with the hassle of something a bit awkward. but i would always look for a recommendation from someone i knew if i could.

with regards to m2 costs, it can vary massivly depending on what it is. £15 sounds quite high but it depends on access, ie height and things like sofas and tables in rooms, protection for carpets etc. if its a massive wall or loads of tiny ceilings that are 3.5m high. so its very hard to say. generally for me on domestic, unless its very straight forward i would be looking to take my time, make it neat and charge it on a time basis. and my daily rate isnt £600
 
if its distemper everywhere then its maybe a bit more dodgy. bondit is good but as said not fool proof.

and i happen to be working in surbiton next week strangly enough.
 
hmmm, its only a flat, very boxy, so no funny corner and with 2.4m high ceiling, no obstructions and we rolled all the carpets up! piece of piss job! Oh well, could have been a lot worse!
 
What is everyones opinion on how to treat distemper the only way i know is sugar soap it of
 
next time do a written contract, this works for both the tradesman and the client. Stick to the contract.

You don't have to look far on this forum to read accounts from plasterers about getting ripped off by clients. You both agree a price, do the work, then they turn around and try and pay you less. It sucks big time.
 
totally agree and will be making sure I have everything in writing next time...although in this case i was more than happy to pay what he quoted, just not the extra £300 he tried to charge....still I think it may have been an honest mistake...I hope :RpS_unsure:
 
Lucious Ive come across it once and it stitched me up apparently you have to wash it off with warm water and use a stabilising solution I used stabilex by artex I think it was exterior grade good stuff
 
There are much much better stabilisers about than the Artex one. The only time I've found distemper to be a problem is when someone has managed to get a coat of emulsion over it making it nigh on impossible to get the stabiliser through to the distemper.
 
Hey nick, You wanna get over there with the Ritmo and lay the floor with the Ritmo. I can let you know what screeds are best and then maybe finish the other work with MP75. Thats gotta be worth over £600 a day. The Ritmo was made for that and Mr Mole will be getting good value
 
hmmm definitely not!
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