Tuesday March 22, 2005

Excellence in the building trade

When you move into a new area especially if its a long distance all your old people you contact to do building etc work are now useless to you. So when we moved to Twyford nearly eleven years ago I suppose there was a fear of trepidation that we could end up employing a load of cowboys. We were to be suprised. Not long after we moved in a handy little booklet arrived on the doormat. The Little Green Book is an excellent resource where tradesmen are recommended by the people who use them. It has been a godsend to us. Of course it is like the Good pub guide it relies on people to participate else it will become out of date and useless.

So the reason I am writing about this is we are having our fascia and guttering replaced by a PVC solution. We are using a guy called Mark Hart who we found in this book. He has replaced our flat roof at the back in the past and fully supported its ten year guarantee and other roofing type work. The thing I like about him is you really feel he is honest. He has done a couple of little jobs for us and refused payement. On one job he used less materials and it took him less time so he reduced the bill. Okay he could have overestimated but how many builders would admit that and then reduce the final bill ? For this job he has advised us not to do the fascia on the garage as that would mean the flat roof would need doing when it clearly has several years life left in it. He also replaces the fascia instead of just putting a plastic cover over it as most people do - saving them time and therefore labour costs that they won't pass onto you. Leaving the old fascia board on also causes problems later on. He also asked us if we wanted the soffet changing instead of assuming we would. The felt that is on the roof by the gutter when the roof was built would have had a lip that went into the gutter. Forty years later that is now rotted away. He will replace that. All good tips if you are having your fascia boards done. Finally it is good to see his son is now working for him carrying on the business.