Welcome to DIY Doctor's blog

TrustMark registers and vets UK building companies and tradesmen

Regular DIY Doctor visitors know we support good building practices by promoting the use of our building contract and quality vetted tradesmen like TrustMark builders

One of the ways we help consumers find reliable building professionals is to recommend you use a registered insured tradesman when you need a builder. Our find a tradesman section features Trustmark registered builders to help you do this. We say this because they are approved and vetted by TrustMark, the only Government endorsed quality mark for the building industry.

Last month TrustMark reached out to more than 3.4 million consumers in BBC radio broadcasts across the country. The idea was to promote their service and to help anyone looking for a builder to find local, reliable, trades people.

Liz Male, Chairman of TrustMark, said: “The radio interviews have been a great way for us to communicate with consumers up and down the country and to raise awareness of TrustMark and our tradesmen. We need to put a stop to the rogue traders who continue to take advantage of unsuspecting and vulnerable people” The radio programs were broadcast on Local BBC stations, all the way from Scotland down to Northumberland, across from Wales to Kent and back to Cornwall.

Find a building firm you trust

If you are planning on employing a builder or building company, you want to be confident that you are using someone you can trust. Trustmark vet and register UK building firms, smaller general builders and if you need a more specialist tradesman, they have those too, such as a plumber, electrician, plasterer, decorator or landscape gardener.

DIY Doctor has been promoting the idea of a reliable system to help consumers find the builder they need for their building job for the last 5 years. This is why we introduced our ‘Desired Outcome’ Building Contract, which you can download from the site, along with guidance notes to help you plan your build step by step (with you builder) so everyone knows where they stand at every step of the process.

Why you should use a building contract

Reliable builders are usually happy to work with a contract, where Cowboy Builders are likely to run a mile if you ask them to discuss and commit to their plans and costs at the beginning of the negotiations.

Mike Edwards, Brand Manager for DIY Doctor comments “The DIY Doctor Desired Outcome Contract has been developed by a team of builders and legal experts in consultation with our customer focus group, to be sure that it protects the interests of both parties in a fair and equitable way.”

See Mike explaining about the Contract and other ways to ensure you get a trusted tradesman for your build in the video below – there are also other explanatory videos and an interview between a builder and customer after using the Desired Outcome building contract on the DIY Doctor YouTube Channel.

Tweet

Share via email

A housing estate in Uppingham, Rutland is to trial a “no cold calling” zone. A scheme to make it harder for rogue traders.

The residents of The Beeches, have decided to protect themselves from traders who use cold calling methods. Such workmen are more likely to be rogue traders, with no qualifications, insurance, or (worse) no intention of finishing the job.

From next week, there will be signs up at the entrance to the estate. The zone will be enforced by trading standards officers, Rutland County Council, and the local police.

We welcome this idea as an excellent move towards eliminating rogue traders and cowboy builders. We would really like to see this idea expanded to other areas. By integrating it with Neighborhood Watch it should help protect vulnerable people who are often targeted by unscrupulous cowboys.

As you know DIY Doctor is aiming to eliminate Cowboy Builders, by giving consumers the tools they need to avoid poor tradesmen and only employ those who want to do a good job for you. This type of initiative is really inspiring. Homeowners are taking control and showing that they are not prepared to be passed off with shoddy workmanship.

“I welcome this scheme as a method of helping homeowners to avoid cowboy builders and other rogue traders. It is vital to give consumers the tools they need to protect themselves against these unscrupulous tradespeople”  Mike Edwards, Managing Director DIY Doctor.

We have a whole section on our main site about avoiding Cowboy Builders by finding reputable tradesmen. In it we stress the importance of homeowners taking responsibility for their homes. We help you to make informed decisions by providing tools and information so you can avoid common pitfalls and get the right work done at the right price.

Visit our Home Improver’s Protection Solution for our five-part programme to avoid the cowboy builders.

Some points to bear in mind

Professional builders and gardeners are not likely to just turn up at your house. Most good tradesmen are busy anyway, but even if someone is looking for work if they are genuine they are much more likely to advertise locally or put leaflets through the door which allows you to make contact with them.

We would never recommend employing anyone who cold calls.

If you ever have someone cold calling who wont take ‘no’ for answer, don’t hesitate to call the police.

Tweet

Share via email

TrustMark have just announced a 20% increase in online viewings of their listed tradesmen in the last 12 months.

DIY Doctor recommend using TrustMark to find tradespeople as part of our ‘Home Improvers Protection Solution’ (HIPS) campaign, because they are a government endorsed organisation and the only ‘find a tradesman’ scheme that insist on their tradespeople having membership to a trade body.

Your builder being a member of a trade body is not a safeguard in itself but it does mean that tradesmen must be insured, and the trade body will have a complaints procedure, and even an ombudsman, if things do go wrong.

Find a Good Builder

Builders who pay to belong to a trade body are more likely to be genuine professional builders rather than fly-by-night organisations that come and go – sometimes with your money in their pocket!

The mentality of a professional builder is one of long term business building, including doing a good job, being professional and open, being accountable, being insured, and desiring repeat business and recommendations. This is the sort of person you want to be working on your home.

Cowboy builders lie

Be aware that unscrupulous builders, who make a living out of ripping people off, may use a trade body to give their business a veneer of respectability, so do not accept their membership as proof they are genuine.

This is obviously annoying as it makes Cowboy Builders harder to spot, but just because they use a trade body logo on their paperwork or van doesn’t guarantee that they are actually members. They may have been members once, and let it lapse, or they may simply have lifted the logo illicitly.

Check out your builders before you employ them

When you are ‘interviewing’ builders, and other tradespeople, ask for their trade body membership number and check with the organisation involved. Trade bodies want to protect their good name and that of their legitimate members keep. They do not want to see cowboys stealing their good name. They may even want to take the matter further if you find your prospective builders are not members, but claiming they are.

If your builder does not readily give you their membership details, get in touch with the trade body anyway – they will be able to check their records against the builders name and address. If this builder is not registered don’t use them. If they are lying at this stage it does not bode well for future relations!

How can I avoid Cowboy Builders

If you are thinking of having work done at home, use all the tools on our website to help you employ a good tradesman and avoid the bad one. Read more in our HIPS section Home Improvers Protection Solution on our main site.

Tweet

Share via email

Xenophobia rules in Northampton as the local paper advises consumers not to employ builders who ‘don’t have a local accent’. This is under the heading ‘Dodgy and Dangerous’. Oh dear!

The Northampton Herald and Post is advising it’s readers on how to avoid cowboy builders in response to a report from Sainsbury’s Home Insurance which highlights how big the problem of rogue traders actually is in Britain. Sainsbury’s report shows that more than 6 million homeowners have suffered from botched building jobs in the last 5 years at a cost of some £3.7 billion.

You know we are always improving our information about avoiding cowboy builders here at DIY Doctor. Much of what the paper has to say makes sense, but this is one piece of advice that we have never seen before. We won’t be adopting this advice as part of our Home Improver’s Protection Solution, because we believe that people should be free to move around the country, and even around Europe, providing the service they are offering is a good one.

Go to our Home Improver’s Protection Solution pages to find out how you can really find a good tradesman and avoid Cowboy Builders. This includes free tools such as find a tradesman, Price Doctor quote checking tool, and the Desired Outcome Contract to use with your builder.

There is also lots of advice on our You Tube Channel – including a seminar from our Managing Director Mike Edwards which deals with avoiding the cowboy. Click play on the video below to see what he has to say.

Tweet

Share via email

Building Magazine runs an annual award for the building industry.

The Building Magazine is celebrating its 170th year of publication this year. The finalists for the 2013 Building Awards have just been announced, and a list is available on their website, just click on the banner above to go to the Building Award Website.

There are many categories for nomination and industry entries and these are listed below:

Entry Categories

Construction Consultant/Surveyor of the Year (fewer than 100 staff)
Construction Consultant/Surveyor of the Year
Architectural Practice of the Year
Engineering Consultant of the Year
Contractor of the Year (up to £300m)
Major Contractor of the Year (over £300m)
Housing Project of the Year
Public Building Project of the Year
Manufacturer of the Year
Housebuilder of the Year
Specialist Contractor of the Year
Project/Construction Management Firm of the Year
Building Magazine Project of the Year
Integrated Supply Chain of the Year
Cut the Carbon Award
Sustainability Project of the Year
(NEW) BIM Initiative of the Year

Nomination Categories

Construction Client of the Year
Chief Executive of the Year
Building Magazine Personality of the Year

The awards are very prestigious and are proudly boasted by all companies who have been winners. If you are thinking of buying a new property and you want to know if your developer has been nominated you can check out the Building Awards website which gives information on this years finalists as well as last years winners.

If you are in the building trade you can book your place for the awards online via the same website.

DIY Doctor supports Good Builders

Those of you who are regular visitors will know that we support measures to improve standards in the building industry. We give consumers as much help and advice as possible to help them employ reliable builders and avoid cowboy builders.

We have a complete section on our website that gives homeowners and consumers help advice and tools on employing a reputable builder or trades-person. We call it HIPS (Home Improver’s Protection Solution) and it includes our free Desired Outcome Building Contract and Price Doctor – a free online price checking tool to help you keep control of your building costs.

Go to the Home Improvers Protection Solution section of our website for more information and to try out the free tools.

Tweet

Share via email