DIYDoctor | DIYnot | UltimateHandyman – DIY Plumbing Advice – Why it can be dodgy!

[Dan]

DIYDoctor | ** | UltimateHandyman – DIY Plumbing Advice – Why it can be dodgy! – There are a lot of advice websites for DIYers out there. The advice is sought by DIY doing a project on their home. And it is provided by other DIYers that have done something similar in the past.



THE ADVICE IS NOT ALWAYS THE BEST ADVICE – Why?



Whilst some jobs carried out by DIY are okay. And then they pass on what they did to other homeowners doing up their bathrooms. We are seeing on our forums time and time again the jobs that went wrong. And they’re then being pushed away from the likes of **, DIYDoctor, and UltimateHandyman. Because they don’t want to hear about the repairs needed which often cost more than the job in the first place.



We don’t mind DIY coming to our forums. If you do, you get PROFESSIONAL QUALIFIED Plumbers, Electricians, Tilers, Plasterers, Floor-fitters, providing the advice to DIY.



We often even have manufacturers of products (like bathroom suites...

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[Ric2013]

"The DIY products used, cost more to them as a DIYer than the correct products would have cost them as a member of our forums, because we get discounts from suppliers and manufacturers."

Some of the DIY products which are supposedly easy to use are more expensive than using normal products, but generally I find customers could get products cheaper than me, albeit with the hassle of mail-order goods and deliveries and from suppliers with an unknown attitude to customer service (may be good or bad).

I tend to find products and materials I supply can be expensive (thinking of the Pegler Performa BS1010 sink taps I fitted on my last sink install), but at least I do not compromise on quality.

I think we need to be careful about perpetuating the myth that trade customers are making major savings on parts. Unless you are buying things by the thousand...

 

[Dan]

Good point. Fairly pointed out matey.

However I know 90% of the products I purchased as a tiler was certainly cheaper to me than a homeowner.

So if you're trying to paint a picture of trade not getting trade prices, you haven't got a good supplier maybe.

 

[Ric2013]

My point is that my "local" Graham is okay for expensive stuff such as taps and very good value on some products, but regularly beaten on other items by BES, or even the local Toolstation (sometimes beaten both on both price and availablilty).

There is a cheap local independent merchants that gives a decent discount to trade and has a good range, but quality can be suspect and I know more than one old plumber who says that if you buy something there and it goes wrong, don't waste your time trying to get any comeback and why bother going there at all?

But there's always a deal on some website or another that (agreed on some products only) can be cheaper on high-value non-stock products. Going back to the Performa, I paid £37 for each tap excl. VAT while I think at the time someone was selling them online for £65 a pair incl VAT. Had the customer wanted to buy them online I would of course have fitted them, but seeing as I was supplying them, I logically went for the safe option.

Admittedly, my turnover is small and I'm not on great terms yet.

 

[Dan]

I totally understand where you're coming from. I don't think my post was really aimed at this subject but I see where you are coming from. Perhaps I'll add another blog post which identifies the exact issue you speak about. Which is basically the market supply and demand perhaps. Which thinking about it isn't that basic.

But I totally get you.

I'm just saying, avoid guaranteeing that when a DIY person says to another 'this is the way, mines been okay for 10 years' it doesn't mean it is the way and that all circumstances done the same way will last 10 years.

And that if people get a professional in, or at least come on a professionals forum and get professional advice, they will see that actually, they saved money in the long-run because it wont ever fall apart etc.

I'm just sick of seeing threads (mainly on our tiling forum) where tiling has gone wrong, and we eventually find the source of the problem, it's usually the homeowner giving it a go themselves and getting ahead of themselves taking on too much.

Because they tiled a splashback in 1990 and the 6 tiles are still on, doesn't mean they can now lay 20mm porcelain on their patio or in their wetroom. Yet when I read some of the DIY forum posts, the methods sounds exactly the same.