Al, not everyone who does tradework is honest ... just as there are plenty of householders who are happy to pay cash no receipt to shonky workmen who get the work at the expense of those who would do a good job but rightly expect to be paid for it.
So far of the 4 jobs I've had done on my house here I've had three bodgy jobs done and only one that I consider to be adequate. And no I don't go for the lowest quote.
It wasn't my imagination that the borer sprayer did abslolutely squat other than take the morning off when he should have been treating the underside of my house - he did however remember to put the bill in my mail box. And just to be fair I've also had shonky work done in the UK.
The guy who told me about the cement bags was working for the brickie as a labourer at the time. I don't disbelieve the story about the surveryor .... there are slack buggers in every line of work.
I've spoken to restumpers who reckon there are surveyors who won't crawl on their hands and knees under a house to inspect their work.
I've personally had an annual roadworthy done on a motorbike which consisted of the tester riding it round the block - his attitude was that if it felt safe to ride then he passed it.
I've had a car fail a roadworthy with complete crap as a reason with the assumption that I wouldn't know that they were talking rubbish. I've every reason to believe that if I'd asked the garage to do the work that they wouldn't really have replaced the shock absorbers on the left hand side of the car only as they wanted to ( rather than in pairs across the car ) but would just have billed me megabucks for storing my car in their garage for the day.
I'm doing these courses not necessarily so that I can do the work myself but so I have some idea what good practice is and what I should be looking for.
.... and where do you get your empty cement bags from. They were probably left over from the brick wall that the brickie built round his mum's garden ....
