have to say that iv always used people from the yellow pages (who are mostly English blokes) the last guy took £1600 to fix a ceiling job and halfway thu never came back,
iv had a big gap in my ceiling and wall for the last year while im chasing this guy,

but i have had this polish builder recomeded by a freind and i can say this man has done the jobs at a good what i would say normale price,

i have a small bathroom i wanted the wall the lengh of the bath and the sides of the bath all tilled from top to bath,

from the yellow pages i was quoted £3000 , gosh its only around the bath not around the whole room which is small anyway,
the polish guy quote was £350, and thats for bathroom and the sweetheart even put in a shower tap and i now have my shower up and he saying when i get a nice glass door he will fit it for me , we have given him £700 so far as he did fix All my kitchen cubards their like new now, and the back pvc door (which shoud be the HA's job realy but getting them to anything is a struggle and iv not got the strenght to fight with them anymore) he has filled all the gaps which where coming apart and i was losing lots of warmth thu the cracks around the door hes fixed it all,

Ireally cant fault this guy in anyway and am really happy to have found a MAN  who will do a good job leave it finished and not rip me off and not come back to finish the work,

Im holding on to this guy and he's got me and my mate who both want him round for xmas dinner thos year :-D , ANY OF YOU! have problems with rouge traders?  
iv got so many storys i could tell you about people iv wanted to do jobs for me and their well over pricing their work, i was qouted £250.00 to put up a simple knight light outside my house , i ended up doing it myself and it took me 10 minutes, to google how to do it and 10 minutes to actulaly do it,

this guy is also putting down my wood flooring decorating my passage up and down , and will do my garden fenceafter xmas when summer starts comming also i want hinto build my dogs and cats a nice kennel type area in my garden so my pets can have their own place to lay in peace when they want and if we get a really hot summer my zeuse amd ellie would love to lay out their in comfort with their own roof , lol,

Good tradesmen are worth holding on to!  In fact, after renovating this whole house, I keep a little book of names and numbers, some with ticks and some with crosses! ;)
But less than 2 years ago, with me supplying the materials, I had a 12' x 6' bathroom fully tiled floor to ceiling, kitchen tiled between units/worktops and kitchen floor ceramic tiled for £500 by a local man! :)

The local plumber who refitted the bathroom and cloakroom has a BIG cross!  Thankfully found a good one to sort out the muddle he left. :(

> the last guy took £1600 to fix a ceiling job and halfway thu never came back,

When we have work done I will only pay for the materials up front and they get the balance when the job is finished.  If it is a long job I would negotiate payments so that they get labour for the work as it goes but the profit is only paid when the job is finished.  If they don't like that fine I'll go somewhere else.  Don't ever pay the full cost up front for work.

I try and get people I know to do the actual work or people that friends etc have recommended.

I have used Polish traders, but that is because I am of Polish descent so know lots of family/friends who have friends that are capable.

Nationality has nothing to do with it other than so many have come to UK because of the parlous state of their economy with so few jobs (no real welfare provision) at such poor pay with high costs of living and serious housing shortages (my ex sister in law shared one room with her two grown up daughters and hubby, with granddad in other room) prompting people to leave family and go to a country where they don't even know the language to begin with.

Such people are highly motivated in the main, and many highly educated and over qualified for the work they are doing here.  Sadly there are rogues too.

>Such people are highly motivated in the main, and many highly educated and over qualified for the work they are doing here<

I totally agree, we have 2 young Polish couples living next door to us at the moment, the girls are doing bar work & factory work, and the guys are both out lorry driving at all hours, but from my brief conversations with them they seem very highly educated (I gather at least 3 of them have good degrees), but can earn far more over here doing manual or seemingly lower skilled work than they can doing a more 'academic' job back home. They are all incredibly hard working and lovely, lovely people, although as they don't speak much English (and I can only say 'hello' in Polish) our conversations are usually quite short and not very in depth. :-)

I remember a couple of years ago my Dad had to have some refurbishment work done on an office in London, he said when the building team turned up it was like a United Nations convention there were so many different nationalities there, but somehow, despite the language barrier they all got the job done without complaint and stayed late into the night until everything was finished. The only one who knocked off 'on the bell' at 5.30 was the English guy!!

Claire

Claire

Speaking as a builders wife I can only say what I do to anyone who askes. Always get someone on recomendation, see some of the work they have done, remember the cheapest is not always the best any more than the most expensive is! Make sure you get a full breakdown of charges, before they start, especially with a big job, including provisional sums for such things as bathroom suites, kitchen units etc. It is often better to employ a sole trader who will start and complete one job at a time, not like some bigger companies who have several jobs going on at once (Not all, but some flit from one job to another) As for payments if they ask for money up front for matierials then get them delivered to your address and pay for them direct to the supplier, we take stage payments at the end of each month and draw only for what has been done! And don't forget if the job has been finished and you have a problem then allow the builder some time to sort out the "Snagging" before throwing your hands up and condemming them. Some things only come to light after the job has had time to settle and a good builder will be happy to sort out whatever may need doing.
Aileen