Is work slower than normal?

[Dustydazzler]

Had similar in Bath on Great pulteney Street, large town hosue plus mews building behind, installed a 22kw car charger. it still to this day has the bubble wrap on the lead plug unused. dealt with the 'caretaker' and his wife who had an apartment on the street as part of the job. its owned by the bahrain royal family. invoice was sent to the embassy in London and paid within the hour.
caretaker said he has to go shopping pretty much daily and get things like flowers etc. supervise cleaning just in case they want to stay there. he can be given as little as an hours notice the royals are on the way. they have stayed there less than a fortnight when some of the bahraini princesses if you call it that came to Bath.
Itsa completety different world.
Benefit for the caretaker of course is that he doesnt have to pay for much food!

I don't know how true this is but I can imagine it is true
A manager of Harrods was once telling me when the Arab Royals were in London they would contact him and he would allow them in the store after hours for some private shopping.
His payment for this was a thick brown envelope stuffed with £50 notes.

 

[jedisparks]

It slowed for me in the spring and so I started advertising again. Haven't advertised for about 6 years, I got so busy that i was in the habit of turning away new customers. That was my mistake I think, shrinking my network instead of growing it. But I also think the current news has played a part too in a general slowing down with people being uncertain of their future finances.

 

[LukeD]

I don't know how true this is but I can imagine it is true
A manager of Harrods was once telling me when the Arab Royals were in London they would contact him and he would allow them in the store after hours for some private shopping.
His payment for this was a thick brown envelope stuffed with £50 notes.

100% possible in most high end shops .One Family have 100% access to harrods any time of any day in the year .This would include Christmas day if they wanted . The money some of these people have to spend is beyond madness .I know a few Chinese "kids" maybe 19-21 years old .They can spend £40k in a saturday morning and not even blink .So imagine what a corrupt head of state etc could be spending ! Shopping sprees for some of these type can be a million plus

 

[Welchyboy1]

It slowed for me in the spring and so I started advertising again. Haven't advertised for about 6 years, I got so busy that i was in the habit of turning away new customers. That was my mistake I think, shrinking my network instead of growing it. But I also think the current news has played a part too in a general slowing down with people being uncertain of their future finances.

exactly the same as me!
I’m in Essex, the last two years have been unbelievably busy, all the way throughout lockdown and out the other side, then come May/June time this year work really got slack, the phone just stopped ringing literally overnight,
I haven’t needed to advertise in 10 plus years as I have always been well busy enough

Im not complaining at the moment though, been getting at least three days a week, that’s enough to pay the bills and with the summer being so great this year it’s been wonderful spending the extra time off with the family over the school holidays

hopefully after the summer, things will pick up once everyone has had all the holidays backdated from COVID cancellations

But if I’m honest with myself I think we have all got a few tough years ahead

 

[Sparky's Auntie]

Ive seen many and many more ...ALL empty .The foreign owners are not even remotely interested in renting them out . This means no council tax paid etc .One block of apartments just off Abbey Road has 32 apartments . 5 have people living in them .Average price is £1.9 million an apartment .I russian owns 7. 3 x Iraqis own 4 . Nigerians own 4 .But they have not been around for years as the Police are after them for major fraud ! The reception guys just sit doing nothing .And also they dont like paying the service charge . Ive done lots of work for some of them .But I always get 100 % upfront . they are nice to me ..but i dont trust them

This would be brilliant on TV, you need to write a book!

 

[Sparky's Auntie]

It has gone a bit quiet here, a lot of what i do is ev charging but rather than wanting a charger next week people are booking me in for say 2 or 3 months time as the car isnt coming until then... prior to end of March it was mad dash to get one fitted to get the grant. Ev charger enquiries picking up again though.
I have just renewed my BPEC soalr quals as I am getting so many enquiries for pv and battery storage. I have in last fornight secured 2 x 10kwh battery storage jobs to retro fit to their pv.
I make a poitn of letting custoemrs know i am doign pv and storage.. a lot of people are thinking about it but unsure how to proceed.
I am fortunate in that I have contacts and have plenty of work from a builders, previously i was always too busy to help but his previous electrician has made a right mess of some jobs so i have been parachuted in to fix and get it all up to standard.
currently booked up until end of September with many jobs booked towards end of the year.

That's a lovely position to be in. To be honest, they were working continually, but rather than being booked up to the end of November, they were only booked for the next month, which sent us all into a spiral of worry. We are in Bedfordshire and EV charging isn't massive yet. They're all certified to do it but it's usually just an add on with new builds. I'm not completely up to date with this grant business

 

[Dustydazzler]

Sparky's Auntie If you have a spare 15mins this makes for some interesting lunchtime viewing

 

[Sparky's Auntie]

It's definitely quieter than it was. The coming recession is the obvious cause.

I've still got enough and doing well, but I'm no longer turning down masses of work all the time.

Various wholesalers seem to be constantly on the phone recently too. I'd not heard from them for years prior to a couple of months back!

That's exactly our position. They're working solidly but not booked up for months in advance as they like.

 

[Sparky's Auntie]

I'm definitely seeing a trend in my clients (artists) that the money in events/ticket sales is far easier abroad than at home. My winter / New Year looks OK but it's all solidly overseas - zilch in the UK between now and early Dec.

What a fantastic specialism

 

[Dustydazzler]

Work for me is certainly quieter this month barring a couple kitchens that I have planned to Re-wire I have very little in the diary , maybe 3 or 4 days of work per week for the next 3 weeks and that is about it.
A couple small jobs on the back burner for people but no more than a couple days extra work.

I have turned down some bigger jobs that might come back to bite me in November / December if things don't pick up

 

[Sparky's Auntie]

It slowed for me in the spring and so I started advertising again. Haven't advertised for about 6 years, I got so busy that i was in the habit of turning away new customers. That was my mistake I think, shrinking my network instead of growing it. But I also think the current news has played a part too in a general slowing down with people being uncertain of their future finances.

Agreed. We're all in that position unfortunately

 

[Sparky's Auntie]

Work for me is certainly quieter this month barring a couple kitchens that I have planned to Re-wire I have very little in the diary , maybe 3 or 4 days of work per week for the next 3 weeks and that is about it.
A couple small jobs on the back burner for people but no more than a couple days extra work.

I have turned down some bigger jobs that might come back to bite me in November / December if things don't pick up

That sounds familiar. They're working fairly solidly but nothing like this time last year

 

[Dustydazzler]

I think rising interest rates will pay a big part in the slowing of domestic jobs , my next door neighbour was planning a huge extension which I was going to wire but due to increasing mortgage re payments they have put the entire extension off.

For me this would have been possibly £6000 or £7000 worth of work that is now in never never land

 

[Rockingit]

What a fantastic specialism

Has it's moments, certainly - Switzerland tomorrow. But...... like any job, it's mostly just damn hard work and long hours, you take the breaks when they happen.