Australian (ASX) Stock Market Forum

I'm finding its pretty cut throat out there in regards to prices. I know from personal experience that prices can be high on the downturn due to lack of work and excess bills.
Tradies don't get a weekly wage. Some months you are flat ass broke and the bills keep rolling in.
But there are guys out there (sole traders) working for $150 a day. Stuff that.

Glad I transitioned out of the building game. To many friken headaches, to much risk and to much hard work.

Yes, a few of my mates have done the contract game, most end up bailing out to a salary job with the perks.
 
Some guys just don't want the job and jack up the price.

Any electrical, or plumbing just be careful as insurance won't pay if something happens and they can prove it was unlicensed. And insurance companies don't want to pay out anything right now.

I still have a current A grade electrical license, but I still pay for an electrical contractor, to do electrical work in the house.
Firstly any changes have to have an electrical safety certificate, registered with the electrical authority, if I want to do it myself I have to apply for a temporary electrical contracting license.
 
Some guys just don't want the job and jack up the price.

Any electrical, or plumbing just be careful as insurance won't pay if something happens and they can prove it was unlicensed. And insurance companies don't want to pay out anything right now.

I do love youtube though.
All the building standards can be found over at

sai-global if you need to make it A/S. The booklets cost a lot though. Just remember they show the minimum standard.

Yea, I don't muck around with the electrical mains. Splitting one light bulb or powerpoint into a few is pretty easy though.

Plumbing I might actually do a better job than most plumbers. But that's because I know a few tradies, looked it up and actually learn the various parts - that's how you pass yourself as a pro and get yourself a tradies account :D

For example, pretty much all tradies connect the bathroom's vanity, bath and shower to one floor waste through a riser. It saves them money on the parts. It works fine but over time the gunk built up will stink up the place. So best to put a P trap under the shower, the bath separately. Direct it to the mains. Less odour. That and a couple of air vents, plenty of clean out just in case.

Used to have access to Sai Global from my brother's work. Great stuff. Used it to engineer my house frame and load bearing walls. Will need it again soon to help with the spans and support with oregon joists.

------

Yea, construction and trades is a tough job. If it's done proper it's very hard to make money. I mean you could earn a living by your labour, but to get profit on top as a capitalist after paying your own labour, that's pretty much impossible if it's done up to scratch.

Hired a few tradies earlier in the year and because I know how hard the work is, I offer them drinks and sometime free lunch. A couple of them reckon the only reason I did that was because they charge too cheap so they demanded more pay and give me a hard time about it.

Came very close to a couple of punch ups. Lots of young cowboys out there.
 
Hired a few tradies earlier in the year and because I know how hard the work is, I offer them drinks and sometime free lunch. A couple of them reckon the only reason I did that was because they charge too cheap so they demanded more pay and give me a hard time about it.

Came very close to a couple of punch ups. Lots of young cowboys out there.


Serious? sounds like a bunch of F#$k wits. I appreciate a glass of cold water on a hot day. even like a cup of coffee if offered. My Tip is to ask friends or neighbours who have had work done, who they used and if they were happy , get the ph nos. picking numbers out of ph book or gumtree etc is a lottery.
since department of fair trading raised lic requirements from $1000 to $5000 jobs there has been a steady increase of "cowboys" into the game. I have had to repair plenty of other "plasterers ' work . Some of it looks like a 5 year old was let loose with a trowel and a bucket of mud! and they charged as much as me by the hour!!!
 
I still have a current A grade electrical license, but I still pay for an electrical contractor, to do electrical work in the house.
Firstly any changes have to have an electrical safety certificate, registered with the electrical authority, if I want to do it myself I have to apply for a temporary electrical contracting license.

Hey SP wired up the shed the other month(only took 24 years) all you have to do is apply to the board they give it a tick and then just do a safety cert (online) and you're good check the Safety Energy web site I was surprised how easy it was it did take 6 weeks to get approved.
 
.

Hired a few tradies earlier in the year and because I know how hard the work is, I offer them drinks and sometime free lunch. A couple of them reckon the only reason I did that was because they charge too cheap so they demanded more pay and give me a hard time about it.

Came very close to a couple of punch ups. Lots of young cowboys out there.
There were/are a lot of dodgy old generation of tradies and there's a lot of clueless younger generation ones.
I've seen some shocking work out there that people paid top dollar for. I think they were doing away with licenses for tradies in nsw. That won't help.

Agree with the "do it yourself". If you plan a bit, you can end up with a better product. Some guys don't though.
 
Hey SP wired up the shed the other month(only took 24 years) all you have to do is apply to the board they give it a tick and then just do a safety cert (online) and you're good check the Safety Energy web site I was surprised how easy it was it did take 6 weeks to get approved.
Do you have a license, or just wired it and had it checked?
 
Hey SP wired up the shed the other month(only took 24 years) all you have to do is apply to the board they give it a tick and then just do a safety cert (online) and you're good check the Safety Energy web site I was surprised how easy it was it did take 6 weeks to get approved.
Thanks for the info, I was led to believe, it was quite difficult. Good to know it isn't. Cheers
 
Do you have a license, or just wired it and had it checked?

I have an electrical licence in WA you are allowed to do the work for yourself or direct family for no profit outside of that you require an electrical contractors ticket.
I asked a few electrical contractors if they would put a ticket for me if I did the wiring (which is legal) but none were interested so sussed out the new process to apply which was surprisingly easy.
 
Hired a few tradies earlier in the year and because I know how hard the work is, I offer them drinks and sometime free lunch. A couple of them reckon the only reason I did that was because they charge too cheap so they demanded more pay and give me a hard time about it.

Came very close to a couple of punch ups. Lots of young cowboys out there.


Serious? sounds like a bunch of F#$k wits. I appreciate a glass of cold water on a hot day. even like a cup of coffee if offered. My Tip is to ask friends or neighbours who have had work done, who they used and if they were happy , get the ph nos. picking numbers out of ph book or gumtree etc is a lottery.
since department of fair trading raised lic requirements from $1000 to $5000 jobs there has been a steady increase of "cowboys" into the game. I have had to repair plenty of other "plasterers ' work . Some of it looks like a 5 year old was let loose with a trowel and a bucket of mud! and they charged as much as me by the hour!!!

Yea, true story.

Lucky we decided to stop him before the final estimated 3 days he said it'll take to finish the slabs.

Turns out he was just a concretor and have no idea how to set up or reinforce steelworks for the foundation. In hindsight I should have stopped the work on day one, not let it go on for another four days.
 
Yea, true story.

Lucky we decided to stop him before the final estimated 3 days he said it'll take to finish the slabs.

Turns out he was just a concretor and have no idea how to set up or reinforce steelworks for the foundation. In hindsight I should have stopped the work on day one, not let it go on for another four days.
I've had problems with Tradie's, about 10 years ago I wanted to do up the bathroom, pull out the bath make it into a shower you know all that stuff.
Anyway, I said to the tiler, I wanted to have a rubber membrane painted throughout the shower recess, he went balistic said it wasn't needed grout had worked for 3,000 years.
I ended up doing it myself, then he came back the next day and tiled, now it is mandatory.FFS
 
Agree with the "do it yourself". If you plan a bit, you can end up with a better product. Some guys don't though.
My work background on the tools has always been one where the finished product is required to be perfect with the potential for seriously bad stuff to happen if an error is let through.

Downside = I’d probably go broke if I tried doing household stuff on a daily basis and had to compete on price with those taking shortcuts.

Most stuff at home I’ll do myself, including electrical since yes I’m licensed, but there are certainly situations where I’ll call in an expert. Recently paid someone to assist and check my work on a system that’s oil-fired since there’s obviously potential for bad outcomes if it goes wrong. Turned out I was on the right track, just needed to unstick the metering valve. All good now. Well, all good apart from the price of oil but that’s another story.
 
I've had problems with Tradie's, about 10 years ago I wanted to do up the bathroom, pull out the bath make it into a shower you know all that stuff.
Anyway, I said to the tiler, I wanted to have a rubber membrane painted throughout the shower recess, he went balistic said it wasn't needed grout had worked for 3,000 years.
I ended up doing it myself, then he came back the next day and tiled, now it is mandatory.FFS

Yea, not all old school stuff are good. Technology and stuff do progress.

They demand the entire wet area floors be waterproofed now. Up to 300mm up the wall all round. 1.8m etc. aroun shower area.

Makes a lot of sense when you have experience doesn't it.

But my dad is something else though. His bathrooms you could turn into a pool no problem. I (was forced to) coat it about 5 or 6 times.

The edges he wanted that aluminium coated with I think bitumin. So we angled it up behind the fibre cement board [none of that cheap, does the job blue plasterboard stuff].

Then silicone all the joints. Tops up with two coats of waterproofing.

Then just to be safe, he wanted fibre-glass all round in front of the edges, top up with a couple more coats.

Should see the two massive columns at the front. They're about 600x1000 almost two storey up. Solid brick shaped it then concrete poured in with spare reo all caged when the balcony was poured.

The guy who will demo his house about 1200 years from now will not be making any money.
 
One reason tradies don’t make huge profits is they keep losing tools.

In addition to the leaves and junk found in the roof of my new place I’ve also found a knife and tonight I spotted a torch sitting in a spot from which retrieving it would best be done from on the roof not in it.

Now, I wonder if there’s any gold bars hidden anywhere by chance?
 
One reason tradies don’t make huge profits is they keep losing tools.

In addition to the leaves and junk found in the roof of my new place I’ve also found a knife and tonight I spotted a torch sitting in a spot from which retrieving it would best be done from on the roof not in it.

Now, I wonder if there’s any gold bars hidden anywhere by chance?

I was hoping for gold too when I dig up the back. All I found was mud and buried asbestos.

Just saw a news clip from ABC about the rising incidents of Siliosis [?]. From workers dry cutting man-made Caesar stones, breathing in silica dust.
 
This is drifting into a D.I.Y thread IMO.
So to get it back on track, Iuutzu tell all those poor young people you were worried couldn't get into a property market, to get their deposit ready.lol
That once in a lifetime crisis, that seems to happen every 10 years, is imminent.:xyxthumbs
With the stock market correction, lining up with silly Billy getting elected, the property prices should really tank.

https://www.smh.com.au/business/the...980s-says-morgan-stanley-20181011-p5091w.html

IMO it won't bode well for the baby boomers, but hey no one likes them anyway, also they are retiring so they don't pay tax. What's the down side?:roflmao:
 
This is drifting into a D.I.Y thread IMO.
So to get it back on track, Iuutzu tell all those poor young people you were worried couldn't get into a property market, to get their deposit ready.lol
That once in a lifetime crisis, that seems to happen every 10 years, is imminent.:xyxthumbs
With the stock market correction, lining up with silly Billy getting elected, the property prices should really tank.

https://www.smh.com.au/business/the...980s-says-morgan-stanley-20181011-p5091w.html

IMO it won't bode well for the baby boomers, but hey no one likes them anyway, also they are retiring so they don't pay tax. What's the down side?:roflmao:

Oh, the DIY was just in preparation for the bargain hunting.

Nobody listens to me Homer. I need a Lexus and a job at the office to have any weight.

I honestly don't think the coming "correction" will be 10% or 15% some big investment bank is saying. It'll be a lot worst.
 
This is drifting into a D.I.Y thread IMO.
So to get it back on track, Iuutzu tell all those poor young people you were worried couldn't get into a property market, to get their deposit ready.lol
That once in a lifetime crisis, that seems to happen every 10 years, is imminent.:xyxthumbs
With the stock market correction, lining up with silly Billy getting elected, the property prices should really tank.

https://www.smh.com.au/business/the...980s-says-morgan-stanley-20181011-p5091w.html

IMO it won't bode well for the baby boomers, but hey no one likes them anyway, also they are retiring so they don't pay tax. What's the down side?:roflmao:

Most people like baby boomers. They're the flower power people, hippies, do-gooders right? Most of them anyway.

It's their kids that kinda rebel against all that love and set about screwing the world, again.
 
I honestly don't think the coming "correction" will be 10% or 15% some big investment bank is saying. It'll be a lot worst.
If Labor get in and make the proposed changes, the correction will be more like 30% from the peak, in some areas of Sydney IMO
Similar to what has happened in Perth.
 
Top