John Humphrys has found the most valuable treasure on earth – the perfect builder
Maybe I’m not one of the leading authorities on Thomas Aquinas.
But everyone knows he was one of the most influential philosophers and theologians of his time, some 800 years ago.
You may not know his words are as relevant today as they were then. Especially if you happen to have a home that occasionally needs a bit of work done to it. As in a leaky roof.
It’s true that when Aquinas argued about Aristotle, it was more likely to be about the age of the universe than about how to find a decent builder who won’t charge you so much to make your roof waterproof that you’ll have to sell the house to pay his bill. Payment in cash preferred.
But even if Aquinas never did solve that pesky universe problem, he did know a thing or two about human nature that have stood the test of time. His key observation takes me back to the days when I wrote a column for my
local newspaper. There was a hole in my roof directly
above my bedroom. I managed to find the perfect builder. He arrived when he said he would, quoted a reasonable price and mended the roof. He fixed a few other things for me too. So I wrote about it in a column.
This is where I disregarded the wisest of all Aquinas observations. I named my builder. And, yes, the inevitable happened. The next time I needed him for an emergency, he was too busy. His phone had not stopped ringing since I’d bestowed my praise. I had forgotten the immortal Aquinas caution: ‘No good deed shall go unpunished.’
That was all a very long time ago, but nothing much has changed in the Wild West of house repairs.
I had another hole in the roof just recently. A friend recommended a roofer. He arrived in a small, unmarked van (a giveaway warning sign) and used my ladder to get on the roof and inspect the damage. The following conversation ensued:
Roofer: ‘So where did he tether the horse, then?’
Me: ‘Umm...?’
Roofer: ‘The cowboy who fixed the roof the last time!’
I tried to smile. I tried again when his estimate came: £35,000. Then I tried not to remember that the first house I bought, 60 years ago, when I was 22, was a lovely newly-built semi in a delightful village outside Cardiff with garage and garden. It was £2,500. Yes, I know prices have gone up – but that much?
Anyway, I found another builder who wasn’t a cowboy. He’s Polish and rather stern and he came, inspected the roof and sent me an estimate: £5,000. The roof no longer leaks.
So I got off lightly. Most don’t. The Citizens Advice bureau reckon that last year in England there were more than 30,000 complaints about dodgy builders. Most claim to be roofers and most get away with it. And the law doesn’t care.
If you need a gas or electricity technician, you can check his credentials. Fair enough – a faulty boiler can blow you up. But can’t a dodgy roof fall on your head? And can’t a dodgy builder steal your life savings? Yet anyone can trade as a builder, with or without qualifications.
Unsurprisingly, the construction industry is lobbying for an official licensing scheme to weed out charlatans. According to the Federation of Master Builders, the problem ‘shames’ the building trade.
‘At the core of the problem is a lack of industry standards,’ says Brian Berry, the federation’s chief executive. ‘This leaves consumers without a clear route to challenge cowboy builders for their bad work, and the construction industry reliant on the shaky foundations of unregulated builders.’
So what’s the best thing to do? The federation says personal recommendations are best. Ask a friend or neighbour. If you don’t have any friends, you can get a steer from a WhatsApp or Facebook group.
And do not rejoice if the builder says he can start next week. Instead find another one. Good builders are busy. Always.
I started this piece with a cautionary tale from my youth. I end it with a more recent one.
Soon after I had bought the house I now live in, a nice man knocked on the door to tell me he’d seen some loose slates on the point of falling off and decapitating the neighbours’ cat.
He happened to be a roofer and if I had a long ladder, he would happily fix them. So he did, I gave him a few quid and off he went.
And then (yes, I know) he came back again and said he had his ladders and his van with him and he’d be happy to give the rest of my roof the once-over. I said fine. What happened was entirely predictable, very expensive and too embarrassing to recount.
I now really do have a builder I can trust. Sadly, I’ve run out of space – so I won’t be able to give you his name.
John Humphrys presented the Today programme from 1987 to 2019
