General builder needed

Raczgregory wrote:

Hello does anyone know a general builder near to Baja in the south of Hungary who does good quality work for a fair price and not an exaggerated price as I am English ?
My friends in the village where my houses are tell me that as soon as they know you are English then the guys raise the prices up to 5 x normal
I have quite a lot of work for somebody who will go it for a fair price

Don't know a builder there but yes, I think we're talking about between 3 x and 5 x the price for opening your mouth.  There is a table of official costs - not sure where it is but it's related to the construction database run by the tax office.   It's like renovation costs/m2 statistics etc.

There's a shortage of builders at the moment despite COVID19. I see plenty of work going on all the time - even new houses just starting. I am due to have my own work start this week but they are all unreliable over keeping in contact. 

You really have to get involved and read up on the stuff.  You cannot leave them to it.  You have to watch them very carefully.

I had one guy tell me for one part of my external drainage/sewer that the cost of a component was 1M HUF.  I just pulled up a modern catalogue of drainage parts and there it was for a less than 100K HUF.   Sometimes it's not malicious, they just don't know everything.  I am still arguing with them over the number of rodding points on a long run of underground fixings.   

There's a terrible habit of thinking they should save you money. I've had builders doing what they think is the right idea despite the plans saying one thing and you telling them to do it properly.  One of my colleagues told me he had to fight with his builder over a wall.  They just could not accept what the architect/building engineer had drawn and it was rebuilt several times.   

We also had it the other way, the architect/building engineer must have left his glasses elsewhere when he drew the plans. One of our garden level doors was halfway up a wall.   Corrected eventually by the builder who redrew the plans.   

Oh and they don't know how to make walls square or at 90 degrees. I can see that from my tiles.

I could go on but I'd be here all day.

Raczgregory wrote:

does good quality work for a fair price

What do you consider a fair price for quality work? For a plumber? An electrician? A mason? A framer? A roofer? A plasterer?

When I started to live in Hungary 5 years ago is that the typical remuneration for eg a gardener would be 4 to 5 euro's per hour, soon it became clear that indeed if you are a foreigner (in my case Dutch) this is not at all the case. Over the years it has become my experience that the best approach is to have one "carer" who you pay excessively well, EUR 15 per hour, but he will arrange for very good specialists in order to keep his own jobs (also for the specialists you pay more then EUR 5 but nowadays I feel that EUR 8 is very reasonable).
The intermediary has so far arranged for electricians, plumbers and carpenters. I am very happy with this arrangement.
Giving additional tips to the additional workmen also helps, even if normal payments go through the intermediary.
Bottom line of course I pay too much, but I think only 2x the normal price.

Challenge is to find somebody but when engaging with eg neighbors (I try to limit that though to avoid possible conflicts) it is possible to limit the impact. (I suspect that even some of the neighbors will get their commission, but I can live with that, they are happy and so am I).

cdw057 wrote:

When I started to live in Hungary 5 years ago is that the typical remuneration for eg a gardener would be 4 to 5 euro's per hour, soon it became clear that indeed if you are a foreigner (in my case Dutch) this is not at all the case. Over the years it has become my experience that the best approach is to have one "carer" who you pay excessively well, EUR 15 per hour, but he will arrange for very good specialists in order to keep his own jobs (also for the specialists you pay more then EUR 5 but nowadays I feel that EUR 8 is very reasonable).
The intermediary has so far arranged for electricians, plumbers and carpenters. I am very happy with this arrangement.
Giving additional tips to the additional workmen also helps, even if normal payments go through the intermediary.
Bottom line of course I pay too much, but I think only 2x the normal price.

Challenge is to find somebody but when engaging with eg neighbors (I try to limit that though to avoid possible conflicts) it is possible to limit the impact. (I suspect that even some of the neighbors will get their commission, but I can live with that, they are happy and so am I).

I will take one example: An electrician in Hungary earns on the low end an average of 480,000 HUF a month. One source:

http://www.salaryexplorer.com/salary-su … ;jobtype=3

If you are paying 8  Euro (3,000 HUF) an hour, you are paying the average at the lowest end of the scale, and so actuall still not 2x normal. I mention this because I find it surprising how many Expats still assume that high quality professionals in Hungary are  "cheap". They once were... but the world has moved on. They really are not that cheap anymore. So, you are simply paying a lowest bid normal rate. But even so.... Monetarily speaking only, you are doing pretty well.

But that also could mean a few things.... and especially since another person found them for you:

- Are you sure they are electricians? Did you see their business license?
- You maybe don't have the best electricians. Long term quality of work may not be great.
- This may be weekend, after hour extra work... and maybe even black work. Does your "contractor" give you bills on his sub contractors? He is suppose to if he runs a business (and he must run a business if he subcontracts), else it may be black work. Or is he simply "suggesting" them and you pay them, in which case you should get receipts to yourself directly?

Just things to consider.

Side note: Being happy with work today... is not the same as being happy in a few years when things start to go wrong due to incorrect work. It often takes more than 5 years to start to experience when things start to go wrong....And you better have those receipts to prove who did the work, to get compensation, else you will pay again a lot later. Just saying. Hope this helps.