Website by mikee, personal website

Basingstoke HANDYMAN

Costly Savings

The very fact you’ve clicked on this page indicates you like to make a saving, buy on price, search the Internet to make important purchases or don’t buy essential parts. Let me explain.


IKEA WALL CABINETS

This range can be purchased with a wall rail to hang the cabinets on. My customers don’t buy the rail. For some weird reason, IKEA has decided to supply a  fixing that has NO ADJUSTMENT. If your fitter cannot get a precision mount for the bracket, the cupboard is out of alignment. This you either accept OR, his time is wasted trying to get the cabinet level. Personally, I wouldn’t buy this range for THIS SINGLE reason.


B&Q plumbing  

Customers love to show me their designer sinks, basins, taps and the like. I think for the most part they are made in Europe and for that reason, that do not connect to our waste pipes. This often necessitates a trip to the plumbers merchant to find an adapter, a new sink waste and more. All costing time and money.


Victoria Plumbing (aka, Internet sellers)

The frequency with which I fit these products is indicative of the products people buy to SAVE MONEY. Let’s face it, you only buy online to save money, and have the convenience of buying on the couch. The taps may look great, they may last a reasonable time, but generally, I fit them and the poor water flow is the main shortfall. It’s something customers seem to accept. “Oh, it never was very fast before”. Funny how I get picked up for  a slightly misaligned fitting but never leaving the house with a poor performing tap, basin, cabinet and so on. (Maybe it’s because the customer made the choice?)


These comments are based upon my experience at the time of writing this feature. It may well be the case that all these issues have been one off’s, been resolved by the manufacturer or that it is my skill level that is lacking.

CONSIDER THIS


Value

“It’s unwise to pay too much, but it’s unwise to pay to little. When you pay too much you lose a little money that’s all.

When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing you bought it to do.


The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot. It can’t be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it’s well to add something for the risk you run.


And if you do that, you will have enough to pay for something better.”


Price


“There is hardly anything in the World today that some man can’t make just a little worse and just a little cheaper, and the people who buy on price alone are the man’s lawful prey”


Quality


There is another comment made by D Stanhope that is appropriate;


“The bitter taste of poor quality remains long after the sweet taste of low price is forgotten”