ᐅ Always call multiple contractors?

Thank you for your tips.

That was really lucky. I sent an email with pictures to a carpenter 20 minutes ago. He just called and said he had just checked his email inbox. He will come by tomorrow to take a look. It’s a well-known company here in the region, and has been around for ages.

Due to very small orders, no tradesperson is currently coming out unless they have made a mistake...

Normally, no one comes for something like this, and you won’t receive an offer either. In this case, you were lucky.

It depends on the tradesperson. I would also trust my father-in-law to quickly stop by. He is from the old school. :-)

He is technically retired, but he has finally reduced his working days from 6 per week to 3-5 because he simply doesn’t want to stop yet.

I live on the outskirts of Stuttgart’s commuter belt. Around here, the threshold is roughly 3000.-, from which point it’s possible to get multiple quotes that craftsmen are willing to tolerate. Since I am transparent, I communicate when I need more than one quote. Some craftsmen drop out right away. Otherwise, it is also important to me that the house is serviced by regular, trusted tradespeople, whom I then don’t bother with minor issues.

If I want to make the work easier for everyone involved, I prepare a blank document, a kind of mini-tender, where they only have to fill in their prices. This can often be created from the anonymized first offer. This way, the tradesperson has less effort, and I get comparable quotes. For larger jobs, it is often hard to compare otherwise. For smaller jobs, the tradesperson would immediately refuse if I don’t want to pay the quoted price without argument.

Best regards
Gabriele

Or post the job on MyHammer. Something like changing a door hinge is easy to describe. This way, you can get a good idea of the prices.