BUSY DAYS ARE NOT A PIPE DREAM
PLUMBER Ashley Ward’s wife is pretty busy at the moment. While he is out doing jobs, she is dealing with demands on his time, and there are a lot of them. “We just don’t have enough hours in the day. I know some others who aren’t taking any customers at all now. My wife handles all the social media, and some days she can be answering 10 different inquiries and I can have upwards of 20 inquiry calls a day,” said Ashley.
Ashley is the owner of Ecotherm plumbing and heating and he’s so busy he’s fully booked until January 2022, and is turning down jobs. He’s not the only one.
When we were all stuck at home, as many of us still are, we had a good look at our surroundings. And lots of us weren’t entirely happy with what we saw.
The resultant boom in demand for home improvements has led to full order books for the industry, with contractors saying they are rushed off their feet trying to keep up with it all.
In August last year, just five months after the national lockdown was introduced due to the coronavirus pandemic, website money.co.uk was reporting how home owners had spent £55bn on renovations in that time, the equivalent of £4,035.70 on each property.
More than a quarter of homeowners said adding value to their property was their main driver, while two thirds said it was to make them more comfortable, especially as they were spending more time there. A quarter of people said they were using general savings to fund the improvements.
At the same time, the UK has for many years had a shortage of skills in the construction sector. As experienced staff have left or retired, fewer people have come into the industry to replace them.
CV Library, a UK job site, has said that in the last quarter of 2020 construction job vacancies increased by 213.4%. However, the construction industry experienced a quarter-on-quarter 53.9% decline in applications per vacancy. This means those who have skills are in high demand.
Colin Evans, from Maesteg, was looking to get his bathroom done this summer and said it took him four weeks to find someone who could do it: “I found one in the end but some of them were asking £2,000 over the normal rate.”
Tradesmen are so busy, some are even having to turn down jobs. Ashley Ward is one of them. He said he never expected to be this busy after lockdown.
“A lot of my customers are spending their holiday money on the house, and bathrooms and en-suites seem to be a big focus. I can be doing a bathroom and an en-suite for the same person straight after each other. And word gets around the neighbours, so before I know it, I’ve booked half the street for bathroom refits.”
Kyle Jones runs Aqua plumbing and heating specialists LTD in Pontypridd and said he was fully booked until November because of the rise in people staying at home to work.
“We have been unbelievably busy due to the amount of people working from home and us accessing properties.”
Mr Jones said people working from home had made their job a lot easier – knowing someone was going to be at the property got the job done faster.
“A lot of our customers haven’t been able to go on holidays, which leaves them with money to spend on upgrading bathrooms and heating systems.”
Due to the demand, Kyle and his team are working much longer hours.
“We are currently working approximately 14 hours a day to keep up with the workload and keep everyone happy. We have engineers and plumbers on call for all out of hours work and emergencies.”
Jules Adams, owner of Happinest in Cardiff, said they were also “very busy at the moment”.
Jules said the pandemic had impacted their architectural design company positively and they had been able to expand to become a national business.
“The need for space has been highlighted by the lockdowns and people want to extend their homes to create additional living and work space,” said Jules.
Jules said their inquiries were up approximately 40% compared to previous years.
With the demand for building work being so high, some companies are booked up months in advance.
Alex Bourge, owner of B Squared Construction, said they were booked until May 2022, and still booking on average three quotes a week.
“We have had a massive surge in business, before the pandemic we would have booked up approximately three months in advance, now we are booked up nearly a year ahead.”