Owning your own home

So... the last few days I had a couple of small jobs I needed doing and I couldn't remember what website was good for getting fast quotes and trades out for things... so I did a comparison.

The jobs:
1) Roofer or handyman (with ladder): Replace an old iron downpipe with a modern PVC one, replace the hopper too... my estimate £150-250.
2) Plumber: Disconnect a freestanding bath from all plumbing, wait 1 day (for painting behind the bath to occur), reconnect the bath whilst replacing the waste trap and extending the existing waste pipe to ensure a better fit, ensure no leaks... my estimate £75-200 (depending mostly on how far they need to come and how much they penalise coming out twice for small things).

The websites:

• Bark: https://www.bark.com/en/gb/
  
• MyBuilder: https://www.mybuilder.com/
  
• Rated People: https://www.ratedpeople.com/
  
  

I listed both jobs with same description and photos on all three sites.

Responses:

• Bark = 3 plumbers, 2 roofers, all contacted my within 1-2 hours of the listing. I chose the roofer from these responses and he charged £200 and was on-site next morning and job complete within a couple of hours. His normal rate was £150 for this, but I was asking him to travel outside of his normal working area at short notice so I offered more. Bark was excellent, all of those who got in touch are paying Bark to contact me... so they actively sought the job. I have a feeling that this model means Bark is far better for medium and larger jobs rather than small ones like the ones I had and that they read the job description before contacting you. I'm not sure they're shown your location, I suspect the matchmaking is done on them entering "I'm willing to work in these areas - enters all of London and surrounds" and my post code just being within that... might be true for large jobs of a week or more, probably not true of jobs that take an hour.
  
• MyBuilder = 3 plumbers, no roofers/handymen. 2 of the plumbers were a waste of time, one quoted £30 but asked if he could do it on the 27th (2 weeks into the future, and reconnect the week later)... I chose to approach this differently and googled local plumbers on Google Maps, then found them in MyBuilder, then invited the closest to quote me. This led to a chap named Georges, who quoted £100 all-in including the minor parts, and lives local so didn't mind the nature of a small job split over days. MyBuilder seems better for small and medium jobs but there seems to be a few dodgy trades on there who are trying to win business on responding fastest rather than actually understanding the job, they look like hustlers and that's not a great look. Would warily use MyBuilder again, but only for very basic small stuff that doesn't suit Bark.
  
• RatedPeople = 1 roofer, no responses for plumbing. The roofer was a joke too, I'm way outside his working area and that fact was in the listing. Wouldn't use at all.
  
  

Of all of them then... Bark were superb and the trades all seemed of a good standard, and within a day I had a number of quotes. None needed to visit to quote, which for the nature of the jobs I had is correct... photos and detailed descriptions were all that were needed. The trades mostly contact you by phone, so after listing the job don't go into work meetings because you will get called. Would work great for larger jobs that take multiple days or weeks. For jobs that take a few hours, I was lucky... but some might not wish to travel far for that.

MyBuilder... good for small common jobs, but be wary. Definitely do not hire the first people to respond as you have 5 people you can invite and these jokers block your list. There are good people on there, they're most likely working and will ping you in the evening.