This is actually for Canada, is that correct?

Yes - although I think it would be a good idea for the US too.

We don't have any out-of-work tradespeople here. It's still a 6 month wait for anyone decent.

That depends on where you are. I spoke to my sister last night, who's a union commercial tile contractor down in southern Connecticut, and she told me that right now, there are almost 100 union tile mechanics out of work. The norm is between 5 and 10. She said that non-union companies are taking alot of the work, but that even amongst the non-union shops, it's pretty much dog eat dog right now. If you're in Connecticut and you need some tilework done, this is pretty much the time to do it.

Apparently things are much worse in the US right now, which is unfortunate. It would be great if we could settle into a nice steady pace rather than this breaknecek expansion we've been going through.

Things have been far too busy here for about 10 years. There have been major shortages of tradespeople. I was hoping that with the recession things might slow down a bit, and some of the less honourable companies might end up closing but it looks like there is not much likelihood of that occurring.

One of the public polling organisations recently published a survey that they did. They found that very few people are planning on buying or selling their houses in the next coupe of years but 63% are planning on spending at least 12K on renovating.

Our automobile industry is in very bad shape and our manufacturing and forestry sectors are not doing well, but the banks, the resource companies and a lot of retailers are still humming along nicely.

Perhaps some of your people that need work could come up here for a while ...

If Canada didn't have such rigid requirements for immigration, you'd probably already be inundated with tradespeople!

I live in one of the boomtowns and recently finished a big kitchen reno. Generally I was pleased with my contractor - he got the job DONE, employed competent subs (Ok, we'll try to forget about the electrician...), and his prices were reasonable considering the "surprises" that were uncovered as the job progressed. I consider myself lucky to have found him, as the only contractors I interviewed who came with recommendations were wayyyyyyy too expensive, and the only other ones who bid on the job were "cowboys", hopelessly out of their depths. I talked to my guy last week and he said the work has pretty much dried up, although winter is predictably slow.

The sub-tradesmen I talked to will be glad that things are slowing down. The good ones were older guys who had lived through several business cycles, had paid off their own homes (much grander than mine!) and now worked only as much as they wanted. They had seen too many transients move in during the boom, with no experience or work ethics. Anyone with a hammer could call himself a carpenter and get hired because contractors were desperate. Hopefully, for the interests of paying customers, these will be the first ones to hit the streets.

Gotta see if those tax credits are retroactive!

Canada too cold! It's freezing rain in dallas right now : 28 out and I went mountain biking Sunday and it was 80 on Friday:
Gotta love Texas! The schools didn't open today: I laughed for ten minutes: WHY? it's not snow! People:

Going home: all have a great night.

Work is slow here! and People are cutting back BIG TIME and I keep getting tile setters in here looking for work and vendors calling me asking if I need anything!

It has to get better!

I live in northern California and every one is hurting - big time. When I dropped by our flooring store to have them give me an estimate, his appointment book was empty!

He came right away and measured but I haven't heard back from him with an estimate and it has been 2 weeks today. It's a marmoleum job with a feature strip. He said he had a old timer who would be perfect for the job. My husband said maybe his old timer's time ran out.

I just called another company for an estimate. We'll see if he is a bit hungrier.

Hey Petra-- atleast down there, it rains, it freezes, and it's gone the next day. Right now we're in the middle of a storm that by the time all is said and done, we should get almost 2 FEET of snow.

Two things to notice about the picture below-- the date, and the tracks in the snow. I had to have a guy with a payloader come in yesterday and move snow that was ALREADY piled about 5' high from around my driveway, so I'd have somewhere to PUT the snow from THIS storm!

Bill, if we could lure you out West, I'll bet you could make a good living just off GWebbers' recommendations!

Here's what it looked like during our recent 'cold spell' Jan 8th:
{{!gwi}}

jkom51--that's just cruel (said I, enjoying a snow day in southern NY state)! :-)

Bill, I have a bathroom waiting for you in Maryland!!!! Otherwise, I'd DIY as I can't deal with contractors... but you are an exception. :) Actually, I'd like a bathroom in the basement, so make that two, and possibly a backsplash and we could probably find a few other things for you to do too. I showed my husband your website months ago and he'd be in full agreement!

jkom51-- To tell you the truth, If I were interested, I could very easily put together a crew of about 10 people (5 teams) and keep them busy full time with all the work I've been offered all over the country, just from this forum. Some of it has been truly tempting, too, starting with igloochik's home in Alaska, as well as the one she's starting work on in the PNW. Even pcjs's post is tempting! There are several problems, there, though. First, alot of my credibility in the forums comes from the fact that I'm not asking for anything in return for the information I give out here. There are no ulterior motives. I'm here because I want to help people. Secondly, I would most likely run into problems from iVillage, being that then I'd be here for profit. Lastly, and this one would be important to all of you, and that's the fact that in addition to the normal costs of doing the work, there would also be travel expenses, as well as lodging and per diem costs, making it really kind of impractical for me to go around doing the work. Unfortunately. I say unfortunately because right now, the housing market has made work just as scarce here as it is in many other parts of the country, and I'm doing commercial work now, just to stay busy. It IS custom work to be sure (period specific work for the Maine Historical Society in Portland), but none the less commercial work, and I'm not very happy about it. But you do what you have to do. :-)

Bill, humm... you do realize paying travel expenses is probably worth it for you :) And, one reason why we appreciate you and would hire you in a heart beat if you lived closer is because you truely do love to help people, clearly know your stuff and do a great job.... and we are really tired DIY'ers who just don't want to learn to tile when there is no way we could ever match what you do nor is it worth our energy/time trying if we could find someone like you, especially given we have one bathroom so it needs to get done quick . If you ever run out of work and want to travel, there are a bunch of us around... and unfortantly, at the rate we are going, our bathroom will be waiting for you! :) (and for the record, you weren't seeking business nor here for a profit, it was all my comments! and, for the record, it is something a bunch of us have joked about - to import you as a group to MD/DC/VA for a few weeks for all of our projects as we respect/appreciate you that much!) So, should you be in our area, and should you be available for a few days, we'd be very upset if you didn't let us know!