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Tradespeople on Their Phones: What’s Acceptable When They’re Working in Your Home?

 
Well & Truly Off The Grid
Last Post by Mars 39 minutes ago
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Mars
 Mars
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Joined: 6 years ago
Posts: 4952
Topic starter 26/10/2026 10:34 pm   [#3208]

I’m interested in where other homeowners draw the line when it comes to tradespeople spending time on their mobile phones while working in your home. I completely appreciate that they’re running businesses, dealing with suppliers, helping colleagues with problems on other jobs, answering enquiries from prospective customers and occasionally handling personal matters, but at what point do those perfectly reasonable interruptions become an unreasonable use of the time you’re paying for? And does the nature of the call make any difference? Is helping another customer with a technical problem more acceptable than arranging the next job, and should any of that time really be chargeable when someone is working on an hourly or daily rate?

I’m also curious about how people actually deal with this in practice, particularly when phone calls become frequent or lengthy enough to significantly affect progress. Do you politely raise it (knowing it’ll probably irk them), accept it as part of employing a tradesperson or simply put up with it because you don’t want to create an awkward atmosphere in your own home? Perhaps it’s less of an issue with fixed-price work, although even then, a project running into another day creates inconvenience and disruption.

Personally, I don’t think homeowners should have to monitor another adult’s working day, but equally, there must be a reasonable expectation that the person you’ve employed is giving your project the attention it deserves. What’s your experience, where do you draw the line and have you ever challenged a tradesperson about excessive phone use? I’m particularly interested in whether others think this has become more commonplace and whether it’s changing how you approach hiring people for work around your home. 


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