Chimney & Fireplace

Is it normal for builder not to be sure if scaffolding is required when working on a roof?

Anonymous user 28/02/2024 - 2.53 PM

We were scheduled to have a chimney removed and chimney breasts taken away in two rooms to give us some more space. The job was booked back in May and work should have commenced this morning. On the quote the builder left a question mark next to scaffolding and last week when I questioned this he said he wasn't really sure what was needed as he couldn't remember how high the roof was and asked me to take a photo and send to him. Alarm bells maybe should have started to ring right then but I trusetd him. On Thursday when we eventually got hold of him and he confirmed that scaffolding was needed he told my partner that he had left that side of things to me!! Having no idea about scaffolding or roofing I find this bizarre and when my partner asked if surely he used his own scaffolding company he said that he did but they were unavailable for at least two weeks. I then found a local company who were in a position to come and put up the scaffolding on Friday or Saturday so that work could commence but I did ask if our builder could revisit his costs as we were now going to pay out considerably more than we originally anticipated as we had no idea about the cost of scaffolding or that a competent builder could leave it off a quote. We arranged for the scaffolding company to come in on Friday and we let our builder know this but on Friday morning he said that he'd decided to take another job as he wasn't willing to drop his price. The issue was never about cost but we are now seriously questioning why a builder would not factor in scaffolding on a roofing/chimney job?