Construction costs are currently skyrocketing

At the moment, I can only advise avoiding craftsmen and doing as much as possible yourself. Better quality and no rip-offs. But with the roof, I would also be helpless because of my fear of heights – roofers get a "can-fall-down" surcharge.

I don't know what you consider normal, but 50€ travel costs for less than 10km distance (they probably only came from the neighborhood, so it was less than 2km) is ambitious.

It's also okay if everyone else considers it fair. I see it as usury. Bold and unjustified. The market is broken, at least they were able to repair it properly. I find it worse when I have to explain to the professional how to do it. The last 2 electricians. That's just not acceptable.

You still haven't said why you are paying an incorrect invoice?

I can only advise to avoid craftsmen at the moment and do as much as possible yourself. Better quality and no rip-off.

Is that supposed to be the word for Sunday? Someone is really sticking their neck out.

To also, in order to save the honor of the craftsmen, bring up the counterexample: We asked craftsmen from around here to repair two defective external blinds.

"Ok, we need to see when that works. But I'll take a look at it, then we'll know what we need."
"Yeah, no problem, you can just squeeze us in when there's downtime" (200m as the crow flies, me working from home)

Sometime 2 or 3 weeks later the phone rings, "Craftsmen will be there in 5 minutes," "Yep, all right!"

The two colleagues have everything they need with them. They work 36 minutes, write down 30 minutes each, invoice for 1 hour + material is dropped in the mailbox.

Our heating specialist also called us on Sunday after a repair on Friday evening, asking if everything was okay because it was so cold outside and otherwise he would stop by again briefly.

What I want to get at: Yes, a lot of things are really rip-offs at the moment. But if you have a good craftsman on hand, always commission him again in the future, even if he is maybe 10 or 20% more expensive than Cheap Carl from 60km away. One hand washes the other and as a regular customer, you speak very differently with the colleagues.

You still haven't said why you are paying a wrong bill?

Hello. Irrelevant, but since you are so interested. I wanted to place 2 more major orders, including the renovation of 2 dormers. The company is local, enjoys a good reputation and is just around the corner... but apparently greed hasn’t passed them by either. Dispute amount vs. nerves you should feel lucky. My experiences with craftsmen in recent years have been rather poor. Especially with locally based ones... it would be nice to meet someone again who understands their craft.

you can consider yourself lucky. My experiences with craftsmen over the past years have been rather poor. Especially with those based locally… it would be nice to meet someone again who really knows their craft.

We were really lucky with ours in Lower Saxony as well. During and after the construction, we actually had no trouble, not even with the people we hired ourselves. Everything was affordable too. I could imagine that the phenomenon of exorbitant craftsmen is increasing in metropolitan areas?