RENOVATION in Budapest is full of surprises.

helenward wrote:

danteengineering.com

I agree with everything you wrote. Including getting a structural engineer to review your house to be renovated. 

But not sure an engineer firm in Denver Colorado is much help in Hungary.

BG101 wrote:

electrics renovated

fluffy2560 is the "go to man" for any electrical topic here at this forum. I do not think he has replied to this thread yet, so if he does not find your question here, suggest you might consider top posting your question as a new forum topic, or to private message him.

Erzs wrote:

MOHCTEP,

Did you ever find a contractor/painter? I am also from NY and we just bought an apartment in Budapest. We will be doing cosmetic changes this year as well (saving a bigger renovation for a year or two). I am very interested if you found a reliable painter.

Thank you,
Erzsebet

If you are in NY and available to talk by phone, that would be great.

I know a contractor who does good painting work with good price. I can give his contact if you need. We hire him for our office and then our new flat and he and his team did a good job for us.

lesd wrote:

I ended up doing one of the rooms myself but this time I don't want to be up and down the ladder a thousand times like I was last winter.

A skilled laborer gets the "big money" because they have developed skills. Such as using an 'A' shaped ladder, straddle the apex and walk around the room using the ladder as stilts, thus avoiding multiple trips up and down the ladder.

Until one gains similar skills, it takes longer to do it yourself, and one must self consider if your time is better spent earning money to pay someone else or not**. Of course one can try to stilt walk a ladder, and maybe fall and break your neck. Just some of the issues one finds with do.it-yourself.

** Unless you simply like to scratch the creative urge like me.

lesd wrote:

I'm trying to think why the situation is like it is. In America it's cheap to get jobs done by placing an ad in Craigslist for gigs wanted. I placed an ad for some yard cleanup and next day got at least 20 responses with about a third of them being very reasonable. Nothing like that in Hungary. Why is it so hard in this country, where the wages of $1,000 a month or for an engineer but for home renovation it seems they want triple that.

Neither my general contractor nor any of his workers carry a smart phone. And if I need to get some renovation done that is beyond my skill level or time limits, we call. Email is not really an option. So one can not assume laborers (especially the less expensive ones) will check for on-line job offers or post them. Not only that, but once someone advertises or inquires on-line about work they may come under the radar of the tax authority. And then if they do not charge you 45% more to pay their social and income tax, and then on top of that 27% VAT both you and them might end up being fined heavily. Of course, not advocating avoiding paying taxes, and one should pay those taxes and get a receipt. Rather pointing out many Hungarians do it cheaper amongst themselves than a foreigner may be able to do, as they spend a great deal of effort to stay under the radar.

Another issue is that a lot of manual labor jobs in Hungary are gained via interpersonal networks. If you want cheaper contractors, you do not use the Internet. You have to "know a guy". That is, you hire your neighbor's, cousin's husband who is a plasterer to do the work. You do not advertise or hire the big companies that advertise as you are then paying for their advertising costs.

One must also expect anything in Budapest will cost more. Consider finding a non-Budapest contractor for larger jobs (it has to be a larger job to make it worth while for them to bother coming into Budapest) and they may cost less. Again, seek out an interpersonal relationship to find such a contractor.

Having such personal contacts helps. For example, when I had to get an electrician in the US or Switzerland I was charged just to have them make the house call. Had an electrician come by recently here in Hungary just to check some wiring and he was here 10 minutes, found nothing wrong and refused to take any payment (I did give him a bottle of wine however). He came out because he was recommend by someone my wife knows. Relationships. They count in Hungary.

One of the first Hungarian novels my wife gave me to read was Rokonok (Relations) by Zsigmond Móricz.  A lot of each country's culture can be found in it's literature. If you want to understand Hungarian society, up through the top leaderships in politics, Relations is a good read.

MOHCTEP wrote:

I am looking for professional quality carpenter to build a few custom furniture pieces and small doors in my apartment. Overall 2 large cabinets and 2 sets of doors (4 all together). The site is in Budapest , Muzeum korut.

I contacted both custom carpenters and local door companies, and all could make custom doors. But they were all very expensive.

In the end, we went with "Obi" doors in the house simply due to price and they were "good enough" for in the house. Yes, we had to make a few adjustments to the door spaced, but that was far, far cheaper and easier to do than getting a custom door.

I only had to use a private carpenter with the cellar doors simply because the door space was not of a standard size and I had some very specific needs for these doors. Even so, the custom doors were very expensive.

One less expensive option on hand made doors is just to make a simple batten door. So ask about the price for such a door versus a conventional "modern" framed door:

http://www.dorothyainsworth.com/batten/doors.shtml

One of the custom doors I had build is basically a batten door, and it was much cheaper,

voyage2931 wrote:

Another experience we have is a luck of response, even in a case of not being interested to do such work.

You need to engage a general contractor, who will then contract with and schedule the sub-contract plumbers, plasterers, painters, etc. on your behalf. You will just waste your time trying to do the subcontract work yourself. This is good advise in any country, not just Hungary.

I have a very good general contractor who did all our renovations. And I am very particular about construction quality. and in Hungary beware: if you pay less your plaster may fall off your walls in a few years, so be careful. My general contractor is not the "cheapest", but gives high quality work for a reasonable price.

But my general contractor does not speak English. And is not in Budapest. But if he has time he will consider such work in Budapest. PM me if you want to contact him.

lesd wrote:

I was joking with a friend that I could get a Latin American guy from my Los Angeles Home Depot, they hang around outside waiting for work, and fly him to Hungary and back and still have cheaper labor then getting it done there. Its a joke.

Lol, without having read this topic I recently had exactly the same idea. As much as I like Budapest as a city, Hungary should be ashamed of itself for this blatant lack of skilled workers, and always blaming such things on the Soviet-past. As someone else said, it's like the little amount of decent craftsmen all leave the country at the first opportunity, and in a healthy country, there should be other skilled people ready to step in and take their place, but it's just not the case. This idea of "in Budapest the only way is to just know 'a guy' through your friend or neighbor" is as ridiculous as it is true - it's 2017, set up a legit business, with at least a telephone and internet presence for god's sake. Everybody seems to be trying so hard to stay under the radar - it's easier to continue working on "no invoice" basis and dodge the government when you have no such official presence of course. And then when you rely on word of mouth only and can live off the jobs you get from old school Hungarians, why bother showing any further ambition or learning English to serve potential new customers, right? The fact that people keep asking here for recommendations for a plumber, carpenter, electrician, painter etc, and simply nobody seems to have any clue of who to recommend, that tells the whole story.

So for me it's also that time again that I need a good electrician and víz/gáz-plumber - by now I wouldn't even mind paying the foreigner premium, but even then it seems impossible. If anybody has any recommendations please share of course, but I'm already afraid that eventually I'll have to bring in some Poles again smh.

akiva21 wrote:

Hello - I was offered a flat to buy in Budapest - the flat needs basic renovation and a new bathroom and kitchen - in order to calculate the investment - I need to know a very rough estimate of the cost of renovation per meter in Budapest for basic work - not a very fancy project - I heard all sorts of prices ranging from 250 Eur per sqm to 750 and even more - can anyone help me with an advice on that matter?

Unless someone has actully seen the property I don't think anyone can give you an answer.