Several trades affected by large amount of rain in last five months
By Kirra Livingstone
TRADIES across the Sunshine Coast Hinterland have been severely affected by extended wet weather, with only 50 out of 145 days (up to May 25) without rain so far this year.
Peachester business Charmak Landscape Construction co-owner Krysty Idle said she and her husband Ryan had lost tens of thousands of dollars this year.
In the past five months, the couple has had seven weeks off due to rain, with the longest consecutive stretch of downtime lasting two to three weeks.
“It’s been very depressing, in the last month we are probably working one or two days a week,” she said.
“Obviously with no work, there’s no income but all our insurances, our car repayments, machinery, everything like that still keeps coming out, so it just affects cash flow more than anything else.
“We are fortunate because it’s just me and my husband, so we can push a little bit longer at a job on a clear day, but we still have kids to come home to.”
Ms Idle said they were doing whatever they could to manage financially.
“We have been scrimping and saving, and just doing the bare minimum in life,” she said.
“There’s not much we can do, we haven’t had to dip into savings, but we are just having to be very careful.
Ms Idle said herself and Ryan are racing to catch up on a backlog that has pushed jobs months behind schedule, with bookings filled until September.
She added while she was unsure how support for tradies could be improved, she believed action was needed from state and federal governments.
“I think if different types of leave were introduced for trades, it would affect the bottom dollar too much,” she said.
“If we’re forced to have to pay ourselves sick and holiday leave, we are then going to have to pass that onto the client, then prices go up and that’s just a vicious cycle.”
Roof and gutter maintenance owner, Brad Burns, said he estimates he hasn’t been able to work for half of the year.
“It’s affected me a lot, if I don’t work no money comes in, you have mortgages, and then people are waiting, and you get 20 phone calls a day,” he said.
“You see your bank account and all of a sudden you wonder what’s going on, and then I realise I need to pull back on my spending to accommodate.
“I’ll have about four jobs going at once, and I don’t get paid until I finish it, so it’s either no money or a lot.”
Mr Burns added that he’s lost $60,000 of profit due to the consistent rain, and said his plans to retire next year have been squashed.
“I was on track to retire early, but now I will have to push it back another year at least,” he said.
“You get worried when you don’t have steady income, at first it’s a good thing because you get jobs done around the house.
“I’ve got two staff members and I’m still able to pay them, but it means I have to be tight with money.”
A Suncoast Tippers employee who lives in the Glass House Mountains, Tony Usher, said he is unable to work at all if it rains, meaning he receives no income.
“When you depend on regular work to keep things moving, that kind of disruption has a big impact,” Mr Usher said.
“It’s made it difficult to manage our usual expenses, and the hit to our cash flow has been stressful.
“We know things will turn around once the weather improves, but it’s definitely been a challenging few months.”
The Department of Customer Services, Open Data and Small and Family Business was contacted for comment.
kirra@gcnews.com.au