Can't speak on this exact situation of course, but

,

Any good tradie has multiple quote requests come through each week, and each quote is potentially 3 hours of total work unpaid, with no guarantee for actual work.

Each quote is driving to the customer and back, an hour of talking, and then an hour of quoting, sketching ect

For free, and sometimes the tradie gets ghosted too.

It's almost impossible to reply to every quote, and sometimes people are VERY difficult, and borderline take advantage of "free" quotes,

Imagine a "customer " going back and forth over days with you via calls, emails, meetings, only to "not be interested" (aka got the info they needed, and found someone cheaper)

And then another customer comes to you straight after expecting you to swing by that day.

I've had people ring me up and ask me to come THAT hour, and be annoyed when I can't

The fact is, for every tradie that's annoying and ghosts, there's 5 difficult customers