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BS: Bloody Builders!!
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BS: Bloody Builders!! |
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Subject: BS: Bloody Builders!! From: Pete Jennings Date: 03 Feb 13 - 01:14 PM This is our third winter in this house. The first two winters we had problems with the central heating so we didn't really notice that it was unusually cold in the kitchen, but this time we did. An obvious solution was to top up the insulation in the roof space (half the kitchen sticks out from the back of the house). Doing that, with the loft hatch open to the ventilated roof space, we noticed a cold draught coming up from the cupboard under the sink. It was definitely coming from the hole in the cupboard floor where the mains water pipe comes in. Mmmm, we thought, that's odd. Anyway, with the roof space properly insulated it was still cold so I bit the bullet: cleared out the cupboard, drilled some one inch holes in its floor and sawed out a small panel around the pipe (the cupboard floor is about 4 inches above the kitchen floor). Took me ages, but once the panel was out the cause of the draught became clear: there was a big hole in the floor slab where the water pipe comes up and a cold gale coming up out of it (there's a void beneath the floor slab, so it's obviously a concrete beam and block floor and the void is properly ventilated to the outside). So, some bloody builder couldn't be arsed to take two minutes to seal the slab around the water pipe! Anyway, I stuffed some left-over roof insulation into the hole around the pipe and under the cupboard floor, screwed in a couple of timber supports for the panel and taped the panel back into place. Instant solution to the problem and we now have a warm kitchen. Bloody builders! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Builders!! From: GUEST,Eliza Date: 03 Feb 13 - 01:24 PM Pete, is this a new-build house? If so, I wonder if it's covered by the 10yr NHBC guarantee. I do so admire you for getting to the bottom of the problem and sorting it out. But I hope you don't come across any other shoddy stuff... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Builders!! From: Rapparee Date: 03 Feb 13 - 01:31 PM Even if it's now newly built you still could find problems. Previous owners can muck up a house, especially if it was DIY. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Builders!! From: GUEST,Eliza Date: 03 Feb 13 - 01:42 PM This is turning into a combination of The Gypsy's Warning and The Voice Of Doom, but I'm now wondering if vermin can get in to such a 'well-ventilated' space under the floor. AND (just to stop you sleeping at night) will condensation now start to form as you have blocked off the airiness? (I'm just jealous, as neither my husband nor I are the least use with DIY, and would have had to call in an expert, so well done Pete!) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Builders!! From: Bobert Date: 03 Feb 13 - 01:47 PM Not all builders are irresponsible... I've built or renovated stuff since retiring in 2005, including building one seriously nice spec house and completely renovating an 1826 3 story home that was later turned into 7 separate apartments... I've endured dozens and dozens of inspections and only failed one for having the audacity to over-build... Glad you got this sorted out, Peter... It does concern me that there is a crawl under what you refer to as a "slab"... Slabs are usually poured over prepared ground leaving nothing between the concrete and the prepared ground... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Builders!! From: Megan L Date: 03 Feb 13 - 01:54 PM Eliza the space needs to be well ventilated to prevent dampness and there will be no problem with rodents if the external wall structure is secure. the wall should also in UK be fitted with adequate vents. the botched job Pete had to do running repairs to does not effect condensation since the moisture is bourne by heat upwards condensing on cold surfaces. Oh how Dauvit hated to get a call about someone elses botched job you were going into a customer who was already stressed , angry and probably feeling the financial pinch not the best start to a working relationship. By the way it often costs more to get a botched job repaired because the bad work and any extra damage it caused has to be removed before remedial work can be done. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Builders!! From: GUEST,Eliza Date: 03 Feb 13 - 02:03 PM I'm glad to hear it Megan, as houses can be a blooming nightmare at times! You've only got to watch Cowboy Builders to give yourself the heebie-jeebies. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Builders!! From: Bert Date: 03 Feb 13 - 02:14 PM Where are you Peter? Here in Colorado, if you find something wrong with a house, you can sue the seller for damages. The statute of limitations is three years after the discovery of the problem, no matter how long you have owned the house. As Bobert says, be concerned about the void under the slab. If it is a planned crawl space, there should be access to it and if it is not heated then any piping beneath the slab should be heated. If it is not a planned crawl space then I would be seriously concerned about a sink hole. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Builders!! From: Bobert Date: 03 Feb 13 - 04:53 PM I've seen slabs poured into metal frames with crawl space beneath them... Not sure why anyone would do that except to get to plumbing??? Most builders just put all the plumbing (mostly sewage but sometimes water supply lines, as well) in trenches under the slab before pouring several inches of gravel covered with plastic before pouring the concrete... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Builders!! From: gnu Date: 03 Feb 13 - 05:34 PM "Not all builders are irresponsible" But some are... some are actively seeking to "cut corners" and there are LOTS of ways they do it. I have well over a $1/4M of design, construction supervision and contract admin under my belt and the 5% thAT ACTUALLY SET OUT FROM THE GET GO TO MAKE COIN BY "CUTTING CORNERS" ARE A BANE. I can't get used to the new keyboard yet and I can.t be arsed to fis the caps... AGAIN! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Builders!! From: Rapparee Date: 03 Feb 13 - 06:36 PM We've just had a bathroom remodeled. Had to, but that's not part of this story. A new ceiling light was put in to replace the dual "spotlight" heat lamps. When the electrician (no, I don't do my own!) opened the space up he found that around a STEEL electrical box someone had very nicely and tightly tucked cedar fluff insulation...probably back when the house was built in 1968. The insulation around the box was not just charred, it was ash. The electrician said that if there had been incandescent lights there with their dissipating upwards instead of the heat lamps focusing the heat downwards the house would have burned years ago. I don't think they use super-finely-shredded cedar for insulation anymore. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Builders!! From: Sandra in Sydney Date: 04 Feb 13 - 06:10 AM when my neighbour bought an upstairs apartment & stated preparing for renovation he found an electrical nighmare. We live in a 4-storey building with 5 apartments per floor, which was built 1918 as a rental property & renovated for individual sale in 1977/78. Someone electrically qualified (???) decided to lay the cables for 2 floors (10 apartments) under his floor. Just below the floorboards, so anyone who ever decided to nail down a loose board could have become a statistic. It took 2 groups of electricians to fix it - the first bloke knew too much & didn't look at the extent of the problem (under 2 floors) & under-quoted. His contractors found the job was a lot more than they were hired for, so couldn't finish the job & we ended up with legal demands to pay all the money when only half of the job was done. Another company finished the job & now he can concentrate on renovating. sandra |
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Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Builders!! From: Pete Jennings Date: 04 Feb 13 - 07:14 AM The house in 15 years old. I'm in Staffordshire, UK, and I'm satisfied that the house is well built (I prepare planning and building control drawings so I know what to look for) - it's just a couple of minor details like the hole and, for example, the fact that some of the light switches and electrical sockets are not quite level. As for the void under the floor slab, it's perfectly normal as it's almost certainly a suspended beam and block floor. They are much more efficient in modern construction work. For example a wet concrete slab for this house would have taken over a week to cure (in the right temperatures) whereas a B&B floor could have been installed in a day. Bobertz is right about builders in general: I've found them to be good overall - only a couple locally that I wouldn't recommend to my clients, but as gnu implies, you have to watch them like a hawk (I've got a few other stories that would make you shudder). I've also sorted out the cold bathroom. Cold air coming from - you've guessed it - the cupboard under the wash basin. Stuffed roof insulation down the back of the cupboard and sealed the sides with silicon (rather than dismantle the cupboard). Also, I fitted some extra towel rails so we don't have to cover the heated rail all the time (which has the same effect as lagging a hot water tank). Bathroom nice and warm now. Missus well pleased so lots of brownie points in the bag! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Builders!! From: gnu Date: 04 Feb 13 - 07:59 AM Oops! Typo! "I have well over a $1/4M..." >>> "I have well over a $1/4B..." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Bloody Builders!! From: Wolfhound person Date: 04 Feb 13 - 08:42 AM The Georgians were terrible jerry-builders (UK). I'm living in a farmhouse parts of which date back to at least 1662, probably further. The 2 foot thick solid sandstone walls go almost a metre into the ground. When we moved here 10 years ago we had to have the water supply updated as it was in lead pipes, and the firm that did it couldn't find the bottom of the wall. In the 1740s the then owner married above her station and the house was more than doubled in size with large bedrooms and living rooms put on the "front", along with a pantiled roof and (probably) attic servants quarters. One snag with this update. No foundations. On clay. And they didn't bother tying the two halves together either. AS a tenanted farm, the whole lot was allowed to slide gracefully into disrepair in the C19, warping, shifting, rotting, and leaking as it did so. It changed hands again in 1914, and a team of renovators replaced the roof with a different and inappropriate angle / weight / material, put concrete tanking wherever damp had appeared, shored up floors with anything to hand from the local pit (railway line, for instance) and generally did a Friday afternoon job. Then the pit underneath caught fire, was closed and a wave of subsidence went through - although as this was the mine manager's house there is a pillar under our house and garden so it got away lightly. We bought it knowing all this and working with a structural engineer, had underpinning done. We're still stripping off C20 tanking, pebble dash render, damp-proofing etc etc, but bad builders have been with us for centuries - don't just blame modern ones. The last 10 years has been a saga of removing everything done in the C20 and letting the poor thing breathe. It still creaks of a night, occasionally, but so do I and I'm much younger. I'm trying to bring it back to something Jane Austen might have recognised as a "cottage" - it resembles her description in Sense & Sensibility although ours is Northumberland, not S. Devon. But without the attic servants' quarters as the C20 roof design renders this impractical. Working with and supervising builders directly on the bits we couldn't do ourselves, has been the solution, though the building inspectors are a nightmare and the regs. do not favour conscientious DIY any more. Paws |
