Yet more pain-in-the-arse builders.

[rocker]

I'm going to off on one about this job now, as it's been getting right on my nerves. Feel free to stop reading now, there's nothing helpful or interesting ahead....


I've been on a job with another bunch of 'all rounders'. They can all do several things adequately, but not much well. The few things they do do well, they take for-bloody-ever to do. Anyway.....

I spent forever chopping black rubbish out of the walls for my chases, all the time telling the 'project manager' that really it should all come off, but he said 'no way'. So I plastered up the bits that were being tiled, and got my guy in to do the bits that had to look good. The PM asked if he could skim the whole walls. He said it all needed to come off. PM said no way. He had a go at skimming some walls (PM wouldnt have all walls done, only the ones with chases on WTF). Looked a right bloody mess through no fault of the plasterer. Turns out I had to pay the extra for the skimming (which I, nor the plasterer, wanted to do - I was paying for the chases but hey, there we go).

This builder, all rounder, whatever, comes in. Strips all the walls (I ask PM if I get reimbursed for the unnecessary costs - no I dont). Ripped a load of my oval off the walls so it was hanging everywhere, called me in and 'gave me the opportunity to tidy it up'!!!!! Also was having a go at me about using existing joist holes, rather than re-drilling in safe zones which, by the way, he got incorrect (yes, one of them). When I got the hump there was a definite 'well, if you don't want to do your job properly' inflection to what he was saying. So I spend an evening re-fixing all this conduit. Fine.

I will explain now that the client is actually a neighbour and good friend of mine, I would have buggered off a long time ago otherwise.


So after putting in various other spurs and other annoyances, some of THEIR work is finally finished. Lo and behold, PVA and crap over all of my accessories, everything re-fixed at not just wonky, but outrageously bad angles. The guy is then asking me for some knock out boxes, spurs etc because he wants to 'make some changes'. Ask him what tester he has, and at no reply, leave it at that. It then transpires this guy has now convinced my mate that he needs a whole new central heating system (he didnt) and guess what, his mate can do it for him for a knock-down (AKA massively overinflated) price.

Now then, in the interim, these chaps have finished the plastering, and to be fair, they do a quite good job. Let's just say, you wouldn't complain, but you wouldn't have their number on speed dial. Adequate. Fine. But they took an absolute age doing it.

So this fella turns up and does a whole central heating system in a weekend, very good, and I go in and the place is TOP TO BOTTOM in bloody trunking. Not a plumb line in sight, by the way.

Sod it, not my headache anymore, I'm afraid. I've spoken to my mate, and while he understands what I'm on about, and I think he can see this guy is an idiot, he's older-mates with him than he is me, and he can't or won't say anything. So I put a spur in for this boiler, ask my mate who's paying me, turns out it ain't coming out of the builder or the boiler man's budget so my mate would have to pay me himself, tell him not to worry about it (it's only 2 doors down) and leave it at that.

So today I'm called down to the house and dragged over the coals for 'leaving the boiler off' (I didn't) when I put the spur in, and consequently having the condensate pipe freeze. After asking why there was no lagging applied to the pipe, and enquiring how condensate would get into the pipe in order to freeze if the boiler was left off, it turned out it wasn't my fault at all, and that they would put some thing in to turn on the boiler if it got too cold. Whatever.

So I go in the kitchen and am horrified to see that one of the stainless S/Os that was next to where the fridge was meant to be (as customer specifically requested this) has now been pulled out, diagonally chased up the wall and round a corner, to above where the fridge will be. Another socket is missing and a bare wire has been chockoblocked onto it's talks, and is languishing on the floor near to a lovely puddle left by the boilerman's brilliant work. On asking this moron (let's stop calling him a builder, shall we), his explaination for the bare, live wire was that the kitchen they had ordered was an ikea one which didnt have a void behind the cupboards, so a patress would have to fixed inside. Hmmm OK that makes all the imminent danger go away then! On the dodgy new socket (which is in line with nothing on this earth, by the way), the socket shouldn't be by the side of the fridge because the fridge wouldn't fit (it would, easily). I then aksed him if he's asked the client about this, and, indeed, what he was going to do about the cupboard that was supposed to be fitted where he has placed the socket. A cupboard that he is supposed to fitting. From a plan that he supposedly drew up.

'Um um um but you couldn't turn it off if you needed to' he says, referring to the socket. At this comment, i turned his attention to the control switch above the worktop. Labelled 'refrigerator'. 'Ah,' he says 'you wired that wrong as well, I had to re-do it.

Yes, folks, if you opened the fridge switch, the whole ring was magically turned into two unprotected radials.

I seriously feel like i'm in a Laurel and hardy sketch.

 

[DurhamSparky]

enjoy!!! rather you than me!!

i would start taking skirting off and re-attaching it at funny angles!!

 

[Jimmy Boy]

FKN hell dude some **** you need to deal with

 

[High Tower]

enjoy!!! rather you than me!!

i would start taking skirting off and re-attaching it at funny angles!!

Re hang doors upside down

 

[rocker]

i would start taking skirting off and re-attaching it at funny angles!!

Now that's an idea!

 

[accordfire]

Yup, I'd be flattening that twonk's tyres every time he got near the site.

Ask this "PM" what qualifications he's got - is he PRINCE2 certificated? When he looks at you like he hasn't a clue what PRINCE2 is, ask his where his electrical quals are. When he looks at you like he hasn't a clue what they are, ask him about his Part P. When he says his Part what now? Shop him for ****ing about with your work, when he's not notified it up front, etc., etc. But shop him adequately, or quite well, just to match his skill levels.

To be honest with you, I'd probably start taking photos of the changes he's made, and then plaster my website with them, naming and shaming on how NOT to do the job.

 

[rocker]

But shop him adequately, or quite well, just to match his skill levels.
QUOTE]

LOL

I have taken some crap phone photos, dunno if i'll put them on the website, but keeping them to prove what I've done and what he's done (luckily took pictures of before the work was done, once my 1st fix was done and was planning on doing finished pictures as it was meant to be a fairly high spec job) unfortunately couldnt get a pic of our new fridge addition but will hopefully get one next time I go round.

Just to clarify, the project manager and the builder are different people, but they are both morons and also friends with each other (the customer is the nicest, kindest most generous person you're likely to meet, but all his friends seem to be absolute crunts). The so called PM is actually some kind of big time manager for a very large government run organisation which will remain nameless. The builder's just a cock who apparently 'has a degree' in building. Walked in and caught him slagging me off the other day as well....

 

[accordfire]

I LOVE that word - and the joke that went with it.

Everyone in my world has been a crunt this weekend - shows how much time I spend in here, as I've had more than a few blank looks, until I've repeated the joke.

It's tough when you get a situation like this, and more so when you just want the guy who's being peed on to grow the balls to kick them off. I know what you mean about nice folk getting taken advantage of, though.

The so called PM probably WILL know what PRINCE2 is then but if he's gov trained, no wonder the job is in (sh)....ite state.....

I had a degree in building once, when Lego was still something kids played with. I worry about the motives of guys like that who have "degrees" yet seem not to make use of it.....I mean by that, if he's a degree holder - it would likely either be in Building engineering, or architecture and design. Why would you spend your days working on a site with that kind of qual? Even a surveyor with a degree.....

Sad as it seems, it's one of those rare cases where Part P might actually prove to be your friend after all.

Short of hitting them with the builder's degree level shovel, which is probably also very tempting, or the hilarious though of ramming the builder cock into the PM crunt......I'm not sure what you can practically do, short of complain to your customer (sympathetically) and let him know how much he's being ripped off.

The boiler dude worries too - were you saying he was putting pipes in trunking too? Or just his spaghetti for the heating controls? Either way, boilers and trunking don't really mix, IMHO. I bet he ran the whole job in that rotten ruddy Hep2O too. Ugh.

Ah well.

Maybe you should encourage them to join the plumbing and builders forums - and we can all head over there, tip the wink, and watch them get ripped to shreds

 

[rocker]

I don't think the PM would actually - he's in an administration position, he doesn't have any background in construction whatsoever.

Yep the pipes are in trunking, just looks like standard PVC 40X16 mini. And it's EVERYWHERE. Pipework seems to be copper microbore type stuff, jointed to plastic whenever it goes under floorboards etc. One room has a concrete floor, but he's run everything from the ceiling in every room (I reckon he checked one room, decided it was all conrete and left it at that). The thing is though, is he hasn't gone through any walls, he's bought a pipe down from ceiling to rad, then one going back up, then on the other side of the same wall bought a pipe down and up again, so we have TWO walls with horrible trunking. It's like that all over.... I reckon there's a bit of trunking on 14 out of 16 walls. It's a bloody joke.

 

[accordfire]

I don't think the PM would actually - he's in an administration position, he doesn't have any background in construction whatsoever.

Yep the pipes are in trunking, just looks like standard PVC 40X16 mini. And it's EVERYWHERE. Pipework seems to be copper microbore type stuff, jointed to plastic whenever it goes under floorboards etc. One room has a concrete floor, but he's run everything from the ceiling in every room (I reckon he checked one room, decided it was all conrete and left it at that). The thing is though, is he hasn't gone through any walls, he's bought a pipe down from ceiling to rad, then one going back up, then on the other side of the same wall bought a pipe down and up again, so we have TWO walls with horrible trunking. It's like that all over.... I reckon there's a bit of trunking on 14 out of 16 walls. It's a bloody joke.

Ugh. I'd refuse to pay for that kind of work at all. OK, I'll be honest - I'd have kicked him off site at the first hint of that kind of behaviour.

Mini-trunking is the work of the devil anyway - and to my mind it's only there for people's laziness - mostly. But to hear of plumbers/heating engineers encasing their pipes in it.....I'd worry about potential fire risk I think - pipes hot, trunking plastic melty. More so if he's put copper in the trunking - it's a far better conductor of energy than the poly pipe is (and that means heat as well as other energy).

I also have issues with mixed material plumbing - albeit the copper may be perfectly isolated from ground if it comes in in the blue poly, and then there's bits of copper and poly internally - but how can anyone say that the sections which are copper will NEVER become live? How can you predict that some other moron won't come along and use some of that trunking to run a "quick spur", get his cable melted and make that copper live? Seen it happen.

The other problem with scenarios like this, of course, is that once that section of copper (and probably the rad) become live, the energy has no path to earth, and so it stays charged until you kindly touch it to dissipate it, and your life force, to earth.

But, quite apart from all of that - the heating industry has moved on so much so that it has materials at its disposal that make bad jobs almost impossible. Running poly pipe is no harder than running twin and earth - if you must use poly.... - and I just don't see at all why it can't be fished under floors like cable - traps up every so often to clip it to the floor joists. And a nice poly - copper union just under the rads, to bring it up in copper which look sooooo much better.

It's pride in the job I guess. I understand your grrr totally on this one.

 

[telectrix]

should all plumbing be done in plastic then? 1. it doesn't blow when frozen. 2 look at the current price of copper. 3. it's easy to join ( even us electricians can do it). 4. following on from .3. then we won't need plumbers any more. Job's a winner.

 

[accordfire]

should all plumbing be done in plastic then? 1. it doesn't blow when frozen. 2 look at the current price of copper. 3. it's easy to join ( even us electricians can do it). 4. following on from .3. then we won't need plumbers any more. Job's a winner.

LOL!

You say that - it's not difficult to screw up a plastic push fit connector on that stuff.

I think poly pipe v copper is the plumber's equivalent of MICC v FP200 etc.

 

[rocker]

I was a bit concerned about the earth path, or lack thereof, with the plastic gaps. Hopefully I'll be able to cross bond under the boards, d'ya reckon 4 mil would be al right? I know I know the magic RCD will save us but I'd prefer to overdesign.

 

[accordfire]

I was a bit concerned about the earth path, or lack thereof, with the plastic gaps. Hopefully I'll be able to cross bond under the boards, d'ya reckon 4 mil would be al right? I know I know the magic RCD will save us but I'd prefer to overdesign.

I should think 4mm would be fine - it's one of those contradictory parts of the standard again though, isn't it.....

411.3.2.6 talks about bonding where required disconnection time cannot be achieved - and 4mm CSA is suitable for bonding where the potentially reachable live conductors are up to 6mm CSA.

However, there isn't any requirement to bond any metallic parts supplied by plastic pipes, I guess on the basis that they are isolated - I would still worry, personally, that if an electrical supply is within reach of any metallic part, the possibility of shock is still present, and that metallic part may become charged, like a capacitor.

I'd go on the basis of doubt - the bonding won't hurt, and will provide if nothing else additional safety, should the worst occur.