A rant

[johnb5177]

Clive,

So sorry to read of your disastrous kitchen fitting......

We have not long finished a refurb of an older kitchen; we took it all back to bare walls, with some walls (including some internal cavity walls) being removed to gain space.

We used Howdens for our kitchen cabinets and electrical goods.

Thankfully, our builder is beyond first class, and has undertaken a lot of work elsewhere in the house.
This included leccy, plumbing, flooring and ceilings.....

All in all a seriously positive although draining experience, but it could have gone so terribly wrong.....really feel for your anger and frustration.....

I can only hope that you get some satisfaction by publicising his shoddy work to the wider audience and also through Trading Standards......you could try Rogue Traders and really go for it....

[Lazy-Ferret]

Originally Posted by macabethiel

This is a long shot but I believe there are screws that can be used by driving them straight into solid walls with no drilling,standard plastic or wooden plug required. Never used them wonder if that's what the builder used?

I have seen the used to attach galvanised corner beads prior to plastering of concrete pillars.

I would never use such a thing for a Kitchen Wall unit that would carry a fair weight on the wall pates with the risk of a force other than straight downward force.

https://www.screwfix.com/c/screws-na...4?brand=dewalt

I did check those out before I moaned, and was still giving him the benifit of doubt, but they have a very course thread, and still require a pilot hole. The screws he used look just like normal countersunk wood screws... plus, many of them have not bitten in, so just turn and pull out of the wall.

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[scrumpydude]

Sorry to hear that awful story.

Just wanted to chip in about the certification with hopefully some good news. When we came to sell, this came up. Our solicitor says 'easy peasy'. Took out indemnity insurance costing IIRC £69. It would have cost more to have the council pop round and do the proper paperwork. I think the insurance could cover everything that you needed certification for (i.e. including electrics)

That it was cheaper than doing it properly doesn't seem right.

[Lazy-Ferret]

Thanks for that, we will look into that as it looks like that may be the best option.

I have been round all his work now, as I found so many mistakes. On the electrics, he never twisted any of the wires together, so in one socket only one earth was in the terminal, and on another, only one neutral! The other one was just floating loose in the back box.

Another socket had so much plaster in the back, it was stuck in the backbox, and I had to replace it as I could not dig down to the terminals. I think he had used plaster to stick it into place as the screw fixings in the back box were stripped!

One of the wall cabinets was unable to sit against the wall properly and as a result all the others had about a 10mm gap behind. When I looked, one of the vertical chases for the ring main was filled very proud, and feathered in over a foot wide. There was also a screw head sticking out of it. When I set to sorting it out I discovered that the wall was not channelled in deep enough and the plastic conduit was about 5mm proud, so instead of redoing it, he just built up the plaster putting everything else out of kilter. The screw was in at an angle to hold the conduit back against the wall.

The other problem that went with this is, we told him that the whole house has an issue where the old paint just flakes off the walls back to the original plaster, so he would need to either need to scrape it off, which to be honest is a very easy and satisfying task, you only need a sharp paint scraper, as it comes off in huge flakes, or find a way to stabilise it. This means half the plaster he has put up chips off with the slightest knock as it is over the dodgy paint which he left in place.

He put plaster board up on the ceiling but did not tape any joints, so we have not only poker dot marks where he filled in the screws, but crisscrossed cracks on all tbe joins.

These are just the larger things, there are countless other minor things. The list just keeps getting longer and longer.

The good news is, I am making good progress. I still have to do a little rubbing down on the ceiling, as this was my first attempt at taping, so has a few spreader marks, but overall its pretty smooth now. I then have to decorate the ceiling and walls, as I have scraped them all back, then re-hang the wall units.

Hate is a very strong word, and I don't like to use it, but in this guys case I feel fully justified.




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