Idiot builders

[Ollie78]

My daughter asked me to tile her kitchen for her birthday. Arrived this morning to do the job and noticed the wall was damp. Tapped the wall with my finger and it sank right in. Turns out the last time their kitchen was done the builder dot and dabbed standard plasterboard on to a known damp wall.
View attachment 171384

I’m just going to patch the hole and bang the tiles on. I’ve run a scraper over the rest and it is solid enough to last a couple of years. It’s going to have to all come off and done properly at a later date.
Why of why do builders do half assed jobs like this. The difference in cost to treat the wall would have been fairly inconsequential compared to the entire project cost when the kitchen was done.

After similar recent experience on my parents extension I have come to the conclusion they genuinely don`t know better and/or have no self respect.

It seems that drywall installation is a real problem. I had to fit a nice Oak window seat with shelf extensions in the big window, one large bit of oak I had to scribe nearly 20mm from one end, this is a brand new construction and the brickwork was good and pretty square before the plasterer got involved.
The reveals were (roughly) square to the window itself but the wall itself was about 80 degrees to the reveal and also not straight.
It would have been better if they just plastered the wall directly, but they don`t seem to do this any more, I think because they don`t want to chase in any services.
This was the tip of the iceberg as well.


Ollie

 

[Spectric]

I think because they don`t want to chase in any services.

It makes the plastering easy, nice smooth surface to coat but a good plasterer would just plaster the walls without the plasterboard, is that now a dying art.

 

[Ollie78]

It makes the plastering easy, nice smooth surface to coat but a good plasterer would just plaster the walls without the plasterboard, is that now a dying art.

It might be a dying art indeed, also it would need 2 coats and the plumber and electrician would have to do more work chasing wires sockets and pipes which is why I think they have done it in this case.

 

[Bingy man]

It’s cheaper and a much more solid job if you use a large bag of ballast 40 kg I think per hole and add your own cement , or even cheaper is a ton bag if it’s a 10+ bay fence . Post Crete is £6.50. £7.50 per bag and 25kg . I generally dig a 24 “ deep hole if the fence is 6ft or taller so 25 kg is not enough imo to support a 9 ft post .

 

[MikeJhn]

Not particularly in defence of Postcrete, but the fence usually rots long before the uprights fall over (in my experience)

Post rot at ground level if you protect them at that level it will delay the rot.

Wet plaster is three coats not two, lazy chaser not chasing deep enough is usually the problem, in the days of 20mm Galvanised conduit it did not happen, but now days the constant need for speed has stopped the correct way of doing things, plasterboard was never meant for walls it was invented for ceilings.

 

[Robbo3]

I don't know how we got on to Postcrete but in its defence (no pun intended) our garden gate was installed using it over 30 years ago & is still rock solid.
The same for the back fence, some 4 years old, which has withstood an attack from a neighbour's car.

 

[MikeJhn]

Has Postcrete been around that long?

 

[Scruples]

I watched a youtube video a couple of months ago by 'proper DIY' where he did a real world comparison between mixed concrete and postcrete for erecting fence post. spoiler alert, the concrete was the clear winner, not a real shocker to me, but looking through the comments there was an overwhelming amount from proffessional landscape gardeners and the general consensus was doing the job with concrete meant they would have to leave the concrete to set and come back the following week to put in the panels, so do it with postcrete, done in a morning, customer happy because they think the job is done, off to the next job. none of them were interested in doing the best job. I have to say, if I was the customer, and I were given all the info, including how much more I'd end up paying (and the extra time taken) if the slower, better mix was used, I may well choose cheaper and quicker, but most werent told they were getting cheap and cheerful fences. the problem I keep on finding is the 'proffessional' attitude is at every stage to choose 'quick' over 'good' which just leads to a compound error

I suppose that trials may have shown that concrete is better quality than postcrete, but are there any stats of fence failures associated with the lower quality product?

 

[Scruples]

It might be a dying art indeed, also it would need 2 coats and the plumber and electrician would have to do more work chasing wires sockets and pipes which is why I think they have done it in this case.

In my apprentice days in the 70s, the sites I worked on, they always cement coated the blocks and the plastered them. It seems better than using plasterboard on breezeblock.

 

[MikeJhn]

Cement coating blockwork before plastering was known as Bagging as the cement bag was often used to apply the Cement, it was just a way of sealing the porous surface of the block to prevent the fist coat of plaster from drying out too quickly as opposed to wetting the block, also used on concrete walls to give an even finish if the wall was exposed to view in the finished building.

 

[MikeJhn]

The whole of the construction industry runs on its programming, if you can cut out an operation or speed one up then it will be embraced, not having to chase walls for electric cables and dot and dab plasterboard on top of surface tacked T&E is much faster than chasing the blockwork and running in conduit, not building internal walls out of brick or block can save days on the internals by building as a stud partition, again running the services internally, this is why a lower standard of construction has become acceptable, speed is the key to most builders if only for the saving on Prelims/Overheads.

 

[SammyQ]

My two nephews, working on their own, can "dry wall" a typical semi with metal laths and then plasterboard in one day. Their plasterer(?) follows them. This seems to be the industry expectation; they do converted mills as well as new estates, and have between 200 and 600 'units' per contract.

Laser level, heavy duty impact guns, board lifters for the ceilings, they go at pace, it seems.

 

[Samkilby]

Take as old as time re the walls being out, finish plasterer might blame the boarding out if they didn’t do it, who might blame the 1st fix carpenter etc. time is money, with the best will in the world the plasterboard is likely to get screwed or dabbed onto whatever the wall is beind it. New or old, if this is timber if it isn’t given a month to settle and then planed or relief cut and wedged to remove bellying then it’s going to be bad. If old it could have twisted, moved, subsided etc.
Same story with internal ceilings really.
All just need appropriate management. Lots of new build sites are caveatted in the contracting stage, basically if you lay your work on top of something bad then your firm is responsible for costs to make good if it needs to be ripped out and re done.
From a tradie perspective that’s all good on a new build site, where they can walk to the next plot along and hopefully start work there. If it’s a clients house and you are doing small renovation, you turn up and either loose a days money or more by not being able to work, while you inform them to book another trade in to rectify, or you bite the bullet and do the work. I’ll leave you to ponder on which is the likely outcome.

 

[clogs]

when I was doing houses in Manchester had a mate who's a time served plasterer....
He needed 3 month notice for a big job....
as he was a good mate he'd do the small one room jobs for me at the weekend /evs.....
that was 40 years ago and then got paid £200 a day cash.....
wish he was still here, have a big job comming up soon.....I miss him....

Plenty of times I've walked off the job because at the estimate stage the client would not have the ground work done properly due to cost.....
I dont need comebacks.....
It's a tough life in the building job.....nobody wants to pay for a great job.....

like here, a decent jobber would have lots of work......ex pats are sick of being ripped off by those a/holes locally.....
over priced even by London rates and for the most part crap work....

neighbour was quoted €500 euro's to make and hang a simple side gate.....crazy.....

 

[TominDales]

I think the majority of people always chose cheap over quality. It has taken years of living with my wife to get her to understand that buying quality is usually cheaper in the long run. The one that actually converted her was wellington boots. She went through three pairs of cheap uncomfortable boots while my much ridiculed expensive pair were still going strong, and in fact still are.

For something like this kitchen I would gladly have given my daughter the extra to get the job done right if I had known it was going to be a bodge. All the kitchen rebuild work was managed by the kitchen company. The damp course injection was done as part of the purchase. I don’t know if the boarding was done by the kitchen company or the damp proofing company. As is safest with a daughter starting out on her own life I let them go their own way. Advice is only offered if asked for.

good advice, you are there for them. They learn for themselves, makes them more resilient in the long run.