Bay windows aarrgghhh!!!

[nige]

Hi all

Paid a deposit for 2 bay windows, upstairs and downstairs. After their surveyor inspected my existing windows the window company sent me a letter stating:

"they cannot be held responsible for any movement or loss in brickwork around the bay windows they are installling, or to repoint if required. This will have to be the customers responsibility to put right and incur costs if necessary"

They have asked me to sign a disclaimer to this effect. Is this a standard letter and nothing to be to worried about or should i be concerned ?

any help much appreciated,

nige

[daddyfreddy]

Ask them if it's standard or if it's just particular to your place because it's in a poor state. I do my own installing so can't say but every other installation I've seen they've normally re-rendered or made good to some degree. I wouldn't use them.

[manatbandq]

Be afraid, be very afraid, and don't sign it. Find a reputable firm who know what they are doing.

There are quite a few cases where wooden windows were structural and holding up something above them. If that's the case you need extra re-inforcing, a standard uPVC frame is not up to the job. AFAIK you normally have metal posts in the frames at each corner of the bay. I think I read that in the Wickes leaflet on their range of windows.

MBQ

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Find a firm who can do the job properly.

[Chris Bacon]

Of course you should be worried. They are telling you that there's a good chance that walls around the bays will crack up and require remedial work after their installation. This invariably looks *awful*. Take a drive around a town where there's a "poor suburbia" where lots of these windows have been put in, and look at the problems. Lots of render. Lots of paint. Lots of cracked-up and collapsing brickwork.

I would certainly not sign that disclaimer, and I would be very careful indeed about signing anything. See what the cost would be without such a disclaimer. My guess would be either a prohibitive amount, or that the company would refuse to deal with you. NJ.B. even if they *did* deal with you, repair work still looks *awful*.

Are you replacing timber windows with plastic? Why not replace the timber ones with double-glazed timber ones, which look better, are stronger, are far less probe to ballsing up the look of your house, and could quite possibly be cheaper?

[Mark]

FWIW, in a 5 bay window you should have 4 reinforcing poles. And I personally i would not be prepared to sign any disclaimer !

-

[Steve Walker]

Tell them to sling their hook - movement damage would only occur if the installers failed to support the wall during installation, or if the new windows lacked the necessary strength to support it afterwards. Either way, you can and should expect the contractors to handle this.

[Dave Fawthrop]

|Hi all | |Paid a deposit for 2 bay windows, upstairs and downstairs. |After their surveyor inspected my existing windows the |window company sent me a letter stating:

It is always foolish to pay a deposit on *any* building work. Never pay anything till the work is complete to your satisfaction.

|"they cannot be held responsible for any movement or loss |in brickwork around the bay windows they are installling, |or to repoint if required. This will have to be the customers |responsibility to put right and incur costs if necessary"

They should put in adequate foundations.

This is an Unfair Term in the contract.

|They have asked me to sign a disclaimer to this effect. |Is this a standard letter and nothing to be to worried |about or should i be concerned ? | |any help much appreciated,

They have refused to complete the work you wanted. Read the small print of what you signed. I would immediately demand my deposit back, threaten them with the Small Claims Court, and take them there if you do not get the money returned.

They are clearly a *BUNCH OF SHARKS*, I personally would write the deposit off to experience, and get the job done by a real builder.

[Owain]

Be concerned. And tell them that as they've accepted your deposit they're now bound to do the work, to a satisfactory standard, at the agreed price. They'd try to hold you to the contract if *you* tried to cancel.

Owain

[zymurgy]

Definitely. I got Anglian to install mine, they made good any damage around the bays, repointed and sealed outside and skimmed inside.

They are not liable to repaint or make good any decor, but they have to repair any structural damage to plasterwork/brickwork etc caused by the replacement.

Bin that company and get your deposit back.

Cheers

Paul.

[Guy King]

The message from [e-mail] contains these words:

You're at it again - starting a new thread to answer a question instead of doing it under the one you're replying to.

Are you aware you're doing it?

If so, why do you do it?

If not, then "You're starting a new thread to answer each question". Please stop it!

[owdman]

Tell them you want a proper job done, fully completed, guaranteed with no disclaimers or you will go somewhere else - and you want your deposit back or you will start proceedings. They can't take a deposit and then impose unreasonable conditions afterwards. They shouldn't take a deposit at all.

cheers

Jacob

[Nick]

Can you explain what you are talking about? daddyfreddy's post contains nige's name and text, and nige's original message ID.

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

I think you'll find "Fred" was the culprit for starting new threads instead of replying to the original. ;-)

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Guy King saying something like:

Agent handles it fine.

It seems to be that fred's news reader altered the spacing in the post title, or maybe fred did it himself, not realising that changes the title.

[Matt]

Check your newsreader, it's threaded here ok with the original message reference

and its also on google as a single thread.

[Nick]

It looks like posting using Google removes the multiple spaces in the heading, since manatbandq is also using Google to post and the same thing happened. Mozilla and Google and Agent show them all in the same thread, so bad luck guys, you're outnumbered!

[Dave Fawthrop]

|Guy King wrote: | |> The message |> from [e-mail] contains these words: |> |> |>>Ask them if it's standard or if it's just particular to your place |>>because it's in a poor state. |> |> |> You're at it again - starting a new thread to answer a question instead |> of doing it under the one you're replying to. |> |> Are you aware you're doing it? |> |> If so, why do you do it? |> |> If not, then "You're starting a new thread to answer each question". |> Please stop it! | |Can you explain what you are talking about? |daddyfreddy's post contains nige's name and text, and nige's |original message ID.

You are posting to usenet which has a very useful method of keeping track of who is replying to which post, called threading. This is automatically kept track of by the header line: References:

This *essential* when threads get to hundreds of posts, dozens of layers deep.

I note that you are using Mozilla/5.0 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.5) Gecko/20031007 Perhaps someone using Mozilla could explain which wrong button you are hitting.

[Nick]

If you actually had a look at the headers, you will see that daddyfreddy's post contained that reference line perfectly. Please go and look now.

As I have already explained in this thread, the problem is occurring because Google removes superfluous blanks from the subject line, and some deficient newsreaders interpret that as a change of thread. I hope you will all have the decency to apologise to daddyfreddy.

[manatbandq]

At least you didn't pillory me for using Google as usually happens;-) To compound the crime I'm using Google through IE6;-)

Anyone else using the same combination notced that the visited links don't diplay properly anymore? So, when someone adds to a thread that you've read it still shows purple (in my case) as a visited link whereas a few days ago it would revert to (blue) unvisited link. I know this is a function of the browser but Google must have done something to the format of the links such that they don't change when a thread is updated.

MBQ