Do Bryant Homes have a good reputation for quality?

[Mike Mitchell]

Bryant are now building where I want to move to. What are people's experiences of this company and its properties?

MM

[PJO]

Difficult to answer because it is now a trading name of a larger company. Bryant was independent until bought out (don't know when) and are now part of the Taylow Woodrow empire. Recently Taylor Woodrow also bought Wilson Connolly Homes and have now rebranded that company to Bryant too. So, the Bryant homes near you may not be the same Bryant as on another site where people have experience.

Bear in mind also that there are always unhappy customers and bad shots should be taken lightly until proven.

All house developers are much the same and if you want something "nice" or unusual then build yourself or approach a much smaller developer/builder.

[John]

To a large extent it must depend on the quality of sub-contractors doing the work and the standards of the site foreman.

Some house builders set ridiculous time allowances subbies to do some tasks - leading to skimping (which can be covered up).

Also - what is Quality? To some it may be the 'quality of finish' on the door handles - to others the quality of the bathroom suite. What it should mean is Foundations, drains, roofing, brickwork, flooring, etc. Builders can easily fool the buyer with some slightly more expensive fittings which lead you to believe the whole property must be of high quality.

[Huge]

My parents bought a Bryant Home, and it started to fall down, because no-one had fitted cross-bracing between the joists.

In their defence, it was speedily rectified and this was 35 years ago.

[Mike Tomlinson]

In article , Mike Mitchell writes

be of interest.

[Peter Taylor]

Extremely interesting.....

Most people are aware that many builders, particularly those the size of Bryants or Wilcon Homes, use "subbies". Sometimes these are one man bands, selling only their labour, for which they are paid by the day. Often though, particularly on larger projects, whole chunks of the work are subcontracted out to specialist companies. The subcontractor provides the labour, materials, plant and equipment, and is paid on the quantity of work done - ie piecework. This encourages shoddy workmanship and cutting of corners. The system has been going on for years and years and IMO has bred an attitude of "what can I get away with" rather than "let's do this properly". Quality control on spec housing sites is usually down to the main contractor's site staff, who are pressurised by management to achieve productivity targets and to get work completed as quickly as possible, often with a bonus at stake. If the Local Authority BCO is involved, his powers are limited to matters controlled by the Building Regs (which rules out most of the electrical and finishing work for instance) and he is not over-concerned with workmanship anyway. The NHBC inspector often only comes on the site for a chat and a cup of tea. There really is nobody who represents the interests of the purchaser.

Things were made even more difficult by the recession in the 90's, when a lot of skilled labour was lost. Contractors were scratching around for labour and many used foreign (possible illegal?) workers from Kosovo and Eastern Europe. Although I've seen a few good ones, on the whole this must have encouraged cheating - I once asked a contractor to dismiss a couple of useless brickies and two weeks later they arrived back as carpenters!!

On top of all this, modern materials and techniques have been developed solely with the purpose of increasing productivity on site, and these cheap-quality shortcuts have now become the norm. Plasterboard on dabs, taping and jointing and chipboard floating floors are all good examples - all these create severe drawbacks for the house owner over the traditional methods. Only the builder see any advantages.

The whole system is geared to producing shoddy workmanship IMO - just like the bad old days of the car industry. These days if you go out to buy a new house on an estate you have to expect shoddy workmanship, often very cheap materials and poor finishing. This has become the normal specification. Very little care is put into the work and often nobody bothers with a "snag list". The NHBC has no responsibility towards the purchaser and their "guarantee" very often amounts to empty words.

Good quality materials and high standards of labour are available, in very short supply. But not many large spec builders are going to spend that sort of money while purchasers accept poor quality and without any worthwhile warranty backup. It would be nice to say that you get what you pay for, but sadly house prices seem to have very little to do with quality. Depressing isn't it!

To answer the original OP's question - the difference between any two builders the size of Bryant Homes is not really a matter of the quality of the construction - that can vary widely from site to site depending on the labour and supervision employed. The real difference is in the commitment to customer after-care. Talk to previous purchasers.

Peter

[Mike Mitchell]

Thanks for that. I've seen that site before. It seems very emotive in its commentary. Does one crack make a calamity across the whole country? I don't know. Sadly there still doesn't appear to be any organisation, even the Which mob, which lists the truly outstanding builders of quality houses. After all, there cannot be that many and it would thus be a very short list.

What about local, one-off builders? They surely are better than the big companies?

MM

[KD]

cheap-quality

I can only reiterate this advice. Speak to the locals who have already bought. Make sure to speak to a few of them. I have personally had a nightmare with Bryant but I wouldn't go so far as to condemn everything they do. Only most of it :-) We spoke to one resident who seemed quite happy. We should have spoken to a couple of other neighbours who were having a lot of trouble :-(

Keith

[Tony Bryer]

Check out

Full report (I didn't go through the register to download process) is at

[IMM]

The sooner a CORGI like system (only better) is applied to all trades the better all around.

cheap-quality

I find Bryant use better quality materials than others such as: doors, locks, boilers, bricks, rads, windows, sockets, etc. The quality of the installation is another matter, that can be good or appalling depending on who installed. The installation quality is the same for any company like these, but at least the materials were better to begin with.

[IMM]

What problems and have they fixed them?

[IMM]

John Prescott could not attend the launch of the latest Housing Forum National Customer Satisfaction Survey. But the deputy prime minister sent a message to housebuilders: "Do something about quality. Do something about numbers. And do something about design."

[Hugo Nebula]

On Wed, 31 Mar 2004 19:01:22 +0100, a particular chimpanzee named "IMM" randomly hit the keyboard and produced:

The Conservatives with their part-privatisation of the Building Control sector and the subsequent lowering of inspection standards (aka the NHBC).

[Tony Bryer]

When I was a BCO we would probably (but not necessarily) have carried out an inspection when the roof trusses were in place before felting and then on completion. There is no way that unfixed roof tiles would have been picked up. This is what the site agent is there to oversee. When we were short staffed roofs were not inspected at all on the basis that it was not a notifiable stage of work.

[IMM]

There is one remarkable point about global warming in the UK. Wind speeds are getting higher. Many of these un-nailed roofs will come off that is for sure. It should be the BCO's responsibility to see tiles are nailed down. The site agents are on bonus's to get the site sold and out of the way ASAP, he does care what the hell is wrong with the houses as long as he hits timescale and budget.

[Neil Jones]

I wouldn't worry about that - the amount of energy the UK seems to expect to take from wind generation will soon get the gales under control.

[Owain]

"Andy Hall" wrote | The public is perfectly capable of protecting itself with | the simple provision of law.

However it's the govt who provide the law.

AIUI there are no legal requirements of quality or fitness for purpose etc that a house has to satisfy. Sale of Goods legislation doesn't apply to houses.

It's obvious that council Building Control officers, NHBC inspections and the like do not enforce the Building Regs on large sites adequately, otherwise there would not be 60 houses with no nails on the tiles. As Tony Bryer later wrote,

There is no way that unfixed roof tiles would have been picked up. This is what the site agent is there to oversee. When we were short staffed roofs were not inspected at all on the basis that it was not a notifiable stage of work.

Once the builder has the completion certificate / building warrant issued by the council, whether issued incorrectly or not, he can say that he has fulfilled his part of the contract and the law. Anything that comes to light after snagging has been completed and the building accepted by the purchaser has then to be settled through dispute resolution and ultimately the courts.

If the law provided customers with a guarantee that building work complied with Building Regs, and the onus was on the builder to disprove any claim, (the building warrant not being accepted as proof) for say six months, the consumer would be in a much stronger position. Such a law wouldn't be onerous to any reasonable and conscientious builder.

Owain

[Jerry.]

Probably !...

[Jerry.]

Idiots can't though, and that is why IMM needs help from HMG.

[IMM]

Silly lad!