The daughter's new house

Bit of a laugh really. It's only when your child buys a house that you realise how utterly crap most people's DIY is. And how poor a standard of workmanship they accept from other people. This is the professional classes I'm talking about of course; the sort of people who can talk the hind leg off a donkey but don't know one end of a screwdriver from another.

The only lights in the living room were wall lights with 5W CFLs. With the dimmer at anything other than max they flickered like mad.

The bath drained through the wall to a plastic right angle connector on the outside wall that couldn't be connected other than for one second because the pipe through the wall was too short.

The air-cond unit on the side wall was positioned such (low down) that the brackets threatened to damage any vehicle going up the drive.

The door to the booze fridge actually fell off.

Under the carpet in the corner of the office was a transformer, red hot because it fed the garden lights and there was a short on the cable.

The block paving ends at the pavement with a 2" drop, instead of being graded in.

The TV distribution system made me laugh out loud.

One of the security lights is inaccessible without elaborate scaffolding, and it doesn't need to be there. There are other accessible locations that would work just as well. It makes you wonder why... I mean, who would...

There's one of those very elaborate corner cupboards in the kitchen. When you open it there are shelves on the inside of the door and a lever pulls another set of shelves along on runners. As found, the door wouldn't open more than 2". The mechanism was jammed by loose bits of shelf, rails, etc. The clips that normally hold the whole thing together were found in a packet in the bottom of the cupboard. Hence it has dis-assembled.

When opened that cupboard door handle scrapes the oven handle.

The pullswitch in the downstairs lavatory would be behind the door, had someone not fitted a longer cord and some ingeniously positioned pulleys.

Bill

Reply to
Bill Wright
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Well I hope it was all reflected in the price.

Reply to
harry

That makes me despair at the cost, time and effort to fix all the bodges. My mother's house is a bit like that!

The air conditioning there seems a luxury in a house with shoddy workmanship.

Reply to
pamela

Oh yes... The stuff I've seen helping people out for the last few years...

12 year old newbuild: FCU not screwed on behind fridge, washing machine socket lying unfixed on T+E under cabinets, grommet displaced in switch, no earth to backbox (well, there was, but the screw was as bald as Picard's head), shit plumbing, poor drywall finishing, gash loo fitting.

That's the "pros" done with. Then we get onto the DIY or other work the previous owners had done like using mastic for kitchen and bathroom sealing applied not so much with a with a finger but an elephant's willy. Tiling over unsuitable floors without lining with heavy ply.

I saw an 82 to 110 pipe joint the other day that seemed to have been made with expanding foam rather than an adaptor!

You have to give them marks for that one!

Reply to
Tim Watts

Interesting. The ability to DIY is largely classless in my circle of acquaintances. I'd say that applies here too.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Heath Robinson is clearly alive and well. Thankfully.

Reply to
Davey

Unfortunately all these are quite common things brought about by lack of forethought, loss of instructions, and a problem with engaging brain cells with common sense written on them.

I have found that folk like me who never went to university exhibit far more of all three good practices etc, than most Graduates do, as they tend to imagine they know all about everything. Brian

Reply to
Brian-Gaff

Its only used to cool the shorted out transformer of course! Brian

Reply to
Brian-Gaff

Yes, I've made a door closer out of meccano and the pulleys needed to be cranked to get away from the wall so the pop bottlewieight did not scrape it. Grin.

Brian

Reply to
Brian-Gaff

I'm all for Heath Robinson, just not bodges and dangerous practices like the transformer under the floor.

I have made the strip lights in some display cabinets last almost for ever, by connecting them in series with a hidden choc block. Brian

Reply to
Brian-Gaff

So often problems are caused by people not realising what components, tools and materials are available and correct for the job.

Reply to
DerbyBorn

I don't think you can generalise: my experience is that going to university doesn't makes much difference. Even as a schoolboy I was aware that some of my friends were of the practical type, and others the impractical ones. But I had no idea really why that was: family background, genetic inheritance, who knows? Though I'm sure that having a father who was always willing to take things apart to mend them and do d-i-y jobs around the house must have influenced me.

At college I found that among my friends there were both practical and impractical types. The difference became apparent quite quickly, as nearly all of us rode bicycles in those days. When the bike went wrong type (a) got out their screwdriver, spanner etc and started to fix it, type (b) headed for the nearest bike shop. One of my friends even took his Sturmey Archer hub gears completely apart and explained to me how they worked, which quite impressed me at the time. A few years later when I had a similar problem I was inspired by his example to do the same, and got it re-assembled and working again. On the whole, I don't really think my college education affected my d-i-y skills. But are those with good d-i-y skills more or less likely to go to university than the others - I doubt if it makes much difference. But your mileage may vary.

Reply to
Clive Page

This week's episode of The Apprentice, where the candidates have to operate a handyperson business, was highly amusing.

Especially the English Literature graduate who was surprised that they had to do the actual work.

Owain

Reply to
spuorgelgoog

I grew up in a house where the only screw driver was a bent wire one that c ame with the Singer sewing machine and the only saw a tenon saw. We had a h ammer and a hatchet of course but basically that was it. I'm the other extr eme. A dyed in the wool tool junkie, so its not hereditary though may own c hildren, male and female, will tackle d.i.y. jobs.

Reply to
fred

Some people have the ability to mentally see in an exploded 3-D sort of manner just how something like that is going to work and be put together.

Reply to
Tim Streater

When my mother purchased a house it was found that the previous owners had removed their light fittings and replaced them with simple pendants with a single bulb. The ceiling rose had been removed, the wires twisted together and insulated with Sellotape.

Reply to
alan_m

Bill Wright scribbled

You're a right nit picker! Bet the daughter loved following you around, feeling more and more daft every minute.

Reply to
Jonno

I have identified the most important job.

Reply to
ARW

My experience is that big posh houses often have terrible workmanship.

Bill

Reply to
Bill Wright

You would be surprised how many apprentices are surprised when they find out after leaving school they have to do some actual work.

Reply to
ARW

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