would you just DIY it ?

[sm_jamieson]

A shoddy house from a National house builder. Nothing too serious but it all mounts up - I think I'd give up then snagging and just fix it myself. Link to article:

Simon.

[Tim Watts]

They forgot to mention the gash wiring in the loft photo showing no insulation. It's not unsafe - it's just gash and untidy without any good reason.

I could do better siliconing when I was 10.

Now - how did this get building regs certification? I know these types of developer often use private BCOs (which to my mind should be outlawed) so why don't the LABC at teh local council take the private BCO firm to court?

[alan_m]

At least they left a bit of slack. In my mother's 1960s built property the fitters must have been on a bonus to use the least amount of wire. I'm sure they ran a wire to one ceiling rose, fitted it and then pulled up any slack tight before routing by the shortest route to the next fitting. Remove a light fitting/ceiling rose and the strain on the freed wires pull them all through the hole in the ceiling.

[Tim Watts]

At times I look at my own renovation work and keep wondering:

Am I doing wiring as well as an electrician? Will my plumbing hold good? I don't have any good reason to doubt, I spend hours checking and rechecking terminals, pipe joints, cables laid and supported as well as possible. It's just the isolation of not seeing other people work to a good standard - so I don't have ready points of reference for myself.

Then I see the link above and it reminds me why I AM doing so much DIY work.

Thank you :)

I've seen a fair few new build houses with close coupled bogs leaning one way, the cistern leaning the other way (ie both off level), screws missing from cisterns, loose screws on radiator brackets (mostly I suspect due to celcon blocks being the work of the devil).

I've seen people change a built in fridge in a 12 year old building and the flex plate was not even screwed to the backbox.

Lighting transformer laying loose ontop of kitchen cabinets - that's just lazy - FFS put a couple of screws in.

Neighbour had to have their kitchen floor dug up because hthe drains ran under it with insufficient slope so clogged solid with washing powder deposits.

etc etc.

*My* bog cistern is mounted on celcon block wall (one of only two such walls in the house). I hung it on M6 stainless studs resin anchored 4" (nearly all the way) into the wall.

Ditto basin. if either come off, they will have to take a chuck of wall with them.

[Nightjar]

I'm not sure why he thinks that the WC being off centre, to avoid the wash basin, is a fault.

[John Rumm]

Short answer - money...

LABC have limited budgets for such things and will tend to reserve using legal action on developers for the more serious and persistent offenders when other remedies fail.

So they will go after those creating properties that are death traps, or those that threaten public safety of damage to others property as a priority. Sloppy fit and finish, and not meeting part L etc, comes way down the list.

[John Rumm]

Yup I also wondered if you would really call it a fault or a "design choice".

Some of the other "faults" were probably a bit picky as well (like floor to carpet gap being inconsistent).

[Peter Johnson]

The WC is off-centre in my cloakroom, which I attribute partially to the outlet being installed in the floor before the walls were built. I didn't notice until after I changed the fittings a few years ago.

[sm_jamieson]

Maybe he meant not lined up with the large tiles. A inch to the left and it would look fine.

Also, we didn't get granite, but doesn't it always have a joint a bit like that - although maybe not quite so wide ?

Simon.

[Nightjar]

I suspect that once he had started with some of the real faults, like no insulation in the loft, he got a bit carried away and included everything he didn't quite like.

[Tim Watts]

I have 3 hall lights 4" off the centre line.

2 are downlighters designed to take very low power leds for a very dim bit of night lighting. There are 2 sets of joists right down the centre so no choice but to go off centre.

The other is the main luminaire and I thought it would be better to keep that in a line, so that went off centre too...

[spuorgelgoog]

all mounts up - I think I'd give up then snagging and just fix it myself.

Of course it's not really a £580,000 house.

It's a £140,000 house near Reading. Near Swansea it would cost £140,000 (comparing new build 4 bedr detached prices on Rightmove) and no doubt the re are even cheaper similar houses elsewhere.

£440,000 of the price has everything to do with land values and speculati ve builder's profit, and nothing to do with the quality of the actual build .

Owain

[Chris French]

Not on the granite tops I've seen.

Friends have similar granite to that, and the joints are flush and smooth you'd hardly notice them if you weren't looking for them.

I thought they put some sort of sealant/adhesive in the joint whish is then polished smooth?

Silly place for a joint as well , near the edge of the hob by the looks of it

[Brian Gaff]

Yes but if itss really naff should surely be able to get the cost reduced if the person wants to fix it themselves. Brian

[Andrew Gabriel]

Also, if it's part of a multi-house development, they only check a few of the buildings (and get a corresponding reduction in BC fees).

[sm_jamieson]

One of the thing I always wonder about is that sound insulation between pro perties in terraces or semis (or flats for that matter) is supposed to be m uch better than in the past, but everyone complains about paper-thin walls in new properties, citing that solid 9" brick party walls in older properti es are better and more "solid" (and *they* are not all that good). I can only think this points to the aircrete cavity walls between propertie s being poorly built so air paths exist across the two leafs. Simon.

[Tim Watts]

I've noticed that - sound I mean.

I though BR were much tighter in acoustic insulation requirements but it seems not...

Airpaths would be bad as that means spread of fire is not well contained...

[spuorgelgoog]

Possibly the houses with loft insulation are coincidentally also the ones where the developer left the coffee and hobnobs for the inspector?

Owain

[John Rumm]

You may find they are tighter than the standard to which the industry had sank, rather than tighter than how they did it in Victorian times etc.

Generally they are tighter on that than in Victorian times... dwellings with wall piercings for joist ends or adjacent properties with shared loft spaces are far less common than was the case.

[Tim Watts]

You'd think they'd make an effort in flats - like decoupling the joists and the ceilings below. But not in some of the flats I've been in built this millenia. And it would not kill then to put some acoustic dampening in party walls - but again not it seems...