What’s happened to the summer then? It’s getting on for August as I write and the fleeces have come out of the cupboard again. Covering up in July?!
I have a fundamental belief that everybody who goes to work does so to do a good job. Covering up work is a thing of the past isn’t it? There are always the disturbing stories of building companies being on the breadline and sometimes, just sometimes, trying to cut corners (but not the customer’s bills) in order to finish a job and get paid. These very often turn out to be disaster areas and they make you very sad when you have to go in and pick up the pieces.
The real difficult jobs are those where people say that they have done something when clearly they have not. I, and others like me, have not fallen from the top of a Christmas tree and we are generally not daft. So here comes the inevitable story...
COVERING UP SHODDY WORK
Take the job I went on about two years ago. The developer was building some mews houses and I queried the lateral restraint strapping in the roofspace. “Yes it’s in guv’nor” was the tale but something rang the alarm in my head. Well yes it was in, I could see that, but some bright spark had simply drilled and plugged the strap to the gable wall and hadn’t hooked it into the cavity. A little bit of education followed with a promise to return to see the finished article.
Once I returned and looked carefully, the mortar smeared across the face of the blockwork to make it look as if holes had been made to allow the strap to enter the cavity was so thin that you could still see the strap through it. Exposing other straps in the roof (because by now he had made me cross) showed straps in place but no timber noggins or packings had been employed. A disaster from start to finish. Why oh why didn’t he just do the job correctly in the first place. The time and expense of repairing strapping when rooms are decorated just isn’t worth it. Lateral restraint is still, despite this being my third article on the subject, the most often abused part of the construction. Give us a call if you need any help or advice about it.
David Hill, Director of Warranty
