Worst bodge DIY JOB?

Discussion in 'Other Trades Talk' started by 24 hr locksmith, Jan 8, 2006.

  1. 24 hr locksmith

    24 hr locksmith New Member

    what's the worst bodge you've ever come across or done yourself? I am a carpenter and locksmith and was recently asked to look at a bathroom wall that needed new plasterboard. On removing the horrible 80's patterned hardboard I found plasterboard on top of hardboard on top on plasterboard and so on for 7 layers. After removing all these layers and completing the job the bathroom was a foot wider!
     
  2. Jonny Round Boy

    Jonny Round Boy New Member

    1st house I bought (in about 97, I think) - it was a DIY nightmare. Previous owner had tried to 'improve' the property at some point. The bathroom was a good example.

    Virtually every single floorboard had been taken up, then put back badly - the floor was like an assault course! To try and remedy the situation, they'd nailed 2 layers of hardboard over the top to 'smooth it out'.
    It was then tastefully finished off with a nice light grey carpet, which, in a novel feature, also ran up the side and end of the bath!

    Above the bath was an electric shower - the water pipe to it was surface mounted, diagonally, to the wall (which, by the way, was not tiled, or in any way water resistant, just wallpapered). The shower unit itself was only about 500mm up from the top edge of the bath itself. The power to it came from a 2.5mm cable, again surface mounted, and with most of the insulation burnt!

    Suffice to say I didn't bother to try it out - I ripped it out within 12 hours of moving in.

    As an aside, when the survey was done, the surveyor pointed out that the above 'may need some attention'!!!
     
  3. owen

    owen New Member

    House i'm in the process of renovating. Bathroom has a step down into it. Stripping the bathroom today, thought i might as well get the step out of the way.

    The "step" was actually 4 x 1m lengths of fence post laid next to each other with a piece of carpet nailed over them!
     
  4. panlid

    panlid New Member

    well you didnt know did you till you uncovered it;)
     
  5. gadget man

    gadget man Screwfix Select



    The "step" was actually 4 x 1m lengths of fence post
    laid next to each other with a piece of carpet nailed
    over them!


    I'll keep that one in mind if I need a quickstep!!...:)
     
  6. Andy Fish

    Andy Fish New Member

    Right the look at the list below which are all things I have found in my current renovation!

    Drive layed 6inchs above damp course for 10mtrs at the back of the property

    Garage floor sloping towards the property

    Electrics earthed to bath! Yes its true!

    Additional internal wall added to make new bathroom, but they got the measurements wrong and then had to knock a hole in the new wall to fit the bath!

    Ornate original plasterwork, when trying to get a cable through the wall they didn't have a drill bit long enough so chiselled round the plaster, twice! About £500 to fix alone!

    They put in a new toilet upstairs, instead of fixing the battens for the boxing carcass with screws to the walls they skewed in 6in nails! Try getting that off with out massive damage!

    The toilet was fixed off center because of noggins under the floorboards obstructing the waste pipe, so if you needed to have a **** you had to sit sideways!

    The list goes on, but my favourite is a well known local plumber who put a new soil pipe through the wall and knocked off some of the rendering. To fix it it slapped some cement into the hole and then threw some gravel from the drive onto it to try and match the original pebbledash! I kid you not this is true!

    Having said all of that even the estate agent told me not to look at it as it was appaling!

    I would like to see the lok on her face now as the £200k wreck is now eight bedrooms with two self conatined flats on one end and last valuation was about £1,000,000!

    A long hard road but worth it!

    Happy bodging!

    Fish
     
  7. WouldWurker

    WouldWurker New Member

    My first real house was brought from a policeman who had made so much money from the overtime during the miners strike that he could afford to go upmarket.

    While renovating the kitchen I found...

    Surface mount sockets wired in with bell wire buried a mm or two into a scratch made in the plaster & covered up with polyfilla. The bell wire ran diagonally across the wall to the nearest "real" socket. God knows how it worked.

    Under the floor an electric cable clipped clipped off with short lengths of T&E nailed to the joists. Nothing much wrong with that you might think. Unfortunately it gave PC Plod ideas and he decided to dispense with the short length of T&E for his own handiwork. Nice 1" nails right through the centre of the flex, neatly spaced every 3 ft along the joist.

    Most painful was the hinged loft hatch, opening downwards and held up only by magnetic catches (6 off!) on the side opposite the hinge. It was a real hair-trigger job, which my wife found the hard way while walking past about a week after moving in.

    Nothing, however, was as bad as my neighbour a few doors down who discovered when he came to sell that the the previous owner (also an ex-policeman) had knocked through the back of the garage (which was under the house) to gain some more space. By all accounts the surveyor was ashen faced as he phoned a builder muttering something about needing acros and a lintel as soon as possible.
     
  8. trydiy

    trydiy New Member

    our bathroon in the extension was a good one the pipe was not fixed together on the waste pipe so they taped it together we did not know until we fitted a new bathroon suite
     
  9. russ295

    russ295 New Member

    bought a flat to renovate, pulled the staircase carpet up, pulled the staircase carpet up, pulled the staircase carpet up, pulled the staircase carpet up, pulled the staircase carpet up, pulled the staircase carpet up, pulled the staircase carpet up, yip 7 layers!!
     
  10. bodget&scarpers

    bodget&scarpers New Member

    once had to cut new door in bathroom wall,and only studwork,simple.
    but there must have been 5 layers of tiles :(
    and pipe work was every where, total nightmare.
     
  11. gardm1nt

    gardm1nt New Member

    Worst by far has been on my currrent job, Replacing a tastefull 1970s peach coulored suite and light green tiles with wooden dado half way.

    To my horror the dado had been used to hide the fact that there were four layers of tiles.

    On starting to chip up the floor tiles I realised that they had been stuck on to the old viynl covering with gripfill and grouted. The viynl was on top of another couple of layers of previouse tileing on tileing. The scary bit is that this 'diy' was caried out by the previouse and only owner since new. I await to see what suprises the downstairs and bathroom has to show next week.
     
  12. barnet bill

    barnet bill New Member

    I instaled an electric shower in a house but not being part p registered told the women she will have to get a sparky in to wire it up,week later i get a call saying the shower isnt working when i traced the wire he instaled it was joined with a junction box to a length of scrap wire under the floorboards.
     
  13. bathstyle

    bathstyle Active Member

    Whilst quoting for a Shower room I looked under the existing shower tray to see the threaded part of the shower waste there with no trap.

    This drained into an old Back inlet Gully which was originally outside before the shower room extension had been built.

    They obviously decided to position the tray directly over the gully to save time running a new drainage system.

    Didn't bother even quoting for the job
     
  14. Harry the tiler

    Harry the tiler New Member

    was working in a house a while back, customer had just moved in, she had a full survey done, anyway the previous diy owner had decided to remove the chimney breast from top to bottom, only he hadnt herd of gallows brackets, the breast in the loft was just hanging there un supported in anyway, it was hanging over the daughters bedroom directly above her bed, the survey never picked it up, the surveyor was then sued big time and payed out a nice few quid in compo..

    H
     
  15. Tangoman

    Tangoman Well-Known Member

    Bought an 10.5 kW electric shower a year or so back.
    One of the neighbours saw me carry it home, and commented they had just bought one as well.
    Later that weekend we were chatting and I commented that it was a ***** to fit the 10.5mm cable as the joists were close together and I had to run it through from the front of the house right to the back through about 12 of them.

    He said it was easy to fit - I asked him if the wiring was already in place for it - "Wiring? We just plugged it in!
     
  16. Andy Fish

    Andy Fish New Member

    Thats a classic!

    Best yet!

    Fish
     
  17. spider06

    spider06 New Member

    I had the pleasure of living in a ground floor flat.

    One night water started coming through the ceiling from upstairs. I went up and told them and they said they would sort it out.

    This happened 3 more times, in the end they let me in their flat to find out where the water was coming from. Turned out the trap under the bath was knackered and the 'fix' to stop water ruining my ceiling, was to tie a carrier bag round it!

    Needless to say I had to have new ceiling.
     
  18. Legal Sparrow

    Legal Sparrow Member

    Don't bother with expensive an difficult to fit skirting boards. Simply wallpaper all the way down the wall and under the carpet!

    That's what the previous owner of my house decided to do.
     
  19. nakedterry

    nakedterry New Member

    My previous house had an loft conversion done some years previous by unnamed owner. Staircase ,Dormer, the lot, very nice, except the dormer was a flat roof that actually sloped TOWARDS the house with no drain off.
    Needless to say it failed constantly (yearly). There was a puddle about a foot deep on it all year round. NICE!
    Didnt tell the sparkly new couple that bought it though, serves them right for doing my head in during the sale.

    Another in the same house. I couldnt find the hot water storage tank or the WATER HEATER switch for a couple of years. Turns out the previous owner had completely concealed it behind sliderobes. I only found it when I ripped them out. So thats why my bedroom was so cosy!!!
     
  20. nakedterry

    nakedterry New Member

    Just remembered this one too.
    Same house.

    The outhouse had a socket and light supplied by bare untrunked T&E cable-tied to a length of wire slung between the house and the shed which also crossed a shared laneway.

    The oil boiler located in the yard had an electrical arrangement much similar with the cable exiting the wall on the 1st floor, across a flat roof and down to the boiler. Again this was not sheilded or trunked in any way.

    Im so glad I moved.
     

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