newhome

Don’t say you remember the rhyme from the school playground! “If it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down” But more practically, how do you know if it’s flushed ‘cleanly’ if the lid is already down?

I’m a newbie too (to this forum) just a scarred one! I truely hope that nothing like this ever happens to anyone else, but the fact that it happened to me proves that unexpected and sometimes inexplicable shit does happen on occasion. I still roll my eyes when I recall being told that it was down to us to prove that we hadn’t employed the guy ourselves. We didn’t have documentation to prove that he had been employed by the builder but then he had nothing at all to prove that we had engaged him. Not even a text from us, as we had no idea who he was and we didn’t even find out his full name until he engaged a solicitor. He lied through his teeth on that so you have to wonder what else he lied about.

We didn’t see any consequences for the scaffolder, unless H&S threw the book at him with us being unaware of it, but I don’t think so. Well apart from him going into liquidation, although I rather doubt we caused that. I don’t think there was much wrong with the scaffolding in truth and the accident was pretty minor so maybe the H&S officer wasn’t that bothered, and I’m not sure that he was even aware of the irregularity in terms of the insurance. It still irks me that we were judged to be the party at fault here. Seems to me that the other parties got away it scot-free but both were guilty of deception whilst we were guilty of being niave. Self builders are more likely to be caught out in all sorts of areas due to inexperience, so if this post does nothing more than get people thinking more about the implications and consequences and thinking outside the box (as opposed to @Onoff‘s boxing in ) then it will have been worth posting. By that I mean conceptualising problems differently; and understanding your position in relation to a situation in a way you’d never thought of before. And use this forum for advice of course. Having H&S, solicitors, insurance companies, and the courts (we were served with papers by the Sheriff court), involved in any sort of accident on site is all pretty stressful and it went on for years.

Nice flush plate . And you may well need to close the lid All looks great! Does this mean luxury bathing now or are you still reliant on the caravan?

We did have a camera on but it didn’t capture the place where he apparently fell. It was put there for security in truth. Never dreamt that it might be needed to record accidents. I’m just glad that no one fell from the top really as however you badge it, it all looks quite dangerous working at height, to me anyway. We were away on holiday when the scaffolding was erected but they don’t look to have taken many safety precautions (photo 1). And how are they supposed to work on the roof safely? Yes, the scaffolding would hopefully save them if they slid down it, but what prevents them from falling into the roof when the sarking is being done for example?

We paid him weekly so that wouldn't have worked. I have all the payments logged and we made 11 payments to him in total. We also didn't know that he was going to deny having hired the worker until my husband was named as the 'employer' in the claim which wasn't the instant the incident happened and was after he had finished his part of the work here. It was obviously something they cooked up between them. Just found the claimant's FB page as it happens. He's apparently now a site foreman for a building firm having started there as a carpenter which is what he was when he came on site here. So much for life changing injuries . I think he thought that the compo would mean that he would never need to work again! I don't know how much he eventually got as the insurance company never told me but last I heard they were offering a relatively tiny amount

Needless to say - it wasn't me taking the photos! I didn't even venture up to the first lift!

Their levitation skills weren't that good - the top lift was removed once the roof was finished.

Thought it might be useful to detail an accident that happened on our site during the main construction if only to prevent others from having a similar issue. I'm sure that we must have done some things wrong here, but there were others to blame in this tale too, and the events that unfolded seemed very bizarre to me. We used a registered scaffolding company to hire the scaffolding from and this was erected in August 2009. It was used for several months to do all of the main construction work and then towards the end of its time here someone fell off it. We used a particular builder to do all of the timber frame work, he supplied his own workers, and we paid him (and only him), in cash as he requested. We never paid any money directly to his team members. Towards the end of 2009 he sent a new guy here to do some work on the soffits and he arrived along with one of the regular team (the boss wasn't on site that day which wasn't that unusual as it was often just members of his team). The OH was living in a caravan on site at that time so greeted the 2 guys, one of whom he knew quite well as he had been working here for several months. He offered them tea and bacon rolls as he tended to do most mornings and went into the caravan to sort that out. About 10 minutes after they arrived there was a shout and the new guy had apparently fallen from the first level of the scaffolding landing on his arse (see photo to see the height of the first platform for reference). His co worker hadn't seen him fall and nor had my hubby who was in the caravan at the time. He was lying on the ground so my hubby called an ambulance. He said that the guy then got up, staggered to his car, put on his hi vis jacket and hard hat and sat in his car. When the ambulance arrived they suggested that he shouldn't have got into his car, and that they might get the fire brigade out to remove the roof in case he had damaged his neck. The guy refused their help at that point, said he wasn't having his car wrecked, and drove home. My husband reported the accident to the scaffolding company whereupon the owner drove to the site and attached an insurance certificate to the scaffolding dated that day. He said that the scaffolding wasn't signed off to use prior to that date even though it was hired back in August, several months before and had been used pretty much daily. Clearly he hadn't insured the site as he should have done. Health and Safety came to the site too and declared that some 'clips' were missing from the scaffolding, and put a notice on it declaring it not to be used. The scaffolding company came and put the clips on and it was then signed off as able to be used again. Apparently later that day the guy who fell off went to A&E and declared that he had hurt himself badly. He then engaged a no win no fee solicitor and took himself off to Australia to 'convalesce' or so he claimed. We reported the accident to our insurance company, and stated that the worker had been supplied by the contractor who was erecting the timber frame, and the scaffolding was supplied by the registered scaffolding company. The first issue we had was that the builder denied having supplied the worker. This left us with an issue as our insurance company said that we couldn't prove that the worker came via the main builder, and nor could we prove that we hadn't employed him direct. The scaffolding company collected the scaffolding and put themselves into liquidation meaning that the no win no fee lawyer came after us. My husband had to make statements and years later it was still going on with any settlement the insurance company was prepared to make reducing as time went on. It all seemed quite bizarre to us however that it was our insurance cover that was being claimed against when there were 2 other parties involved. In hindsight we should probably have taken a register of every person on site and who they were supplied from, and required every worker to sign in when they attended. We possibly should have known that scaffolding had to have an insurance certificate attached to it, but we believed that hiring from a registered company would have meant that we were completely covered as they would do the right things. Ironically my husband had refused to hire the scaffolding from anywhere other than a registered scaffold company in order to comply with H&S, but ultimately it did us no good!

Ikea have an online presence now too for some products and in specific areas in case it’s helpful to anyone else. They don’t deliver to me however.

Welcome! I’m a newbie too and the lovely folk here have helped me enormously with some of the ‘snagging’ from my new build.

That’s my house plus at least 2 of the rooms too

My old condenser worked great and I still feel sad it died. The new one has never been quite as good but did get to the stage where everything was coming out damp. As you say above I eventually fixed it by cleaning the heat exchanger periodically. It’s still not as good though and the sensor always seems to stop the dryer before the clothes have reached the level of dryness selected.

Paid between £60 and £200 on my build although plumbers were generally a bit more than that.

I’m with you @lizzie. I never ever use the dryer overnight or even if I leave the house. I only ever run the dryer, washing machine or dishwasher during the day when someone is home for safety reasons. Yeah maybe I’m paranoid but if I don’t have to take a chance why would I? In addition, I don’t want to find a crumpled heap of clothes in the dryer after they’ve been sat there for a few hours. Part of my ironing free strategy is hanging everything up as soon as the drying cycle is finished. I looked at the heat pump dryers when I changed mine about 3 years ago. The additional purchase cost was more than I would save in electricity, and the longer drying time didn’t work for me so I bought another condenser. Haven’t had a vented dryer since 2001.

I’ve got a washer dryer too but the dryer is dreadful. Things come out wrecked or creased so I only ever use the separate dryer. Would never buy another combi machine. Anyway when I do laundry I want to be able to wash and dry at the same time.

surprised you made it out of your 20s then!!

North Berwick is lovely (went there for lunch yesterday) but heaving with tourists in the summer and £££ to buy there. Where all the investment bankers live. There were some plots for sale when we were looking for a plot. £350 - 400k which I thought might include the house at the time as it was soooo much more than other plots not that far away but no, plot only on the Archerfield estate (which at the time I'd never heard of). This is the type of property they created on those plots I guess. Out of my price bracket anyway! http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-50288832.html

i thought that it might be staged with the roof panels lying flat on the floor .

Jesus - should have been wearing brown trousers!!

I think that’s probably reflective of how much of the work my hubby did which clearly was free to us. The costs for other trades varied hugely, and the ones that were more expensive were definitely not always the best. Skill level varied enormously from fantastic to bloody hopeless and everything else in between.

Welcome to the Borders! I’m out on the coast, but also originally from the south of England. We used J Thorburn for crane hire. Very good and very reliable even changing the day at short notice when the TF company said they weren’t ready to deliver with pretty much no notice. We opened an account with Jewson and got the rest of the hire from them, or the builders hired it in themselves as you can’t claim the vat back for plant hire anyway. We just used the farm behind us if we needed a forklift and they sent a tractor down for peanuts so worth getting to know if there is someone who will do similar where you are. Scaffolding company was terrible so I won’t recommend the one we used. We also opened an account with Dove and used to mix and match depending on who was cheaper. Both Jewson and Dove have branches in Berwick. If you get some time to get out and about there are some great coastal places; St Abbs, Coldingham Bay and Eyemouth in the Borders, Dunbar, North Berwick and Gullane in East Lothian, Bamburgh Castle and Lindisfarne in Northumberland. Mackays in Eyemouth is supposed to have the best fish n chips for miles.

Ya mean like the time I put the iPhone in the washing machine and it came out fizzing manically. Was completely buggered, but luckily insured

And ain’t that the truth!

Believe me - there weren't no dreaming going on that night (it happened at 3am) - it was the stuff of nightmares!