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When a plumber gets things wrong - Spot the mistake!


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57 minutes ago, rh2205 said:

@ToughButterCup  we went with the architect who looking back probably rushed lots of things ... [ we ] ... wanted a house ready to live in without it taking 5years.

 

Bang on.

Six years in to our build, several things like that going on in this house right now. I have a saying to whoever will listen when I'm overloaded ( which is mostly) - runs like this

 

At the moment, there are several booms stuck up my  @rse to help me sweep up as well as do everything else.  If you are going to put another one up there, I can't guarantee it won't fall out. 

Edited by ToughButterCup
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1 hour ago, rh2205 said:

@joe90 are you saying it’s our mistake then? Even though they had all these bits before they started? Why would you buy a chrome bottle trap and a sink without a cabinet otherwise?


No, as a retired builder who did lots of this work in the past I know from experience that it’s important for the customer to say exactly what’s required. No I would not have done it like that but I have a reputation for being a tad OCD. Customers used to laugh at my quotes because they read like “war and peace” because I had been bitten on the arse over assumptions I made about the customers requirements in the past.

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@PeterW 600mm wide, 380mm tall, 430mm deep. You probably can get some not so appealing pedestal, but I’m not sure with the expensive bottle trap whether it would be better to rectify. The builder told us it was meant to be like that, I just laughed and said but the sink manual shows the water tails above the waste pipe outlet... why would you buy a chrome bottle trap?

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I think you are being a bit harsh.

 

If the plumber had moved the tails up there would have been a coil of excess tail, which may have been visible. (I'm assuming you supplied the tails). At least they are roughly level, vertial and equidistant from the trap.

 

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This tile / basin placement highlights the difficulties of getting different trades to work together.   To get that "right" you would have needed the tiler to plan it in detail and mark out exactly where the tile joints are going to be. that would have to happen before the plasterboard when on, so the plumber could then centre all the pipework with respect to the tiles.  then the plasterboard could go on and the tiling commence.  And if the tiler then changes his plan..........

 

These things are a lot easier to get right if you DIY it and the tiler and plumber are the same person, and you don't mind it all taking longer.

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@ProDave to be honest I am not calling out the tiles.. we know we messed up that one though I noticed the low water pipes issue first because it feels like the bottle trap detail is completely lost! It’s just a culmination, we hadn’t considered the complexity of using a larger tile for a small complicated space. Got similar on the other bathroom, thank god you just walk in towards a bare shower wall with just large tiles on and that is basically the end of wall tiles in that room! Can’t return tiles it seems already asked that one ?

 

Totally agree this is a first world problem & it only serves one purpose just don’t like it if an element looks DIY...

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Is that all you @SteamyTea do in a bathroom? We ....

  • read
  • doze 
  • think
  • drink
  • answer email
  • surf BuildHub
  • be sensibly merry
  • do our online banking
  • do our weekly shopping order from Aldi (Vorsprung Durch Einkaufen !)
  • listen to podcasts and the radio
  • waterboard grandchildren
  • read them stories
  • duck and dive to very loud music

too.

Edited by ToughButterCup
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Hmm will think about it at the weekend it was actually a parent that did the tiling (a professional), so this could of all turned out better if we had just discussed it more about everything that’s involved in planning, just bad at comms with said parent too ?. Does also mean we can go to the struggle of correcting without so much extra cost but I think we will have to live with the alignments as that may well be taking it too far and will mean attempting to get two tiles up in conjunction with trying to save the trim (taking the one below up not likely as much damaging). Thanks for all the thoughts. Anyway it’s a learning curve we certainly have learnt how so many things could be improved along the way, first time doing anything other than replacing a boiler we’ve been that lucky with previous houses!

 

 

Edited by rh2205
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Some aspects of plumbing annoy me.

 

In our en-suite I brought the h&c water pipes out as high as I could expecting them to be out of view.

 

But the tap comes with flexi tails and they can only bend so tight before they kink, and with them bent as tight as they possibly can, you can just see them sticking out underneath.

 

Why can't someone come up with a better system?  20 years ago when I bought a basin with a monoblock mixer tap it cam with solid tails that I could cut to length and I could have fitted an elbow to each to keep the pipework tight to the underside of the unit.  It is a long time since I have seen a monoblock tap with rigid tails.  It seems "flexi is king" at the moment.

 

vanity_unit.thumb.jpg.717f588e275c12dd12a264a62be76d2b.jpg

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1 hour ago, ProDave said:

It seems "flexi is king" at the moment

 

And the flexi tails rot and slowly leak, causing the metal casing to rust and eventually to give way - result - a massive blow out.  make sure you know where your stopcock is!

 

Of course the rust could just be from condensation but either way it's a massive pain if it happens. Go copper!!

 

Simon

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6 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

 

I like the en-suit style @ProDavewas it inspired by your visit to the Pompidou Centre in Paris i.e. flaunt ones structure.

It was inspired by a free standing unit SWMBO saw, but of course it was the wrong size and very expensive,  so I built that unit to look like it was free standing (it is very much fixed) and give the open shelf look that was wanted.

 

 

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