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Groundworker woes


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I am getting frustrated with my ground workers, they have done the reduced dig for my build and the machine operator was pretty damn good, punctual and overall I'm happy with that part and how it progressed (he has now left site and the company i think).

 

What i am getting frustrated about is the actual construction, and the attitude / being on site, a few key issues

 

  • Key below ground/slab drainage setting out which penetrates the slab was wrong (one vertical 110mm pipe was 8cm out and if I hadn't have spotted it, it was set to go into a masonry blockwork above).
  • Delays in work getting done and me having to re-arrange other trades, i know this will happen but it keeps on happening.
  • The site supervisor having to be called away for a number of personal reasons.
  • General lack of motivation to get stuff done.

 

Case in point a blinding layer is set to go down on the reduced dig, before a waterproof membrane can be laid on top, wire meshes / reinforcement etc. Discussion on Sunday with the company owner was the plan was to get the under slab drainage sorted Monday  (it was partially done) and blinding laid Tuesday (today), for the waterproofer to be able to come in on weds to lay the membrane.

 

Yesterday i get word that the under slab drainage isn't going to get done and knocks the rest of the plans out of the window, the site supervisor has focused on a back drop and run to the sewer, rather than the slab. So i rearrange the waterproofer again who now can't come until Monday (fair enough as I have stuffed him about already). Also the site supervisor now says he can't get any blinding concrete for Tuesday / Wednesday or the rest of the week, which I asked them to have arranged.

 

Cue me phoning a number of local concrete firms getting pricing and availability for blinding, get some sorted for £70 /m3 + VAT for Wednesday afternoon, i let the site supervisor know this that its booked, though i need him to confirm him the quantity needed. I then hear from my wife that they haven't been on site for at ~2 hours this morning (i can check the time lapse cam later), and that the site supervisor has now had to leave site due to a personal matter (again), so no work this afternoon. I bet that when i do get in contact with the GW's that means that the site won't be ready for the blinding tomorrow.

 

 

I am paying them on day rates and invoiced on a weekly basis (i pay promptly) and basically i am getting to the point where i feel they are taking the pi$$ with it and i don't trust them to progress with the job, my gut / worry is that due to being on daily's they are kicking the progress can down the road.

 

If they have done all they can on my site, and they are going to another job, o.k as long as i know about it and don't get billed for it.

 

I have been trying to get in contact with the company owner today with no luck, tbh it can't continue how its going, especially with the key slab pour coming up. 

 

I could start getting in contact with other firms and get them off the job, as my patience is wearing thin, but that would would have delays associated with it. Another thing i was thinking was now that the reduced dig is done a lot of the unknowns are out the way so get off a daily rate and onto a fixed fee for key milestones.

 

I need to figure out, is this just how workers are, my 'high' expectations, or are they actually just being poor, and also the way forward.

 

rant over.

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 is this just how workers are, my 'high' expectations, or are they actually just being poor, and also the way forward.

They are being unprofessional as a bare minimum, plus you are not allowing any wiggle room. Arranging follow on trades for the day after an expected completion is unrealistic.

Paying them on day rates to disappear early etc is a breach of contract, Get hold of the owner of the company and point let them know whats going on (they may well be very aware anyway), keep good records of times etc. for later on.

Dont burn your bridges too early.

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Bad luck. I had the same, so many mistakes I noticed, that  I asked them to stop whilst I got up to speed finding the ones I hadn't noticed. They never did finish it and I now need to rectify. It can be very difficult to get anyone else to come on mid project, so I hope you find a solution.

 

One thing tho' start to read every last detail of the drawings etc and you may now find where they were winging it or whether they are stringing it out, and wish you had a fixed price contact. On a daily rate tho', there seems no good to reason to cut corners apart from  ignorance. 

 

Agree with the above. As I am a first timer, it's less stressful to have good gaps between trades. 

Edited by Jilly
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Standard, I am afraid.

 

If they were reliable, eye for detail, professional and well organised they would not be working on a building site.

 

Fixed price may be better.  They may be more incentivised if they are earning well.

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6 minutes ago, markc said:

plus you are not allowing any wiggle room. Arranging follow on trades for the day after an expected completion is unrealistic.

 

keep good records of times etc. for later on.

Dont burn your bridges too early.

 

Cheers, there wasn't suppose to be such a close follow on with the other trade, because of things not progressing previously it got concertinaed as weds was the only day available this week. I will buffer things out a bit more in future.

 

I have a timelapse camera set up with time stamps, so i can use that to call on if the invoice doesn't match, but ideally want to keep the work progressing

 

9 minutes ago, Mr Punter said:

If they were reliable, eye for detail, professional and well organised they would not be working on a building site.

 

??

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Maybe the site supervisor is the only one there that actually knows what they are doing. With him going for personal reasons, everyone has issues that need to be dealt with from time to time, he could have instructed those left behind to not do any thing important that can't be easily fixed. 

It leaves you as the client in a pickle though. A one last chance ultimatum to the company owner that your job is falling behind schedule and if he can't get the right people to the job on time then you will have to part ways. Be calm and precise and leave him knowing that this can't continue.

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1 hour ago, Moonshine said:

...

I am paying them on day rates and invoiced on a weekly basis (i pay promptly) 

...

 

 

And so who (or what external processes)  is / are kicking arses motivating them?

 

Quiet, polite, assertive, simple. Either they make progress or don't get paid. Or be exploited.

It happened to me: it's horrible. The day I cut down the company's advertising banner from the scaffolding and sacked them all was not a day too soon. Should have done it much earlier.

 

The alternative which I would now consider - were I to self build again - is to go round being really bloody nasty, picky, critical, demanding, snide until they saw that I meant what I said.

Time for a shot across the bows. Delay payment until there are some results. And pay two weeks in arrears from now on. That'll flush them out.

 

All prompt payment is doing now is financing laziness.

 

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They will know that you can’t easily replace them and if you do You may get a worse company 

There would be less mistakes if construction was quiet 

 

But in saying that Your paying an hourly rate and would be quite reasonable to point this out 

On large sites nearly all ground-workers will be on an hourly rates But the companies they work for can acutely quantity every job they are doing 

This time of year they should be working on if they fall behind 

 

In waiting 60 days for my invoices to be settled 

The only time that changes is when we do work for self builders 

He should be treating you better 

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17 hours ago, nod said:

In waiting 60 days for my invoices to be settled 

 

Yikes!

 

No groundworkers on site this morning, no answer on the mobiles i have for them / owner, blinding ain't going down today then!

 

 

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51 minutes ago, Moonshine said:

 

Yikes!

 

No groundworkers on site this morning, no answer on the mobiles i have for them / owner, blinding ain't going down today then!

 

 

I think its time to make a stand, do you know where they are based? go see them, knock on the door and sort it out

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1 hour ago, Moonshine said:

...

No groundworkers on site this morning, no answer on the mobiles i have for them

...

 

Exact same tactics used here. In one instance, they kept that kind of behaviour up for five weeks. Yes, 5 weeks. This is a list of some of the stuff I had to resort to......

  • Find a landline or other mobile to which you can have access - one where the account  isn't linked to you. Make sure that the phone shows its Caller I/D.
  • Then - from that phone - ring first thing in the morning between 8 and 8:30. If there's no reply DO NOT leave a message. Ring until you make contact - as far as they are concerned,  callers from that number might be a new customer.
  • Find out who else this company is working for locally. If there's any scaffolding on those sites look at the scaffolding banner. If it's a small local company (not a national one)  ring the scaffolder . Fish for information. In our case the scaffolders also had a tale of woe about the company (non payment).  So they took the scaff boards off one weekend. He was paid by 10:30 on the Monday.
  • Find out where the groundworkers drink. Go into that pub.   "You coming round tomorrow then ?"
  • Don't pay.

It's horrible having to do all that kind of stuff. But it's their behaviour that has caused you distress. Taking appropriate - but lawful - steps to assert your case is a must. If you can manage to do it with a grin, so much the better.

 

Self-building is a School of Hard Knocks - 

Edited by ToughButterCup
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7 hours ago, Moonshine said:

Yikes!

 

No groundworkers on site this morning, no answer on the mobiles i have for them / owner, blinding ain't going down today then!

 

Well you smelled a rat and you were right.  Time to find a new team.  Is there much work to do?  Maybe your job can be fitted in by another firm?  Does your bricklayer know anyone?  Can you get any recommendations?

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We had a fixed price groundworks contract which mostly went well and the concrete team they outsourced to were extremely high quality, hard working and professional.

 

But we did have problems, especially at the tail end of the project (basement backfill) and on the one week I was off site, many corners were cut that only came to light later  - such as using un-compacted spoil vs the specified clean stone - always hard to say if it's just a lazy worker or a boss decision to save a few quid.

 

I did not pay the residuals though so that was some recompense.

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1 hour ago, Dave Jones said:

your paying day rate ? crackers. Will take them until 2025 to get it done.

 

It works for us. We have reliable and hardworking groundworkers. £250 a day each (two of them) including their equipment and £120 per 12 tonne of soil should it have to be removed. Turn up on site for 7.30 each day and work beyond 4pm if required for an hour without additional pay to get the job done. Has saved us a fortune over a fixed price contract. The guys are known to our builder who and all work within our small town of approx 8000 people so reputation is important to them. They are chocka block for the next 6 to 9 months at present. 

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3 minutes ago, Bitpipe said:

....

I did not pay the residuals though so that was some recompense.

 

That's a harsh thing to have to do. We did the same. 

 

We refused to pay the final invoice of £8000. That caused ructions.  They subsided the moment we sent them filmed  evidence of extremely unprofessional behaviour to substantiate our claim.

 

I bless @Stones for his advice - years ago - to  install a video camera . Actually worth more than  its weight in gold .

I made sure I got witten agreement to take video images of everyone on site. 

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22 hours ago, Happy Valley said:

 

It works for us. We have reliable and hardworking groundworkers. £250 a day each (two of them) including their equipment and £120 per 12 tonne of soil should it have to be removed. Turn up on site for 7.30 each day and work beyond 4pm if required for an hour without additional pay to get the job done. Has saved us a fortune over a fixed price contract. The guys are known to our builder who and all work within our small town of approx 8000 people so reputation is important to them. They are chocka block for the next 6 to 9 months at present. 

 

very lucky. I agree finding the rare trades that are both reliable and do a good job is a godsend.

 

 

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On 10/06/2021 at 07:35, Dave Jones said:

your paying day rate ? crackers. Will take them until 2025 to get it done.

 

I live next door to the site and can actively monitor what they are doing (also a time lapse camera is set up).

 

Things have got better and and hopefully for the next bits of ground works will progress as expected (last weeks invoice reflected the reduced work on site). I have my guard up though on the work they are doing.

 

Yesterday me and three of the ground workers got the two layers of retaining wall / slab mesh installed, me being on site getting my hands dirty seemed to progress getting the work done, also i was there to make sure it went in properly. I am going to tie in the starter bars over the weekend, and BCO / architect inspection scheduled for Tuesday morning. Hopeful for the slab pour on Tuesday afternoon / weds, and brickie's on site for the retaining wall on Monday (different firm).

 

545146131_20210617_175300(Large).thumb.jpg.9db963554e136229ef28aae30a7c2715.jpg

 

There is also the availability of slave labour if things get really tough (my little helper setting out mars bars, i should have paid her a proper one for her efforts)

 

1409105122_marsbars(Large).thumb.jpg.cd2f5215122f9c56628a7f70687bb125.jpg

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I was supposed to have two ground workers on site on Friday to put up the retaining wall mesh.

They were a no show and had to get it up myself, for the brickies to come back on monday to do some of the inner skin of the retaining wall, to be filled later in the week (4 courses)

Lugging 80kg sheets of mesh about and vertical was interesting ?.

Thankfully the brickies I am using seem decent and reliable. 

 

20210702_174808.thumb.jpg.ca25538a96f16d16af3e9fc7b08f5676.jpg

Edited by Moonshine
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