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What’s the worst mistake you’ve made on your build?


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So I discovered a pretty bad balls up today. Can’t believe it has not been picked up until today; probably far too late to fix without a lot of disruption. 
wondering what other f**k ups people have encountered on their projects to try and help me put it in perspective / not feel so s*!t about it.

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1 hour ago, Adsibob said:

So I discovered a pretty bad balls up today. Can’t believe it has not been picked up until today; probably far too late to fix without a lot of disruption. 
wondering what other f**k ups people have encountered on their projects to try and help me put it in perspective / not feel so s*!t about it.

Trusting an external render to actually be waterproof and stay stuck to the wall.

 

So now I have told you mine, you tell us yours.

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31 minutes ago, ProDave said:

Trusting an external render to actually be waterproof and stay stuck to the wall.

 

So now I have told you mine, you tell us yours.

Why tell, when a picture says 1000 words:

6638E59B-641C-40FC-9444-0C5FAB3B76E4.thumb.jpeg.f2a0df601a3eb2127658b68a35fd7438.jpeg

Spent a fortune on a beautiful oak staircase, with a lovely swooping bannister. Except that this corner of the floor (which is completely unnecessary as there is nothing above it) is obstructing a big chunk of it. There is no breach of regs, as plenty of head height above the stairs, just bloody ugly.

not so straightforward to round off this corner because there are steels where the purple lines are. The steels are to support an internal skylight, part of the hole for which can be seen to the left of the picture. 
Here is the structural drawing (the junction between steels 10 and 11) is the ugly corner:

 

C3A99BD6-B25B-4932-B635-90BFAD2EF917.thumb.jpeg.799450129ccb6c1347c44fd03bd2c240.jpeg
Both steels in question are 150 x 90 PFC. Wondering if they can be cut shorter and the shortened ends joined by a diagonal steel. Obviously need to consult with an SE, but it’s a Saturday night and I’m pissed off!

 

Edited by Adsibob
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1 hour ago, NSS said:

Trusting a so-called professional installer to put a level float of latex screed down before laying 130m2 of Karndean flooring.

Ouch. Did you have to take up the karndean flooring up and redo the screed?

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12 minutes ago, Adsibob said:

Ouch. Did you have to take up the karndean flooring up and redo the screed?

Not yet, but (conveniently) one of my daughters has since met and settled down with a guy who specialises in laying LVT. Only trouble is he's so good he never has any time to do jobs at 'family' rates 🙄

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10 hours ago, Adsibob said:

Both steels in question are 150 x 90 PFC. Wondering if they can be cut shorter and the shortened ends joined by a diagonal steel.

 

Does it even need a diagonal steel? If it's just a floating cantilever of boxed in ceiling, the cross member could probably be timber? What is steel (10) actually supporting? From your description it sounds spurious

 

Anyway commiserations for that. Our worst mess up was putting too much boxing in around the downstairs WC sink and by the time I realized it felt too late (tacking done but not yet decorated) so we decided to swap it to a tiny hand basin which looks ridiculous under the giant lit mirror we planned to go over it. 

I now look back and think should have just fixed it when I had the chance. 

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I built the house in the wrong place, do I win? 😃

Long story but it ended up about 18” from where it should have been. Clearly I will have to live with it but it annoys me every time I think about it. Nobody else has noticed or will ever.

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39 minutes ago, joth said:

 

Does it even need a diagonal steel? If it's just a floating cantilever of boxed in ceiling, the cross member could probably be timber? What is steel (10) actually supporting? From your description it sounds spurious

As far as I can see, all steel 10 is doing is connecting 9 to 11. Two thirds of 11 is holding up the sky light, but I’m not sure Why steel 11 needs to project beyond where it connects with 12. Maybe @Gus Potter has some views on this.

Just now, ProDave said:

@Adsibob what is your actual issue here?  Just that the ceiling corner is square but the stairs are rounded as they turn the bend so it overlaps a little?

The issue is purely an aesthetic one. The staircase would look much better with a bit of space around it. If we got rid of that redundant corner, it would show off the staircase more, and let it “breathe” a bit more (visually). Difficult to explain, it just looks wrong having the beautiful sweeping bannister almost touch this very angular corner. If it was cut along the diagonal, we could then build out the diagonal into a curve. Even if it’s just a 250mm or 300mm radius curve it would look so much better.

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1 minute ago, Mr Punter said:

Funny that the staircase person did not pick it up.  It looks doable to rectify, but a bit messy as it looks like you can remove no. 10 and trim back no. 11.  Take your medicine now though.

Yeah, bloody ridiculous that.

 But what I don’t get is why the SE specified 10 in the first place. If it can be removed, what’s its point? I fear that when we consult the SE on Monday, he will say we can’t just remove it.

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12 minutes ago, Mr Punter said:

Funny that the staircase person did not pick it up.  It looks doable to rectify, but a bit messy as it looks like you can remove no. 10 and trim back no. 11.  Take your medicine now though.

Why would the staircase person highlight something that he didn’t do had no input in?

 

he’s there to fit the staircase as it was designed not offer design opinions?

 

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12 hours ago, ProDave said:

Trusting an external render to actually be waterproof and stay stuck to the wall.

 

So now I have told you mine, you tell us yours.

Hi, how long did it take for it come off. I had done K rend silicon with base coat and mesh in Dec 2020. So far its has not come off :)

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26 minutes ago, TonyT said:

Why would the staircase person highlight something that he didn’t do had no input in?

 

he’s there to fit the staircase as it was designed not offer design opinions?

 

Well annoyingly, it was the staircase designer that pointed this out AFTER the staircase had been installed.

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8 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Bit of a left field idea, can you dazzle camouflage it?

hmmm. not sure that would work. I think the options are to clad the projecting corner in an oak veneer to match the staircase or leave it as it is or ask the SE whether we can reduce it.

Assuming it can be reduced by shortening steels 10 and 11 and then joining them together with a 1/4 ring beam to link 9 to 11/12 junction as suggested by @Radian, anyone have any idea what it would cost to remove the plasterboard around this 85cm by 85cm corner, cut the steels, connect in the the ring beam and patch it up again?

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