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

[saveasteading]

2 minutes ago, pocster said:

I have nothing to add to this thread

Because you have the best practical advice to hand at all times, and nothing goes wrong.

[Pocster]

2 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

Because you have the best practical advice to hand at all times, and nothing goes wrong.

Precisely.

There are no mistakes on my build . But there are some interesting choices .

[SteamyTea]

14 minutes ago, pocster said:

I have nothing to add to this thread

That is because you have disposed of the evidence.

 

Did you learn your building of that West fellow.

[joe90]

6 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

That is because you have disposed of the evidence.

NO, he still has the walk on glazing 🤷‍♂️ 🤣

[Pocster]

5 minutes ago, joe90 said:

NO, he still has the walk on glazing 🤷‍♂️ 🤣

It’s gone . Gone to the great skip in the sky . Not a mistake but a mere oversight 

Edited March 14, 2022 by pocster

[SteamyTea]

Just now, pocster said:

Not a mistake but a mere oversight 

Lack of sight

[Bitpipe]

14 hours ago, saveasteading said:

That was probably happening at the time anyway, and the money would not have reached you.

 

 

I figured as much so not too sore about it. Just figuring whether to get the render replaced like for like or go with timber cladding instead.

 

14 hours ago, saveasteading said:

 

You supervised everything else and it was good?

 

Well done.

 

Thanks - as the old saying goes, It's not the work that's expected, it's the work that's inspected.

[ProDave]

16 hours ago, Bitpipe said:

1) not checking that the requested warranty for the render system was actioned which may have prevented the failure (due to a, now withdrawn, carrier board) and/or would have given us more leverage with the render manufacturer to remedy

2) not accepting the initial cash settlement from the render contractor and spending 6 months trying to get the latent defect warranty to cover it during which time the contractor ceased trading (and generally not being more on the ball to get it sorted from day one).

Very similar to the issue I am still trying to resolve.

 

TIP for rendering. ASK HERE FIRST if your chosen system is any good.  Certainly don't use the Baumit rubbish that I used.

[Ralph]

Biggest general mistake is not trusting my gut. When you think someone is full of crap or outright lying you are probably right and you should act on it. I found it too easy to trust people to do the right thing and just hope. 

[SteamyTea]

7 hours ago, Ralph said:

Biggest general mistake is not trusting my gut. When you think someone is full of crap or outright lying you are probably right and you should act on it. I found it too easy to trust people to do the right thing and just hope. 

Something I have learnt at places I have worked in the past.

One guy was so full of shit that a tenacious student did some digging, printed out a few sheets of truth i.e. guy claimed to have a Doctorate, just happened that someone else with the same name, and at the same university, did have one. Then this enterprising student left the printouts in each room that the guy lectured in for people to 'find'.

Moral of that was, never upset an Irishman.

Actually I have the same name as a fellow lecturer I worked with and we made sure people knew there was a difference. He had a beard.

Edited March 15, 2022 by SteamyTea

[Zak S]

11 hours ago, ProDave said:

Very similar to the issue I am still trying to resolve.

 

TIP for rendering. ASK HERE FIRST if your chosen system is any good.  Certainly don't use the Baumit rubbish that I used.

This is probably the third story on this interesting thread of render going wrong or render (not sure why do we call it a 'system') failing. Is it really that common? I have been planning to replace the ugly render on my house and based on the previous experience to year ago, K-rend silicon worked. Is there any thing I should bear in mind when looking at Render 'systems' other than not choosing Baumit! Thanks.

Edited March 15, 2022 by Zak S

[ProDave]

4 minutes ago, Zak S said:

This is probably the third story on this interesting thread of render going wrong or render (not sure why do we call it a 'system') failing. Is it really that common? I have been planning to replace the ugly render on my house and based on the previous experience to year ago, K-rend silicon worked. Is there any thing I should bear in mind when looking at Render 'systems' other than not choosing Baumit! Thanks.

Mine is a bit different, render onto wood fibre external insulation, and I believe at the time Baumit was the only system approved for that.  If (as looks very likely) it fails again then I am into unknown territory of what to replace it with or what alternative way to finish / clad  my walls.

[Zak S]

I

9 hours ago, ProDave said:

Mine is a bit different, render onto wood fibre external insulation, and I believe at the time Baumit was the only system approved for that.  If (as looks very likely) it fails again then I am into unknown territory of what to replace it with or what alternative way to finish / clad  my walls.

Ok I understand. My render was mostly on the bricks (I had to remove old pebbledash). For the cavity bay windows, I used wood wool board and K-Rend K1 silicon scratch finish (without the basecoat) and at some places e.g. around the dormer window I used stainless steel mesh. Both have worked, though I am not sure at all about the insulation properties of these.

Edited March 16, 2022 by Zak S

[SteamyTea]

10 hours ago, Zak S said:

not sure why do we call it a 'system'

It is because just about everything has to be bigged up, turned to 11.

You can't get your car cleaned without it being called 'detailing' by some nob.

I am currently sitting in a garage as my car needs a new ball joint. They are also going to put it on 'the diagnostics'. 

It is a suspension joint.

[Radian]

42 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

It is a suspension joint.

They probably paid a king's ransom for that diagnostics kit. Got to get as much use out of it as they can. 

[Bitpipe]

23 hours ago, ProDave said:

Very similar to the issue I am still trying to resolve.

 

TIP for rendering. ASK HERE FIRST if your chosen system is any good.  Certainly don't use the Baumit rubbish that I used.

 

At the time the system was approved by BBA, NHBC and the render topcoat supplier, the MgO based board in question has now been quietly removed from sale by its manufacturer and is no longer approved by anyone. However the board manufacturer accepts no liability on the board itself even though it is now notorious in the render industry as prone to failure.

 

I'm deliberately not naming names as have been advised by the contractor that I'm working with to resolve that the board vendor is very active at pursuing defamation on other forums so best keep BH out of the line of fire. As it can't be sourced anymore there's no risk of anyone accidentally using it on their build.

 

Looking at replacing with a different render system based on a Knauf board or doing something completely different such as timber cladding.

 

I'll have to bear the cost of removal and replacement - original render contractor has now ceased trading but to be fair to them they did a cracking job and were not to know. Many similar contractors have been left high and dry by the same issue.

 

Main challenge at moment is getting the works zero rated (given the removal and re-instatement will be a £50k+ job this is not trivial). There is case law and precedent as the original works have failed so this is not refurbishment. Still trying to win that argument with the new contractor's accountant though.

[Mr Punter]

23 minutes ago, Bitpipe said:

At the time the system was approved by BBA, NHBC and the render topcoat supplier, the MgO based board in question has now been quietly removed from sale by its manufacturer and is no longer approved by anyone. However the board manufacturer accepts no liability on the board itself even though it is now notorious in the render industry as prone to failure.

 

MgO boards have really suffered in the last few years.  For a while they seemed like a really cost effective alternative to fibre cement boards like Bluclad.  While some may be OK, many were too good to be true and have now been discredited.

[SteamyTea]

1 hour ago, Radian said:

They probably paid a king's ransom for that diagnostics kit. Got to get as much use out of it as they can. 

Shame the did not do the tracking. Another trip to get that sorted.

Still, it sounds better when I hit potholed.

Going to phone up Rod.

Edited March 16, 2022 by SteamyTea

[Zak S]

6 minutes ago, Mr Punter said:

 

MgO boards have really suffered in the last few years.  For a while they seemed like a really cost effective alternative to fibre cement boards like Bluclad.  While some may be OK, many were too good to be true and have now been discredited.

Do people use MGO board for internal instead of plaster boards eliminating the need of were plaster and I heard it's a lot more solid so you can hang things on it without the need of timber joists at the back? I know price wise it's a bit expensive but if you take into account saving of wet plaster and flexibility for installing fittings on it, would it not still be sensible to use internally?

[Bitpipe]

11 hours ago, Zak S said:

(not sure why do we call it a 'system') 

 

Because in my case it's a combination of timber battens, carrier board, base render coat, mesh, second base coat and then topcoat finish. As there are multiple elements, sourced from different vendors, it's a system and needs to be designed and installed as such.

 

Simple monocoat render (e.g. cement based) on an existing substrate (eg blocks) would be more straightforward.

 

In my case the carrier board has deformed, warped and cracked. The render on top is fine but it does not look good and at some stage even that may fail.

 

Now looking at a fibre cement board (e.g. Hardi) as an alternative.

[saveasteading]

13 hours ago, Zak S said:

any thing I should bear in mind when looking at Render 'systems'

The usual problem is the bonding (lack of)  to the substrate. A system that requires the mechanical fixing of a netting to the wall can overcome this.

I have certainly used this on block and on cement board and found no problems.

[TerryE]

On 13/03/2022 at 08:39, Bonner said:

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.

 

Having f***ing annoying neighbours.  They objected to building compliance that I had built my house too close to their fence. So I got a visit from the LA compliance officer who measured up and decided that my house was 0.6m closer to their corner boundary than on the plan. Simple, he said: just put in a minor material amendment to record to new position.  I talked to my builder about this, and he said: do not submit an MMA under any circumstances, because you are admitting that the house is in the wrong position; what happens if they turn it down?

 

Anyway something seemed off, so I double checked the distance of the front of the house to the road: it was maybe 10cm further from the site boundary at the access, certainly nowhere near 60cm.  Then the penny dropped:  I have owned the plot for 35years, and I used to have a 1.2m deep laurel hedge running along the back of it.  This neighbour property used to back onto my property and my side neighbour's at a T junction, but now there was a 0.5m step in the boundary.  I double checked with the guy who used to own the side property 10 years before, but still lives in the village: yup they'd replaced the fence and swung one end around behind the cover of the laurel, so instead of being 0.6m away from the laurel root it was hard against it.  Good old adverse possession.

 

I stuck to my guns and told the LPA people that I was submitting an MMA because the property was the right distance from the road, and since the neighbours house hadn't moved any closer to our road, the distance between our house and theirs was according to plan; the problem was that they'd possessed a bit of my land and moved their fence line, which was a civil issue between me and them, and nothing to do with planning.  I suggested that they revisit the site and remeasure with me.  In the end they backed down.

 

The total area of this pinched wedge was just over 1m².  Annoying as it was, it just wasn't getting into a boundary dispute over it. 

 

Morale: Use fence posts attached to concrete spurs to mark your boundary.  This makes it a lot harder for neighbours to play silly buggers with fence lines.

[ToughButterCup]

@TerryE : you swearing. It's like Nadine Dorries saying she doesn't fancy Boris: unbelievable.

[saveasteading]

Pinching or retaining  land is inbuilt in our psyche.

 

They are unlikely to have proof of when they moved the fence. and if they did this by stealth behind hedges etc it might not stand up to dispute.

There are nearly always some remnants of the original boundary that can show it is actually still there.

 

eg they may have put a bit of fence up to keep a child  or dog in, but the boundary is still marked.

 

well done though. must have been worrying.

 

I have had council people say we had pinched a few metres of acpublic right of way.....we hadn't. 

When I asked them to prove it they couldn't, and didn't even know where to start measuring from....maps and plans are very approximate. The red line on your deeds probably scales 500mm

[gravelrash]

2 hours ago, TerryE said:

 

Good old adverse possession.

 

 

If your properties are registered with Land Registry then adverse possession will not just happen...the possessor has to register the land taken with Land Registry who contact the original owner and give two years to reject the possession.

The other issue is the planning department...technically a fence or hedge does not mean demarcation of land ownership boundary so the planning should not presume the neighbour is correct with his complaint...its for your neighbour to prove the legal boundary position if he wishes the council to believe him.