Naaah mate, roofers round here don't use that....

[ToughButterCup]

Klober Permo Forte: German. Klober Permo HD, German. Klober TR Plus, German. Me German.

Thus

• I read instructions, 
• I follow guidelines
• I lack imagination and flair (I'm shit at football too)
• I do as I'm told, usually, without too much fuss

So  imagine my incomprehension during the following conversation at our otherwise excellent roofing suppliers.

 

My Good Man, may I buy some of your finest Permo HD, or Permo TR Plus as it says on these instructions ( for the roles of Permo Forte NG I have bought)

 

Ya wot, mert? 

 

Some Permo HD, or Permo TR Plus as it says on these instructions, please.

 

Dunt sell it. Rewfers round yur dunt use it laaak.

 

But the instructions say I need some.

 

Tha dunt need any mert.... 'less that's right by 't seaside laaaak.

 

Ah, the difference between theory and practice. The bright-eyed-bushy-tailed neophite walks happily, blindly into yet another minefield, waltzing hesitantly between encultured practice and text-book rote learning.

 

I've only just taught myself (painfully) to use a hammer tacker.?

Help me out here please.

 

Do I need to seal the overlap (150mm - proud of the fact that I worked that out for myself) between the  layers of Permo Forte?

Or can I let the wind blow under my skirts as it were?

 

(And if anyone says I'm overthinking this, they're gonna get a slap.)

 

[PeterW]

Yes it needs sealing and I would always buy that stuff online as it’s a specialist product. Most roofers struggle with the air permeable membrane without adding other problems .....

 

quick tip for doing your tape - create your 150 overlap but don’t tack it down. Put a piece of board above the overlap and turn the fabric back onto it, apply the tape and push down and then remove the backing, folding the overlap back onto the fabric below... 

 

Quick and easy and means you can get some decent pressure on at least one side of the tape. 

[ToughButterCup]

10 minutes ago, PeterW said:

[...]

Quick and easy and means you can get some decent pressure on at least one side of the tape. 

 

Thanks.

 

Intrigued by....

10 minutes ago, PeterW said:

[...]

Most roofers struggle with the air permeable membrane without adding other problems

[...]

 

That's their core job innit? Wha's goin' on? 

[Redoctober]

4 minutes ago, recoveringacademic said:

Intrigued by....

 

That's their core job innit? Wha's goin' on? 

 

I have to say I'm with you on this - in my limited experience dealing with "builders" before our project started and now during it, they seem over reliant on "past" practices  and are not fully across new products. Having said that, the tradesmen I am using and I consider them above the level of a builder - sorry if this is objectionable - are more aware of what is happening in their specific sphere of work.

Yes, of course there are going to be some builders who do take the trouble to keep abreast of new products etc., but as I say, from my limited experiences, they are few and far between.

[Declan52]

21 minutes ago, recoveringacademic said:

 

Thanks.

 

Intrigued by....

 

That's their core job innit? Wha's goin' on? 

They are just used to rolling it out and putting a few staples/nails in to hold it in place and start putting the battens on. Doubt you would ever see any house builder using as good a quality membrane for a start and taping the overlaps. 

If the lead time for the recommended tape is to long how about this one.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/radbar-double-sided-membrane-tape-4000ga-50-x-10m/23552

[nod]

34 minutes ago, Redoctober said:

 

I have to say I'm with you on this - in my limited experience dealing with "builders" before our project started and now during it, they seem over reliant on "past" practices  and are not fully across new products. Having said that, the tradesmen I am using and I consider them above the level of a builder - sorry if this is objectionable - are more aware of what is happening in their specific sphere of work.

Yes, of course there are going to be some builders who do take the trouble to keep abreast of new products etc., but as I say, from my limited experiences, they are few and far between.

The main reason for slaying ours are selfs Was seeing roofers on-site with foam guns and silicon sticking bits of slate down

[Brickie]

31 minutes ago, Redoctober said:

Yes, of course there are going to be some builders who do take the trouble to keep abreast of new products etc., but as I say, from my limited experiences, they are few and far between.

“Angle grinder??

Angle grinder??

The Egyptians didn’t need them to build the Pyramids did they!!”

 

Cam be extremely frustrating trying to get brickies to use labour saving gadgets (a large percentage,possibly 50% still think profiles are a waste of time.)

I had a Hod carrier refuse to use my brick lifters as “my job’s a Hod carrier,which means I carry the Hod. “

[ToughButterCup]

52 minutes ago, Redoctober said:

[...]

Having said that, the tradesmen I am using and I consider them above the level of a builder

[...]

 

No, @Redoctober, it isn't objectionable.

 

It grates sorely on my set of open-wounds and various chips on both my shoulders that the building sector seems to have a large number of people who are doing a poor job and expect to get paid as if they were doing the opposite.

 

I came to loathe German ways of doing things when I worked there: the rigidity, the lack of imagination, the lack of sparkle, the guidelines, always the effing  guidelines.

And yet, there's an apprenticeship system which delivers high quality staff in every sector: trained (gelernter) chimney sweeps, trained production line staff, street sweepers, plumbers, roofers and so on  and this is the important bit ----  who have parity of esteem --- with their classically educated counterparts. 

 

Self building feels like pissing against the wind almost all the friggin  time.

[PeterW]

We did the rigid insulation on the roof using 25mm insulation with 25mm battens at 400mm centres. The insulation was tightly packed between the battens and then taped with aluminum tape. 

 

Plasterer said he’d never seen such a tidy job, and that it was 1000% better than most sites where it’s usually falling out and full of gaps.....

 

It’s attention to detail that sets self builders apart, you can use the same materials, it’s just how you use them and the attention paid to how they are finished.  

[MikeSharp01]

2 hours ago, recoveringacademic said:

Me German.

Not happy about the WC then?

[MikeSharp01]

44 minutes ago, Brickie said:

I had a Hod carrier refuse to use my brick lifters as “my job’s a Hod carrier,which means I carry the Hod. “

Was it ever thus - one can imagine the flint nappers of the stone age when confronted with the bronze wielding hoards blindly carrying on napping flint while the world moved on.

[ToughButterCup]

6 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said:

Not happy about the WC then?

 

Loathe football, but wish I didn't.

 

[ToughButterCup]

13 minutes ago, PeterW said:

[...]

insulation was tightly packed between the battens and then taped with aluminum tape. 

[...]

 

inside?

 

14 minutes ago, PeterW said:

[...]

Plasterer said he’d never seen such a tidy job, and that it was 1000% better than most sites

[...]

 

In Germany, they just wouldn't get away with it. (well, when I was there..... might be different now... bleedin' Socialists)

[lizzie]

44 minutes ago, recoveringacademic said:

It grates sorely on my set of open-wounds and various chips on both my shoulders that the building sector seems to have a large number of people who are doing a poor job and expect to get paid as if they were doing the opposite.

 

I so agree with this.I think it is endemic in the ‘building trade’ at all levels.

[PeterW]

29 minutes ago, recoveringacademic said:

 

inside?

 

 

In Germany, they just wouldn't get away with it. (well, when I was there..... might be different now... bleedin' Socialists)

 

Yep - 25mm under the rafters and battens at 90 degrees to them so cold bridging reduced to 50x50 mm squares .... 

[nod]

1 hour ago, PeterW said:

We did the rigid insulation on the roof using 25mm insulation with 25mm battens at 400mm centres. The insulation was tightly packed between the battens and then taped with aluminum tape. 

 

Plasterer said he’d never seen such a tidy job, and that it was 1000% better than most sites where it’s usually falling out and full of gaps.....

 

It’s attention to detail that sets self builders apart, you can use the same materials, it’s just how you use them and the attention paid to how they are finished.  

Detail is important 

But most self builders are limited to making do with bottom feeders

The better tradesmen are on the larger commercial sites

 

i was listening to a joiner moaning about tax 

He works cards in for a local large famaly firm Picked up in the minibus each morning Time and and half double on Sundays 

He was moaning that he has paid £14000 tax last year

I hear daily rates being quoted £120 per day self employed and laugh 

You get what you pay for 

[Ferdinand]

28 minutes ago, nod said:

Detail is important 

But most self builders are limited to making do with bottom feeders

The better tradesmen are on the larger commercial sites

 

i was listening to a joiner moaning about tax 

He works cards in for a local large famaly firm Picked up in the minibus each morning Time and and half double on Sundays 

He was moaning that he has paid £14000 tax last year

I hear daily rates being quoted £120 per day self employed and laugh 

You get what you pay for 

 

So why are commercial housing sites of such questionable quality?

 

On the numbers, my current potentially large - 3-4k repair job is looking at a day rate of about £135 per man through the books on a local roofing company.

 

Not entirely convinced by your numbers @nod. 14k Tax a year is just into the higher band say 52k income for what you say is a 6 or perhaps 7 day week. 

 

If we take 130-135 at 275-300 days I am not sure it is that different once the swings and roundabouts have been swung and turned.

 

F

 

 

 

 

Edited June 28, 2018 by Ferdinand

[Moira Niedzwiecka]

I asked our building control inspector to come out a couple of weeks ago just to make sure he was happy with the way we were doing the DPM, floor insulation & the acoustic insulation.

He said he wished he had bought his camera & taken lots of photos so he could show the ''professional'' builders how it should be done.

The chap from the company that laid our floor screed last Friday said it was a faultless job & normally he has to do loads of remedial preparation before he will lay the screed.

He said he finds that nearly all self-builders work to a far higher standard than usual.

I suppose it is just the difference between building to live in & building for profit.

[newhome]

58 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

Not entirely convinced by your numbers @nod. 14k Tax a year is just into the higher band say 52k income for what you say is a 6 or perhaps 7 day week. 

 

Doesn’t live in Scotland clearly . Tax is just over 9k in UK excl Scotland on 52k. 

[PeterW]

43 minutes ago, Moira Niedzwiecka said:

I suppose it is just the difference between building to live in & building for profit.

 

So I struggle with this one...! you can still be profitable doing it to a higher standard as your remediation costs are lower. I've got zero tolerance for trades who don't want to do it properly, and yet when you get to the end of them whining and bitching about having to do it "right" then they actually accept its easier to do follow on when its been done properly in the first place...

[lizzie]

I thought it was supposed to be the other way around and better trades did private work as they didnt like the corner cutting on bigger spec developments another load of cobblers fed out to me......never found anyone to work at anything like £135 a day either thats not much over labourer rates here. £1000pw is about it so 50k a year easily achievable working far less hours than I have to put in so I can pay them that ...........what is a full day for a builder. Answer depends on if they are doing the childcare it seems. Those days 9.30-3 makes a full day other days 8.30-4, they still charge a full day on child days and take their full lunch breaks.  It adds up to half a day lost each week if they do 2 childcare days............I still get billed for the lost half a day. They all seem to do child care, I had no idea that all these tradespersons were pseudo nannies too.   

 

I know now I am a gullible female who has been taken for a ride by all sorts of people at every level of this build  process -  their sob stories and manipulations. I trusted where I should not,  I feel foolish and angry. When this is finally over I never ever want to have one near me again!

[newhome]

Just now, PeterW said:

 

So I struggle with this one...! you can still be profitable doing it to a higher standard as your remediation costs are lower. I've got zero tolerance for trades who don't want to do it properly, and yet when you get to the end of them whining and bitching about having to do it "right" then they actually accept its easier to do follow on when its been done properly in the first place...

 

2 things here though. 1. you assume that all self builders know if something is right or not and 2. most trades I’ve come across don’t give a stuff about trades following on. There are exceptions of course but many don’t give a stuff. Problems range from the clearly wrong or bodged that anyone can spot to issues that only someone with a decent amount of knowledge can spot. It’s a wonder that so many developer built UK houses stay standing in truth. 

[Hecateh]

6 minutes ago, PeterW said:

 

So I struggle with this one...! you can still be profitable doing it to a higher standard as your remediation costs are lower. I've got zero tolerance for trades who don't want to do it properly, and yet when you get to the end of them whining and bitching about having to do it "right" then they actually accept its easier to do follow on when its been done properly in the first place...

Many of them don't do their own remediation work though.  That is done by the trade following them, of whom some (not my current ones I hasten to add) seem to think that because they have had to spend time putting right someone else's 'short cuts' and bodges, that they feel no guilt in leaving some of the same for the next guys.

 

[newhome]

3 minutes ago, lizzie said:

what is a full day for a builder.

 

That’s something that always bugged me too. We were reasonably lucky in that most didn’t take the mickey but there were some that did and it caused a huge row once when my hubby refused to pay them for a full day. He cut it back to half a day as they had hardly been there quite apart from the early finishes on other days. That said many of our time and materials trades charged by the hour. We would be given a sort of time sheet (fag packet style) along with the invoice that felt a lot more transparent. Clearly if you agree a fixed price it isn’t so much of an issue apart from the potentially elongated timeline, however I’ve been caught out by that too when I’ve calculated what their day rate for the job worked out as. Even if I count 2 half days as 2 full days worked I paid £500 a day for a joiner once 

 

 

[ToughButterCup]

23 minutes ago, lizzie said:

[...] I trusted where I should not,  I feel foolish and angry. When this is finally over I never ever want to have one near me again!

 

You , me, and many others on BH.

The way women are patronised or ignored or both by  some male builders is an added level of insult. Even the MD of a large company  managed to patronised  Debbie  when he visited the site. The local (male) rep squirmed with embarrassment.

 

I wish this morning when I went to buy some sealing tape, I'd had the confidence and presence of mind to ask why roofers don't seal between the layers of felt .