Not good

[nod]

7 hours ago, newhome said:

 

Yes, goes hand in hand with most mainstream house building too as you mentioned in another post. Unfortunately trades who work on mainstream stuff seem to think they can get away with that standard of work when it's a private job too and someone's pride and joy. 

 

 

 

Tell them to come back and sort it or you'll post photos of their work on all the local Facebook sites . 

 

 

I disagree The ones that work on mainstream are more likely to make a good job

Its the cash in hand ones that do most of the private work Are by far the worst for overcharging and bad work

On site work we have to photo everything that we cover To prevent this

[Onoff]

Bloody hell thats rough! I used up all the pir off cuts I had but made sure they were all seriously well foamed in. My foam bill will attest to this.

[newhome]

Just now, nod said:

I disagree The ones that work on mainstream are more likely to make a good job

Its the cash in hand ones that do most of the private work Are by far the worst for overcharging and bad work

On site work we have to photo everything that we cover To prevent this

 

Well that doesn't reflect our experience when we went at weekends to look at our last house being built in 2000. There were obvious things wrong that we complained about, and endless snagging issues post the handover, and we later found out that they had missed out the cavity wall insulation for the entire road despite us all receiving the guarantee for it when we moved in. I would say that maybe the quality has improved in the interim as it was quite a long time ago but judging by the endless posts on the local FB group up here complaining about issues with their new builds (there is an explosion of new homes in the local town covering several different builders) it seems unlikely. 

 

There are some great trades about but you generally can't get them as they are too busy. When you do get one they are like golddust and generally they don't charge as much as they could for the quality provided. The crappy ones seem to turn up, do a crap job and charge way too much. 

 

 

[Hecateh]

From my uneducated viewpoint the difference in QA for cars and houses has something to do with the fact that if something goes badly wrong in a car beetling down the motorway at 70 mph+ then it doesn't just affect the occupants of the car.  

 

Things that are wrong in a house, are rarely discovered immediately (apart from knowledgable or well advised self builders), and rarely (apart from gas or fire) affect anyone but the house owner - so nobody gives a fugg except to congratulate self that it hasn't affected them.

 

Basis

I trusted a 'professional' to do the job we both thought we had agreed.  Regardless of that being wrong, if I hadn't been on here there are other things that would have passed unnoticed.  

 

Gaps in insulation round the window - new house is going to be so much better than my current one I would never have realised it should have been better still.

 

My son noticed that there was no ventilation to the underfloor area (resulting in BB adding some telescopic vents).  Would have caused an issue eventually but certainly not immediately

 

Straps securing gable ends to joists - if I hadn't thought about getting the BI in before BB left, there wouldn't be any.  Is it likely anything would have happened.  I don't know.

 

A part (3/4) cut through roof joist - probably wouldn't have been an issue in my lifetime, maybe never - still a crap job.

 

I'm sure there will be others plus more things that I would have specced differently if I had any idea that the builder didn't really have any idea.  

 

If I buy a car and it uses drastically more fuel than expected, has dramatically less power or brakes don't work then regardless of the fact I don't know how it works, I know it isn't working correctly.  That is far harder to do with a building.  

 

 

 

 

 

[SteamyTea]

Quality

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-44879858

 

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/range-rover-tyburn-road-erdington-14929044

[vfrdave]

This discussion tangenting to lean agile, scrums etc made me chuckle.  I work in an agile safe environment with fortnightly sprints, daily scrums etc and it works incredibly well for us delivering network functions in an application driven environment.  The boys in other teams in work take the piss out of me and regularly ask if I have a Kanban board for the build.  I don't think my trades would appreciate it.

[Dreadnaught]

2 minutes ago, vfrdave said:

I don't think my trades would appreciate it.

 

I would be fascinated to see agile principles used in a building project. I was tempted myself, even just in my current design phase. But I have mostly shied away from deviating from the standard ways. I did choose my team (architect, etc.) while looking for evidence of at least some affinity for agile-style working practices. Even now I struggle to get anyone involved to value saturated communication. The culture is a million miles away form anything agile.

[newhome]

15 minutes ago, vfrdave said:

The boys in other teams in work take the piss out of me and regularly ask if I have a Kanban board for the build.  I don't think my trades would appreciate it.

 

Ha ha, we have Kanban boards everywhere at work. During my build I had a gantt chart pinned up. Everyone ignored it including my husband . I soon tore it down 

Edited July 25, 2018 by newhome

[PeterW]

Please can whomever decides to try agile with a build invite me to their first sprint kick off ... I’ll even pay my own travel as to watch a brickie and a labourer with a set of sprint cards is going to be worth every penny ..!! ?

[newhome]

18 minutes ago, PeterW said:

Please can whomever decides to try agile with a build invite me to their first sprint kick off ... I’ll even pay my own travel as to watch a brickie and a labourer with a set of sprint cards is going to be worth every penny ..!! ?

 

+1 

[Dreadnaught]

58 minutes ago, PeterW said:

set of sprint cards

 

For the uninitiated, this is planning poker for estimating work. It should be along side the drill bits in every toolbox?  

 

Edited July 25, 2018 by Dreadnaught

[Ferdinand]

11 hours ago, newhome said:

 

Ha ha, we have Kanban boards everywhere at work. During my build I had a gantt chart pinned up. Everyone ignored it including my husband . I soon tore it down 

 

“A board is thick and rigid. It is made of wood.” Arthur C Clarke. Ish.

 

Context: The Book A Fall of Moondust said by the Chief Engineer of the Moonbase after he has been audited by the Accounting Board.

Edited July 26, 2018 by Ferdinand

[Ferdinand]

Have just re-educated myself briefly on Agile and Lean development. They seem to me (like every other named methodology I have ever seen from SSADM and SASD onwards) to be substantially a repackaging of ideas that have always existed in a slightly different order with a different wrapping. Eg Frequent releases or subrebreleases which allows requirements changes to be managed, rapid development, sometimes getting the customer to test it !, constant coordination and conversation and so on. ISTM that the key th8ng is always never to swallow any single package of techniques / philosophies uncritically.

 

My favourite software engineering paper was from about 1982-3, arguing that software systems essentially controlled their own maximum rate of evolution because of innate complexity, ie on an established system management can do fook all to get it done any quicker because of how it was already designed. You can design in stuff to make it easier, but only at the start. I can see that that applies to complex systems such as houses.

 

For self build, istm that the biggest block on adopting such a methodology is that the customer and the project manager are overwhelmingly the same person. So the important point about not changing requirements btsoyp is a mental discipline rather than a relationship and a conversation.

 

The concept from TQM that I find most useful is the Balanced Scorecard, done monthly as a way to keep focus.

Edited July 26, 2018 by Ferdinand

[Ferdinand]

On 21/07/2018 at 22:21, Hecateh said:

Things that are wrong in a house, are rarely discovered immediately (apart from knowledgable or well advised self builders), and rarely (apart from gas or fire) affect anyone but the house owner - so nobody gives a fugg except to congratulate self that it hasn't affected them.

 

On delayed faults and people not checking.

 

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/author-will-self-flees-with-his-children-after-roof-of-1million-georgian-stockwell-townhouse-7781222.html

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/may/25/deborah-orr-roof-collapse-insurance

 

They seem cross that their 120 year speculative build isn’t still perfect.

 

 

Edited July 26, 2018 by Ferdinand

[Onoff]

Go to a self build where the attention to detail stands out and the quality is a tangible thing. Where you CAN'T hear a thing from outside. 

 

Ask questions. Take heed. Aim for that if ever you do it!

 

You know who you are!

[Barney12]

10 hours ago, PeterW said:

Please can whomever decides to try agile with a build invite me to their first sprint kick off ... I’ll even pay my own travel as to watch a brickie and a labourer with a set of sprint cards is going to be worth every penny ..!! ?

 

+2. I’ll even offer up my IT Director to facilitate. 

I think a full RAMS might be needed first to reduce potential for death.  

[Barney12]

Reading this thread (and others) it always strikes me how many forum members here seem to work in IT? 

Is the correlation “self builders and IT” or “forum use and IT”?

[newhome]

8 minutes ago, Barney12 said:

Reading this thread (and others) it always strikes me how many forum members here seem to work in IT? 

Is the correlation “self builders and IT” or “forum use and IT”?

 

Bit of both I imagine. Geeky guys frequent BH ?. IT folk may also be more inclined to think that they can manage a large project having managed or having had exposure to the project management lifecycle.   Plus IT work tends to be relatively well remunerated and self build isn’t a cheap option to home ownership or upgrading. 

 

 

[epsilonGreedy]

24 minutes ago, Barney12 said:

Reading this thread (and others) it always strikes me how many forum members here seem to work in IT? 

Is the correlation “self builders and IT” or “forum use and IT”?

 

 

I think so. Many people who succeed in life do so under the umbrella of a large organization. Such people tend to excel at being highly effective cogs in a large mechanism. Their exposure to risk and uncertainty is incremental and often regulated through the career training programme of a long established trade body.

 

IT is in a constant state of revolution and has no effective trade body because we are reinventing the operating manual every 5 years. This type of uncertainty attracts a different person who is excited by the challenge of the unknown. Selfbuilding is a voluntary adventure into the unknown.

[epsilonGreedy]

13 hours ago, Dreadnaught said:

I would be fascinated to see agile principles used in a building project.

 

 

My 60 year old building adviser practices Agile without knowing it. "don't talk to me about USB enabled power sockets, let's pour the concrete first". Building a house is comprised of identifiable sprints and so is building control.

 

The typical multi year selfbuild is living proof of why waterfall software projects hit trouble. Selfbuilders pursue a dream full of bells and whistles when instead they should aim for a minimum viable product. My opening blog post talks about a minimum viable house, that is agile in practice.

[epsilonGreedy]

1 hour ago, Ferdinand said:

Have just re-educated myself briefly on Agile and Lean development. They seem to me (like every other named methodology I have ever seen from SSADM and SASD onwards) to be substantially a repackaging of ideas that have always existed in a slightly different order with a different wrapping.

 

 

= complete and utter failure to comprehend Agile.

 

Those earlier project management methods you mention were from the Soviet phase of software development. The essence of Agile in software is to trust small autonomous multi discipline teams of between 4 and 7 people, to design and deliver incremental benefit to a consumer or sponsor who communicates direct with that team.

[Tennentslager]

16 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

 

 = complete and utter failure to comprehend Agile.

 

Now @epsilonGreedy you could have worded that differently don'tcha think?

[SteamyTea]

Seems to me, and taking @Ferdinand's approach to it, that all it is really doing is getting rid of unnecessary layers of management.

This allows mistakes to be made, and quickly rectified, without reprimand.

Suits some people, not others.

 

As for IT people and self build correlation, there is also a high number of engineers that are terrorists/suicide bombers.

I try and keep well clear of software engineers because of that, and the flying spittal when they get excited over finding they have a semi colon rather than a colon, which, mathematically cancels out to leave them with a semi.  Which is very worrying.

[newhome]

2 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

I try and keep well clear of software engineers because of that, 

 

Yeah cos I go to work every day wondering if I’m sat next to a terrorist ?

 

 

[PeterW]

28 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

Selfbuilders pursue a dream full of bells and whistles when instead they should aim for a minimum viable product.

 

Thats a very broad - and probably incorrect - statement ..! A lot of self builders want to pursue building what they want in a time period that meets cash flow and delivers the value they want. 

 

If you think bells and whistles is the sole domain of the self builder, you’ve not been in many show homes recently for the volume house builders. 

 

Have a read through the blogs and posts of the likes of @ProDave @Crofter @Cpd @PeterStarck and others - these are classic examples of self builders who have delivered value for themselves and they are far from high tech bells and whistles builds. They are what many would love to aspire to - beautifully delivered houses that meet their requirements.