On Sep 17, 4:29*pm, "
wrote:
They made such a mess of it that we'll never, ever,
employ anyone else again. We're still finding things
which need to be re-done, many weeks afterwards.

Miserably found similar.

I kid you not when I say what started as a "list" in 2004 is now
longer than when I started AND nowhere near complete by 2009.
Indeed it caused seemingly less important tasks to get pushed to the
end.

Take a window-cill, now Nynex it.
To back the car off the raised driveway I have to look in the side-
mirrors (well I don't, but the screaming gets tedious) and notice the
window-cill over the planters. I'm going out so can only make a mental
note that the mortar line below the window bares not a jot of
parallelism to the window-cill above. I know the brickie was only
capable of laying bricks whose proximity to any other was not just
chance, but subject to deliberate variation so as to exclude any
accusation that "a wall" was the objective. I ponder whether a
blackhole has formed in my locality creating a lensing effect and
mutter about construction quality, shortly before exploring the latest
pothole in the road without proper protective equipment.

The window has been painted by decorators 3 times since 1997 when
Nynex visited.
On not one occasion did they draw my attention to the cause, merely
applying 2pk epoxy to rigidly hold the cill in its new position so as
to ensure water drains not off the cill but back against the frame.
The cause being a black cable run under the window-cill nailed
*upwards* into the cill so smashing it off the wall to create a gap.
The gap between cill and mortar line varied from 1/2" to over 3/4" -
hidden by a combination of shadow cast by the window cill and
obscurred by the black cable unless viewed from below.

Suffice to say the mortar-line below is now a 3ft long removable
section bonded only to itself, cobwebs and nothing else.
I redecorated the other side due to damp and noted just a tinge of
white hygroscopic on an otherwise fully south facing wall.

It is getting on for late September with a Summer indistinguishable
from a urinal save for fewer fag ends.
So this treat will no doubt wait until another Summer does finally
bestow us with its obligatory ****ing down unless I do a particularly
weak mortar mix and castrate the cable back to its innocuous brown box
cunningly hiding an air-vent they had smashed on first attempt of
cable entry. They might as well employ burglars, they do less damage.
What do cavity wall installers plan on doing to top it - an JCB
breaker to make holes?

It is just depressing, a case of "not their house so who gives a ****".