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Originally Posted by Andrew Gabriel
In article ,
"4square" writes:
Anyone seen any of these programmes? Shouldn't the local council
Yes. I can't imagine Wilson Connoley (sp?) are selling too many
new homes after that program. For those who didn't see it, one
family initially managed to drill through their water main whilst
putting up a curtain rail. Investigation showed the water main was
routed up 1/2" behind the living room wall, across the ceiling, and
came down in the kitchen where the main stop cock was. They had
it rerouted undergound round the outside of the house, but were
still waiting for the livingroom to dry out so they could redecorate.
Next, with the resulting holes in the plasterboard, somehow (can't
remember what triggered it) they checked the timber structure and
found it had only 1/3rd the required number of wall ties. This means
the external walls of the house are liable to collapse in a strong
wind, killing anyone nearby. Wilson Connoley had to demolish and
rebuild all the external walls of the house, which took some 6 months,
4 times longer than they were initially told. This got other residents
on the estate concerned, and some had structural surveys done, finding
exactly the same problem in their houses. Wilson Connoley hadn't as
yet fixed any of the other houses.
building control inspect these sort of things? When I built an
extension a few years ago, I had to submit details, correct the
faults on the drawings, then the works were inspected at intervals.
Cost about £300, IIRC. Presumably, on a whole house now, the fee must
be close to £1000? Is most of NHBC now?
My impression is this doesn't happen on a housing estate, or at
least only one or two houses are inspected. If you look at the
building control fee structure, you don't have to pay much to
build the second and subsequent identical houses. But it wasn't
just a failure of building control, it was a failure of Wilson
Connoley, their subcontractors, and the workers, i.e. the whole
chain.
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Andrew Gabriel |
I recently attended an emergency to find an unvented hot water system had been installed by the builder of some properties incorrectly. It wasn't actually the fault (CH pump running dry because a regular boiler had been converted to a sealed system, but owner of brand new home hadn't been given any advice about it, and was clueless). No benchmark logs were filled in for the unvented or the gas boiler.
I've furnished the home owner with a report to take round to their local council. The unveneted is actually safe but it isn't installed to the letter, and since one has to be certified to install one, and that it is illegal to do so without informing the loacal planning department in writing 10 days in advance stating who you are what your qualifications are and your plans, the shoddy work practices and lack of completion of benchmarks raises alarm bells.