Despite the problems I'm having with the Bungalow and despite it's pitiful
(lack of) foundations, it's doing better than a few 11 year old houses down
our road here in Pembury...

Just heard that several houses are having to have the entire ground floor
slab rectified due to subsidence. The main foundations are fine, but
someone didn't prep the slab base properly. Apparantly these houses were
built by a few gangs in parallel and it seems that one gang buggered up
their lot, but the rest are fine.

Luckily for the owners the cost is being fully covered including
redecorating, but it's still messy and inconvenient for them.

Wonder where the Building Inspector was that day?

Tim

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
Tim S wrote:

Despite the problems I'm having with the Bungalow and despite it's
pitiful (lack of) foundations, it's doing better than a few 11 year
old houses down our road here in Pembury...

Just heard that several houses are having to have the entire ground
floor slab rectified due to subsidence. The main foundations are
fine, but someone didn't prep the slab base properly. Apparantly
these houses were built by a few gangs in parallel and it seems that
one gang buggered up their lot, but the rest are fine.

Luckily for the owners the cost is being fully covered including
redecorating, but it's still messy and inconvenient for them.

Wonder where the Building Inspector was that day?

Tim

If it was a multi-house development, there probably wouldn't have been a LA
BCO involved - certification would have been done by the NHBRC (God help us
all!)
--
Cheers,
Roger
______
Email address maintained for newsgroup use only, and not regularly
monitored.. Messages sent to it may not be read for several weeks.
PLEASE REPLY TO NEWSGROUP!

"Tim S" wrote in message
...
Despite the problems I'm having with the Bungalow and despite it's pitiful
(lack of) foundations, it's doing better than a few 11 year old houses
down
our road here in Pembury...

Just heard that several houses are having to have the entire ground floor
slab rectified due to subsidence. The main foundations are fine, but
someone didn't prep the slab base properly. Apparantly these houses were
built by a few gangs in parallel and it seems that one gang buggered up
their lot, but the rest are fine.

I have seen worse..

a new development on a slope where they started at the top..
after about 60 houses were built the top ones started to slide down the
slope.

They had big cracks in them and BC (my friend) says there is no way they are
going to save them.
There were about thirty families living in them and about 30 part finished
ones.
None were more than two years old.


Luckily for the owners the cost is being fully covered including
redecorating, but it's still messy and inconvenient for them.

Wonder where the Building Inspector was that day?

Tim

"dennis@home" wrote in message
...


"Tim S" wrote in message
...
Despite the problems I'm having with the Bungalow and despite it's
pitiful
(lack of) foundations, it's doing better than a few 11 year old houses
down
our road here in Pembury...

Just heard that several houses are having to have the entire ground floor
slab rectified due to subsidence. The main foundations are fine, but
someone didn't prep the slab base properly. Apparantly these houses were
built by a few gangs in parallel and it seems that one gang buggered up
their lot, but the rest are fine.

I have seen worse..

a new development on a slope where they started at the top..
after about 60 houses were built the top ones started to slide down the
slope.

They had big cracks in them and BC (my friend) says there is no way they
are going to save them.
There were about thirty families living in them and about 30 part finished
ones.
None were more than two years old.


Luckily for the owners the cost is being fully covered including
redecorating, but it's still messy and inconvenient for them.

Wonder where the Building Inspector was that day?

Tim


Very little supervision on building sites in my opinion.

"John" wrote in message
...

"dennis@home" wrote in message
...


"Tim S" wrote in message
...
Despite the problems I'm having with the Bungalow and despite it's
pitiful
(lack of) foundations, it's doing better than a few 11 year old houses
down
our road here in Pembury...

Just heard that several houses are having to have the entire ground
floor
slab rectified due to subsidence. The main foundations are fine, but
someone didn't prep the slab base properly. Apparantly these houses were
built by a few gangs in parallel and it seems that one gang buggered up
their lot, but the rest are fine.

I have seen worse..

a new development on a slope where they started at the top..
after about 60 houses were built the top ones started to slide down the
slope.

They had big cracks in them and BC (my friend) says there is no way they
are going to save them.
There were about thirty families living in them and about 30 part
finished ones.
None were more than two years old.


Luckily for the owners the cost is being fully covered including
redecorating, but it's still messy and inconvenient for them.

Wonder where the Building Inspector was that day?

Tim


Very little supervision on building sites in my opinion.

Prolly because the supervision (If any at all) don't speak Latvian or Polish

coughed up some electrons that declared:

On 26 Aug,
Tim S wrote:

Despite the problems I'm having with the Bungalow and despite it's
pitiful (lack of) foundations, it's doing better than a few 11 year old
houses down our road here in Pembury...

Just heard that several houses are having to have the entire ground floor
slab rectified due to subsidence. The main foundations are fine, but
someone didn't prep the slab base properly. Apparantly these houses were
built by a few gangs in parallel and it seems that one gang buggered up
their lot, but the rest are fine.

Luckily for the owners the cost is being fully covered including
redecorating, but it's still messy and inconvenient for them.

Wonder where the Building Inspector was that day?

More like NHBC, who aren't worth a light!



Isn't it amazing - they bog BCO's down with window and door related bollox
whilst no-one gives a monkeys about the fundamentals...

Wasn't even a Barrats house (though, with a few exceptions, they all seem as
bad as each other).

R coughed up some electrons that declared:


"John" wrote in message
...

"dennis@home" wrote in message
...


"Tim S" wrote in message
...
Despite the problems I'm having with the Bungalow and despite it's
pitiful
(lack of) foundations, it's doing better than a few 11 year old houses
down
our road here in Pembury...

Just heard that several houses are having to have the entire ground
floor
slab rectified due to subsidence. The main foundations are fine, but
someone didn't prep the slab base properly. Apparantly these houses
were built by a few gangs in parallel and it seems that one gang
buggered up their lot, but the rest are fine.

I have seen worse..

a new development on a slope where they started at the top..
after about 60 houses were built the top ones started to slide down the
slope.

They had big cracks in them and BC (my friend) says there is no way they
are going to save them.
There were about thirty families living in them and about 30 part
finished ones.
None were more than two years old.


Luckily for the owners the cost is being fully covered including
redecorating, but it's still messy and inconvenient for them.

Wonder where the Building Inspector was that day?

Tim


Very little supervision on building sites in my opinion.

Prolly because the supervision (If any at all) don't speak Latvian or
Polish

I wouldn't mind betting if they houses were built by Latvians (whom I've
known many) or the Polish, they'd probably be OK. It's the British you have
to worry about.

dons asbestos trousers

Tim S wrote:
R coughed up some electrons that declared:

"John" wrote in message
...
"dennis@home" wrote in message
...

"Tim S" wrote in message
...
Despite the problems I'm having with the Bungalow and despite it's
pitiful
(lack of) foundations, it's doing better than a few 11 year old houses
down
our road here in Pembury...

Just heard that several houses are having to have the entire ground
floor
slab rectified due to subsidence. The main foundations are fine, but
someone didn't prep the slab base properly. Apparantly these houses
were built by a few gangs in parallel and it seems that one gang
buggered up their lot, but the rest are fine.
I have seen worse..

a new development on a slope where they started at the top..
after about 60 houses were built the top ones started to slide down the
slope.

They had big cracks in them and BC (my friend) says there is no way they
are going to save them.
There were about thirty families living in them and about 30 part
finished ones.
None were more than two years old.

Luckily for the owners the cost is being fully covered including
redecorating, but it's still messy and inconvenient for them.

Wonder where the Building Inspector was that day?

Tim
Very little supervision on building sites in my opinion.
Prolly because the supervision (If any at all) don't speak Latvian or
Polish

I wouldn't mind betting if they houses were built by Latvians (whom I've
known many) or the Polish, they'd probably be OK. It's the British you have
to worry about.

dons asbestos trousers

A British (Scottish) uncle of mine built houses and flats in Poland
during the 5 years he spent in a German pow camp. They were still
looking good when he went back and took a look few years back.

Invisible Man coughed up some electrons that declared:


A British (Scottish) uncle of mine built houses and flats in Poland
during the 5 years he spent in a German pow camp. They were still
looking good when he went back and took a look few years back.

Not to make light of your uncle's situation, that *was* 60+years ago when
the British still knew how to do things properly!

"Tim S" wrote


Not to make light of your uncle's situation, that *was* 60+years ago when
the British still knew how to do things properly!

Having seen a number of examples of shoddy work on older English properties
(courtesy of Sarah Beeney rather than first hand), I'm not sure that the
rose tinted glasses are so appropriate.
Not just poor-to-zero foundations, but naff brickwork, no tie-in between
perpendicular walls etc etc and all this is in the build of an original
property. Then the extensions and re-work bring far worse nightmares.

Phil

TheScullster coughed up some electrons that declared:


"Tim S" wrote


Not to make light of your uncle's situation, that *was* 60+years ago when
the British still knew how to do things properly!

Having seen a number of examples of shoddy work on older English
properties (courtesy of Sarah Beeney rather than first hand), I'm not sure
that the rose tinted glasses are so appropriate.
Not just poor-to-zero foundations, but naff brickwork, no tie-in between
perpendicular walls etc etc and all this is in the build of an original
property.

You are of course right - the house I grew up in had a bowing wall due to
lack of tie in to one breeze block wall (load bearing walls were brick and
others were breeze).

But it seems to me that modern building work, whilst to a better standard of
insulation just isn't as *solid* on the whole.

Then the extensions and re-work bring far worse nightmares.

That I agree with - most of the buggerage in my house was done in the 70's.

Tim S wrote:
coughed up some electrons that declared:

On 26 Aug,
Tim S wrote:

Despite the problems I'm having with the Bungalow and despite it's
pitiful (lack of) foundations, it's doing better than a few 11 year old
houses down our road here in Pembury...

Just heard that several houses are having to have the entire ground floor
slab rectified due to subsidence. The main foundations are fine, but
someone didn't prep the slab base properly. Apparantly these houses were
built by a few gangs in parallel and it seems that one gang buggered up
their lot, but the rest are fine.

Luckily for the owners the cost is being fully covered including
redecorating, but it's still messy and inconvenient for them.

Wonder where the Building Inspector was that day?
More like NHBC, who aren't worth a light!



Isn't it amazing - they bog BCO's down with window and door related bollox
whilst no-one gives a monkeys about the fundamentals...

Wasn't even a Barrats house (though, with a few exceptions, they all seem as
bad as each other).

I imagine BCOs are limited to confirming that a particular stage of the
job has been completed, but not that it's been done properly. They can't
e.g. test the concrete, although I believe they do on major jobs.
A mate of mine used to do just that for a living, and said it was a
brave man who would raise issues when a fleet of trucks were lined up
ready to pour. Easier to go to the pub.

"Stuart Noble" wrote in message
m...

I imagine BCOs are limited to confirming that a particular stage of the
job has been completed, but not that it's been done properly. They can't
e.g. test the concrete, although I believe they do on major jobs.
A mate of mine used to do just that for a living, and said it was a brave
man who would raise issues when a fleet of trucks were lined up ready to
pour. Easier to go to the pub.

He should have got a job more suited to him then (shop assistant?).
I would imagine the builder would rather throw away a few truck loads of
concrete than have to dig it all out and start again when it fails.
That is assuming nobody is killed because it fails in a really bad way.
I hope he didn't work on bridges or dams.

"Tim S" wrote


That I agree with - most of the buggerage in my house was done in the
70's.

Count yourself lucky, my original house was built in the 70s!
This seems to be a time when they were trying to build out of cheap tat, but
without the modern emphasis on insulation you have mentioned.
If it wasn't in a nice area with great schools I would consider myself well
cheated with this purchase.

Phil

TheScullster wrote:
"Tim S" wrote

That I agree with - most of the buggerage in my house was done in the
70's.

Count yourself lucky, my original house was built in the 70s!
This seems to be a time when they were trying to build out of cheap tat, but
without the modern emphasis on insulation you have mentioned.
If it wasn't in a nice area with great schools I would consider myself well
cheated with this purchase.

Phil


We have got a 1965 house that is not exactly quality built. It is
however within 200 yards of 2 village pubs, a good doctors surgery and
the village green which has a duck pond. We will not be moving in a hurry.

I remember in the early 1980s living close to where a new Barratts
development was going up. They were timber framed and loads of the
sections were piled up long before needed. Polythene type stuff was
ripped and had loads of snow inside. The first time the wind blew one of
the gable walls fell out.

"John Rumm" wrote in message
o.uk...
PeterC wrote:
On Thu, 27 Aug 2009 10:37:20 GMT, Stuart Noble wrote:

Isn't it amazing - they bog BCO's down with window and door related
bollox
whilst no-one gives a monkeys about the fundamentals...

Wasn't even a Barrats house (though, with a few exceptions, they all
seem as
bad as each other).
I imagine BCOs are limited to confirming that a particular stage of the
job has been completed, but not that it's been done properly. They can't
e.g. test the concrete, although I believe they do on major jobs.
A mate of mine used to do just that for a living, and said it was a
brave man who would raise issues when a fleet of trucks were lined up
ready to pour. Easier to go to the pub.

Mate of mine allowed an estate to get to eaves level then told the
builder
to correct the ceiling heights. The builder had used the old ploy of low
doorways so that there was the correct number of courses above - mate is
6'
4" tall and had noticed but decided that an expensive lesson was
required.

This was about 25 years ago - could be different now.

I think the only place a required ceiling height is mentioned in the
current BR is for over stairs....

7.5 feet in living areas.
Ie not in halls, kitchens, etc.

On Fri, 28 Aug 2009 00:02:10 +0100 John Rumm wrote :
7.5 feet in living areas.
Ie not in halls, kitchens, etc.

Have you got a reference for that?

It's very possibly in the NHBC standards (not on the web) which all new
home builders registered with NHBC have to follow. They have a whole
load of other non-BR requirements such as minimum number of power
sockets, requiring roof timbers to be treated etc etc.

--
Tony Bryer, 'Software to build on' from Greentram
www.superbeam.co.uk www.superbeam.com www.greentram.com

In article ,
"TheScullster" writes:

"Tim S" wrote


That I agree with - most of the buggerage in my house was done in the
70's.

Count yourself lucky, my original house was built in the 70s!
This seems to be a time when they were trying to build out of cheap tat, but
without the modern emphasis on insulation you have mentioned.

When I started work, I rented an Anglia Homes house, built in 1969
I was told. A complete pile of crap it was too. I drove past it
about 10 years later, and saw the porch roof had finally collapsed,
which it looked like it was slowly doing when we lived in it.
We also had the incident when the toilet fell through the bathroom
floor, although fortunately not all the way into the kitchen below,
and there were a few other places where the chipboard floor had
sheets with no support under corners, and you didn't dare put your
full weight on them -- one did snap off.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

"Andrew Gabriel" wrote

When I started work, I rented an Anglia Homes house, built in 1969
I was told. A complete pile of crap it was too. I drove past it
about 10 years later, and saw the porch roof had finally collapsed,
which it looked like it was slowly doing when we lived in it.
We also had the incident when the toilet fell through the bathroom
floor, although fortunately not all the way into the kitchen below,
and there were a few other places where the chipboard floor had
sheets with no support under corners, and you didn't dare put your
full weight on them -- one did snap off.

--
Maybe I shouldn't complain too bitterly!
My house has floor boards rather than chipboard upstairs but concrete down
.
Also all downstairs internal walls are block rather than stud/p-board.
The upstairs "paramount" walls are totally naff though.

Phil

"John Rumm" wrote in message
o.uk...
dennis@home wrote:


"John Rumm" wrote in message
o.uk...
PeterC wrote:
On Thu, 27 Aug 2009 10:37:20 GMT, Stuart Noble wrote:

Isn't it amazing - they bog BCO's down with window and door related
bollox
whilst no-one gives a monkeys about the fundamentals...

Wasn't even a Barrats house (though, with a few exceptions, they all
seem as
bad as each other).
I imagine BCOs are limited to confirming that a particular stage of
the job has been completed, but not that it's been done properly. They
can't e.g. test the concrete, although I believe they do on major
jobs.
A mate of mine used to do just that for a living, and said it was a
brave man who would raise issues when a fleet of trucks were lined up
ready to pour. Easier to go to the pub.

Mate of mine allowed an estate to get to eaves level then told the
builder
to correct the ceiling heights. The builder had used the old ploy of
low
doorways so that there was the correct number of courses above - mate
is 6'
4" tall and had noticed but decided that an expensive lesson was
required.

This was about 25 years ago - could be different now.

I think the only place a required ceiling height is mentioned in the
current BR is for over stairs....

7.5 feet in living areas.
Ie not in halls, kitchens, etc.

Have you got a reference for that?

Having looked about I think things may have changed since I last looked.
It was true in the 80's but may not be now.

On Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:41:16 +0100, TheScullster wrote:
Count yourself lucky, my original house was built in the 70s!
This seems to be a time when they were trying to build out of cheap tat, but
without the modern emphasis on insulation you have mentioned.

Hmm, ours was done in 1949 apparently in "stream of conciousness" mode ;-)

It's solid as heck, but all rather random in construction technique. The
plumbing and wiring are both awesome, looking more like they were grown
than laid according to any kind of plan...

"Owain" wrote in message
...
On 28 Aug, 15:12, Jules wrote:
Hmm, ours was done in 1949 apparently in "stream of conciousness" mode
;-)
It's solid as heck, but all rather random in construction technique. The
plumbing and wiring are both awesome, looking more like they were grown
than laid according to any kind of plan...

There would have still been postwar shortages of materials then.

Even his side of the pond?