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Am i getting ripped off?
BadDecisions
Posts: 4 Newbie
I decided on making some home improvements as i had some money burning a hole in my pocket adn thought that by improving the house, thus adding value.
I apologise in advance if this post seems like a life story, but starting to lose sleep over the possibiliy of getting ripped off by some family members.
The neighbour recently got her house roughcasted and a new roof courtesy of the council. After the job was complete driving up to my house was duanting as my house looked old and drab.
I made the decision to carry out the same the work to get my house looking like a new build.
someone close had mentioned that a family relative knew people in the trade and was able to complete the job for me, so i contacted them to arrange the work to get completed. the relative acted as a project manager to make sure all work would get done.. which seemed like the right thing to do as i was never good at arranging workmen.
The quote i recieved seemed a fair price and work had started... and my world was just starting to end.
During this work i decided to get some internal work done.
I had asked for quotes for the following work, but was informed not to worry about it just now. Given the price of the initial work, i wasnt suspect of having the feeling of being ripped off.
Job#1
I needed a small office so decided to get a stud wall partition to take a 1/3 of the dining room.
So the wall, was erected 3.5m x 2.5m (roughly) timber partition, gyproc with a 4 panel b&q door with frames and skirting. The wall was drylined only and was complete within a day ( im being generous with time as it was complete in between my 7.5 hour shift at the office.)
Job#2
I decided to start on the bathroom. After removing the tiles, with it being an old house.. the walls fell in. All i could do was take it back to the brick. Again with no quote. the bathroom was dot n dabbed.
the area covered was 1.5m x 3m x 2.5.
Included in this work was some boxing in of pipes. Again timber framing and gyproc to prepare for the tiler. A door frame was also redone after the tiler had finished.
A few trips were made to complete these jobs.
Job #3
After a disaster with the tiler in the bathroom, when i started on the kitchen i got in a friend of friend to get me a quote for tiling my kitchen.
The guy came up and and discussed all options, explaining prices for this and that..a lot more reassurring.
In the end he ended up doing my full kitchen... as he quoted me a measily £250 labour for tiling my walls and floor, fitting all my new cupboard doors and relocating a few cupboards for better use.
unfortunately the joiner didnt have a router and offered a standard cut on the worktop. i opted against this and had to contact the relative again.
So they supplied the joining kit and carried out the work of cutting the sink hole and the J-join.
In between this work i settled the bill for roughcasting and roof, plus i added an extra £300 to cover some of the work above that had been completed.
With all work completed some time had passed. i had been asked to complete the payment for the work completed.
Again, i asked for a quote..
A few weeks later a piece of paper arrives in the post.
all that was on it was;
worktop £250
bathroom £650
wall £500
already paid £300
you owe £1100
I was shocked... 1100 quid...if i had known it was going to be this much then i wouldnt have got the work done in the first place and thinking that they are relatives i would have got some sort of mates rates.
this is the confusing part..
my original contact (the project manager) and his son (the joiner)
The company that gave me the quote is the joiners own company.
i contacted the joiner to discuss. the quote had been written by the PM and he didnt know much about it.
When i contacted the PM, he said the prices were what he thought had been agreed by me and the joiner.
during all this, somethings started to go wrong... due to something going wrong with the roof...water managed to get into my cavity resulting in 2 nice black walls.. one in the dining room and our bedroom.
The gutters started falling apart.. with drips all round..
the roughcast started to show signs of contamination with ore in the mix...resulting in rusty patches now showing on the house.
I explained to them that i needed this work remedied and i asked for a broken down quote of labour and materials.
recently the neighbour had explained that someone visited to remedy some of the trouble..
i received a text to say the work has been completed and to stop down with the money.
I asked for my broken down quote and was told that it was over 2 yrs so it would be hard to estimate!!
So i am now here writing this..
on inspection of the remedied work, the roof part looks fixed so no more leaks.
the gutters are still sloping the wrong way and the ore is still in the cast.
Im currently drafting my own quote for the work that was completed and putting estimates.
Im also thinking of including quotes to fix the dampened walls to be fixed and reskimmed.
included in the quote will also be photos of the issues that still seem to be there.
im hoping to get some answers on here to put my mind at rest and hope im not the only one thinking the quote is ridiculous.
Any help would be good.
I apologise in advance if this post seems like a life story, but starting to lose sleep over the possibiliy of getting ripped off by some family members.
The neighbour recently got her house roughcasted and a new roof courtesy of the council. After the job was complete driving up to my house was duanting as my house looked old and drab.
I made the decision to carry out the same the work to get my house looking like a new build.
someone close had mentioned that a family relative knew people in the trade and was able to complete the job for me, so i contacted them to arrange the work to get completed. the relative acted as a project manager to make sure all work would get done.. which seemed like the right thing to do as i was never good at arranging workmen.
The quote i recieved seemed a fair price and work had started... and my world was just starting to end.
During this work i decided to get some internal work done.
I had asked for quotes for the following work, but was informed not to worry about it just now. Given the price of the initial work, i wasnt suspect of having the feeling of being ripped off.
Job#1
I needed a small office so decided to get a stud wall partition to take a 1/3 of the dining room.
So the wall, was erected 3.5m x 2.5m (roughly) timber partition, gyproc with a 4 panel b&q door with frames and skirting. The wall was drylined only and was complete within a day ( im being generous with time as it was complete in between my 7.5 hour shift at the office.)
Job#2
I decided to start on the bathroom. After removing the tiles, with it being an old house.. the walls fell in. All i could do was take it back to the brick. Again with no quote. the bathroom was dot n dabbed.
the area covered was 1.5m x 3m x 2.5.
Included in this work was some boxing in of pipes. Again timber framing and gyproc to prepare for the tiler. A door frame was also redone after the tiler had finished.
A few trips were made to complete these jobs.
Job #3
After a disaster with the tiler in the bathroom, when i started on the kitchen i got in a friend of friend to get me a quote for tiling my kitchen.
The guy came up and and discussed all options, explaining prices for this and that..a lot more reassurring.
In the end he ended up doing my full kitchen... as he quoted me a measily £250 labour for tiling my walls and floor, fitting all my new cupboard doors and relocating a few cupboards for better use.
unfortunately the joiner didnt have a router and offered a standard cut on the worktop. i opted against this and had to contact the relative again.
So they supplied the joining kit and carried out the work of cutting the sink hole and the J-join.
In between this work i settled the bill for roughcasting and roof, plus i added an extra £300 to cover some of the work above that had been completed.
With all work completed some time had passed. i had been asked to complete the payment for the work completed.
Again, i asked for a quote..
A few weeks later a piece of paper arrives in the post.
all that was on it was;
worktop £250
bathroom £650
wall £500
already paid £300
you owe £1100
I was shocked... 1100 quid...if i had known it was going to be this much then i wouldnt have got the work done in the first place and thinking that they are relatives i would have got some sort of mates rates.
this is the confusing part..
my original contact (the project manager) and his son (the joiner)
The company that gave me the quote is the joiners own company.
i contacted the joiner to discuss. the quote had been written by the PM and he didnt know much about it.
When i contacted the PM, he said the prices were what he thought had been agreed by me and the joiner.
during all this, somethings started to go wrong... due to something going wrong with the roof...water managed to get into my cavity resulting in 2 nice black walls.. one in the dining room and our bedroom.
The gutters started falling apart.. with drips all round..
the roughcast started to show signs of contamination with ore in the mix...resulting in rusty patches now showing on the house.
I explained to them that i needed this work remedied and i asked for a broken down quote of labour and materials.
recently the neighbour had explained that someone visited to remedy some of the trouble..
i received a text to say the work has been completed and to stop down with the money.
I asked for my broken down quote and was told that it was over 2 yrs so it would be hard to estimate!!
So i am now here writing this..
on inspection of the remedied work, the roof part looks fixed so no more leaks.
the gutters are still sloping the wrong way and the ore is still in the cast.
Im currently drafting my own quote for the work that was completed and putting estimates.
Im also thinking of including quotes to fix the dampened walls to be fixed and reskimmed.
included in the quote will also be photos of the issues that still seem to be there.
im hoping to get some answers on here to put my mind at rest and hope im not the only one thinking the quote is ridiculous.
Any help would be good.
0
Comments
-
Hi,
How much did you pay for the roughcast?
I did this one below for £3500 all in thats raking off re casting and decorating and scaffold hire.
Hope this helps with this side of it.
ALSO BE AWARE OF A JOINER THAT DOESNT OWN A ROUTER thats like hiring a plasterer withought a trowel! Rediculous.
Sorry dimentions are 5.5 metres front 5.5 metres back 7 metres side all by 2.8ish metres high0 -
0 -
dont have a price for the roughcast... but cost me £9500 for the roof, cast and scaffold.
dimensions are roughly 8m x 10m x 5m high (guess as each room is 2.5m)
the guy without the router is not in question here as he has been back to do more work with me with no hassle. He was a joiner to trade but has now moved to a desk job, hence no router.
He also told me that no joiner would part with their router to borrow
0 -
BadDecisions wrote: »dont have a price for the roughcast... but cost me £9500 for the roof, cast and scaffold.
dimensions are roughly 8m x 10m x 5m high (guess as each room is 2.5m)
the guy without the router is not in question here as he has been back to do more work with me with no hassle. He was a joiner to trade but has now moved to a desk job, hence no router.
He also told me that no joiner would part with their router to borrow
Hire him one from Brandon approx £30 for the day and get it done properly
0 -
wells it done now and at the point of paying this bill....
any rough estimates on the 3 jobs described so i can draw uo my estimated quote to present to him?0 -
Dunno about yiour tiling (not a tiler) but your partition and dot&dab and skim i'd charge roughly £1000 all in inc mats.
Hope this helps
P0
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