Plasterer has finished but poor finish. Is this normal?

jc808

Furts wrote: »

But here you are admitting that you cut corners and could not be bothered to go about a job in the proper manner - both with the skirting and the socket. Which begs the question do you have architraves in the room and what has happened here?

It is bizarre that you claim the walls were acceptable but you wanted a perfect finish. I say this because you were not prepared to do what was required of you in order to achieve a perfect job. This suggests double standards - "do not do as I do, but do as I tell you but I am not allowing that to happen in a satisfactory manner"

You may have to eat some humble pie when you meet the plasterers boss!

The plasterer said he could achieve a good finish with the old skirting in situ. It's generally not practical to remove Victorian (etc.) skirting.

Similarly sockets - did the plasterer request they were taken off? Its a five minute job....

Ive had plastering done in the past and had a great finsih with existing skirting boards./ architrave. It's not ideal but a good plastere will do it.

Finally, the plasterer accepted the job and could not do it so sent his mate to do it. If he does a !!!! job, its down to the original plasterer.

I wouldnt pay a penny until all rectified.

vincento

Give him a remedial list if don't agree tell him you will get quotes for cleaning up then deduct from is bill

dominoman

At this point I have had enough of this plasterer.

I gave him a list of things I wasn't happy about. He promised to fix them all, but instead came back with a tube of polyfilla and spent less than an hour. The fireplace is still a mess. The walls are still lumpy. I asked him to remove the sockets and plaster up behind them so he did 2 by splashing blobs of polyfilla behind it (and didnt do the other two).

I have no faith that if he came back again it would be any better. He doesn't even recognise that it isn't a good job. His answer to me was "I've seen worse", which doesn't count for much to me.

The end result is my walls look worse than before he started.

I've told him I don't want him to come back and do more. I'm going to get another plasterer to redo the worst two walls, and the rest I will fix up myself using polyfilla and lots of sanding.

Horrible experience all round. I just want to put it behind me now.

TheCyclingProgrammer

Well I hope you're not going to pay him any more. Doesn't sound like a plasterer to me. What kind of plasterer does snagging with a tube of ready mixed filler? Easifill would have done a much better job and left you with something that is much more easily sanded.

southcoastrgi

If you are even considering paying him any more money you have more lumps in your head than you have lumps on your wall, I'd be asking for a refund of some of the £300 you have already paid him, if he was my subbie he wouldn't be getting paid at all

dominoman

Nope. I've now agreed with him that I won't pay him the other 50% and I'll use that money to remediate his work. I could have asked for some of the original money back (given that the wall is worse than before he started) but realistically it would be almost impossible to get it back, and it would be acrimonious and stressful for months.

In return for being "let off" the remaining money I won't put a review on his CheckaTrade page. I feel bad about that as it means someone else could have the same experience, but I just want to put this behind me, and I don't want to risk getting a brick through my window.

Le_Kirk

If his aim is as good as his plastering, he'll probably miss!!

macman

dominoman wrote: »

Yes - That was a mistake. I thought by paying just half on the day (I left it with my brother in law to give him as I was away) I was being sensible.

In reality though I can't refuse to pay him as he has done a full day's work, plus another hour to "fix it" yesterday.

However I would like a significant reduction on the £600 (I have paid half of this so far) because:
- Quality of finish is poor
- It only took one man one day (versus 2 men 2 days stated)
- I will have to pay another plasterer or decorator to remediate it

What would you do now with regards payment of the rest?

That is utterly irrelevant to this dispute. You agreed a fixed quote of £600 for the job (a grossly inflated price, but you agreed it). If it had taken 2 men 4 days to complete, would you expect to pay another £600 on top of the quoted price? I think not. The issue here is whether the job has been done to an acceptable standard or not, and the evidence would support the view that it has not.
PS: you can't sand unevenly plastered walls flat again.

dominoman

Yes - That's true. My dispute isn't about how long it took. It's about the terrible terrible quality of the work - that I will need to pay to have fixed. However I do think the poor finish and mess is partly down to the fact that it was rushed.

teneighty

macman wrote: »

That is utterly irrelevant to this dispute. You agreed a fixed quote of £600 for the job (a grossly inflated price, but you agreed it). If it had taken 2 men 4 days to complete, would you expect to pay another £600 on top of the quoted price? I think not.

Not strictly true. As I said in my previous post if it was a fixed price quote of £600 to scim the lounge then yes I agree. If it was broken down into a daywork rate of 2 men 2 days totaling £600 then you can pro-rata it and just pay for 1 man for 1 day. In your scenario if after 2 days 2 men hadn't finished they would have to go back to the customer and get an instruction to continue at the quoted pro-rata rate of £300 per man per day (still very expensive). At which point the plasterer would have to justify why it is taking longer than planned and unless there were significant unforeseeable problems he would be on a sticky wicket.