New-ish Conservatory falling to pieces (literally)

chickendipperbabe

Hi, we had a conservatory built in mid 2016 by a well known company that’s been nothing but trouble. There is a list as long as your arm detailing issues, most of which have been ongoing and unresolved since the work was completed in 2016.

Leaky lead flashing (roof apex frame/beam has since pulled away from the house)
Crumbling Pointing on exterior brickwork
The brick/stone steps need to be rebuilt
Reoccurring mould patches internally
The floor has dropped around 1-2cm and is slightly uneven
Window Sills have dropped (inc plaster work) upto 1cm in places
2 Glass roof panels don’t sit properly resulting in a gaps and drafts
Cracks appearing in plaster everywhere exposing brickwork, some so big you can just about fit a finger in them)

The company have examined the conservatory and confirmed the structure is pulling away from the house causing most of the issues mentioned above, they mentioned the dreaded S word in conversation, subsidence though it’s yet to be confirmed officially.

My partner asked on a builders forum, showed some pictures of their work during the building process and the feedback wasn’t very positive – on the back of this, we had a builder friend go over the conservatory and build pictures this afternoon and he’s conformed what everyone has told us, it’s a mess and wasn’t built properly in his opinion.

Basically the builders messed up the foundation, the front of the conservatory is resting on the foundation of the house, there is probably movement in the new foundations they dug for the Con but it can’t settle level due to the front of the structure resting on the stronger settled house foundation. The back end of it is dropping, levering the entire structure up and away from the back of the house. The builders also never bothered tying in the new conservatory walls to the house brickwork – on of them is 13x8.5ft in size and is cracked where it joins the house on the interior plaster and the exterior brickwork – it’s basically not attached at all where it meets the house.

The brickwork on the wall on our neighbours side is extremely poor (in my opinion) sloppy with multiple gaps where you can see, using a torch the brown cavity insulation.

We plan on getting the conservatory looked at independently in a couple of weeks by a structural engineer – depending on what the conservatory company say, assuming they push for underpinning – to date they’ve been a nightmare to deal with.

Given the number and possible severity of issues, the poor workmanship and corner cutting, at this point we would much prefer to get rid of it and start again. The company can either re-build it properly or remove it entirely and refund. It still early days and I might be getting ahead of myself here but would we be within our rights to refuse repair and push for replacement?

ComicGeek

Why would you want the same idiots to rebuild it? Get them to remove and refund, and then use a reputable local company to build it, or get a proper extension built.

chickendipperbabe

ComicGeek wrote: »

Why would you want the same idiots to rebuild it? Get them to remove and refund, and then use a reputable local company to build it, or get a proper extension built.

You have a point, in an ideal world they'd refund us and we would go elsewhere but I cannot see them writing off near £20k so easily - the second best outcome would be a complete re-build closely monitored.

Assuming we are refunded, we would go down the extension route.

The annoying thing is we went with a huge national company and assumed they'd "fit the best" how wrong were we! The quality of work is disgraceful though.

FreeBear

chickendipperbabe wrote: »

YThe annoying thing is we went with a huge national company and assumed they'd "fit the best" how wrong were we! The quality of work is disgraceful though.

Name & shame.

You will probably find they have a huge legal department well versed in fighting claims such as this. So don't expect to get a refund out of them very easily.

chickendipperbabe

FreeBear wrote: »

Name & shame.

You will probably find they have a huge legal department well versed in fighting claims such as this. So don't expect to get a refund out of them very easily.

I'd rather not name them directly but they claim to fit the best and are associated with a very high mountain in Asia.

Hopefully it won't get to the point of going down the claim route, we'd reluctantly accept a rebuild at a push by a different build team. We have pictures detailing the progress of the build showing the foundation bodge and the lack of wall starters/ties. I can't see how they can carry out a lasting repair without removing the entire structure and re-building the foundations - but then again, I'm not a builder and what do I know

Davesnave

Once you have a structural engineer's report on the foundations and walls you will probably know better how to move forward. He/she should be able to say if underpinning would be feasible / worthwhile.

That particular company claims to be Trustmark approved, so I'd try to use it as leverage. Personally, I found the GGF to be a chocolate tea pot organisation, funded by the industry, so I'd not expect much from them.

Fire_Fox

You will be in a much stronger position if/ when you have the backing of an independent structural engineer. I don't see the logic in waiting.

Davesnave

Fire_Fox wrote: »

I don't see the logic in waiting.

Waiting for what? It was 'a couple of weeks' before I could book-in a structural engineer when I wanted one a few years ago.

Frank99

My heart goes out to you over this problem, my in law had concerns that crappy building work was done on his new conservatory, he has paid on a credit card for 6 year protection and forced the company to write building work covered for ten years into the guarantee, they left him waiting for over an hour in their reception when he asked for this though.
I think you should go to the press and possibly social media to tell your story as they won't want bad publicity, keep pushing them to try and get compensation of some kind.
For the future i would opt for an extension, several in my area have gone this route.

chickendipperbabe

Thanks for all the responses. I suppose the sooner I get my own independent report the better, I probably will have to at some point anyway. The conservatory has been looked by what I assume was the companies own structural engineer who confirmed the movement was concerning and requested copies of the foundation pictures.

I was re-assured that the guarantee would cover everything but if what I’ve been told it true and they’ve basically bodged the build to save a few hours digging and £50 on wall starters then there’s no way I’ll be accepting a repair on something they should have done right in the first place.

I know price will vary in different parts of the country but how much would I expect to pay for a structural report on the conservatory?

I’m not going to escalate things yet, social media and press is always an option but I’m going to hold back and see what they come up with.

When we paid for the conservatory, we paid half in cash and the other half on Finance so that’s another avenue I can possibly go down if things get messy.

Fire_Fox

It would be worth formally (in writing) requesting a copy of the structural report by the company representative. Verbal assurances and confirmations by an unnamed and untitled individual are worthless.