1 week into home renovation / extension - should we pull the plug already?

LadyWithAPlan

Sorry you going through this, your FIL sounds like a saviour.

I went to a great talk on project managing your property development and his advice which you may want to do as a next step is to hire a quantity surveyor to come up with a list of all needed jobs and suppliers and costs in full details - including batching work where it made sense  (so cementing floors and laying them etc) . You can then pay a retainer for them to help negotiate between you and the various contractors  or just pay a one off fee and then follow their detailed plan to a T so you are not reliant on only one  builder.

BlueC

Quick update for those who were following.

Joiner sorted out the beam last week setting it properly on padstones and then knitted all the cut rafters back together. This was the steel beam they had placed in and cable-tied the timber to and was not fixed to anything. We found it had been packed with plasterboard to make it level, and was actually about 3 inches short so it never even had the full 100mm bearing on each end. Beggars belief really. We'll have to replace it eventually but its not really supporting much right now so it will do for now.

The roof was finally re-tiled today although our temporary visqueen fix had held up pretty well. Got a bit of tidying up to do and need to hire a skip.

We're going to be about £6k out of pocket from this saga. How's that for MoneySaving!

Rosa_Damascena

BlueC said:

Quick update for those who were following.

Joiner sorted out the beam last week setting it properly on padstones and then knitted all the cut rafters back together. This was the steel beam they had placed in and cable-tied the timber to and was not fixed to anything. We found it had been packed with plasterboard to make it level, and was actually about 3 inches short so it never even had the full 100mm bearing on each end. Beggars belief really. We'll have to replace it eventually but its not really supporting much right now so it will do for now.

The roof was finally re-tiled today although our temporary visqueen fix had held up pretty well. Got a bit of tidying up to do and need to hire a skip.

We're going to be about £6k out of pocket from this saga. How's that for MoneySaving!

Peace of mind is priceless though!

You've been through a lot and have survived, sanity intact.

Bendy_House

Thanks for the update.

Any possibility of adding another thickness to one of the beam end supports, or even a steel post, to allow the existing beam to be used permanently?

Section62

Bendy_House said:

Any possibility of adding another thickness to one of the beam end supports, or even a steel post, to allow the existing beam to be used permanently?

The beam will need to be checked over by someone with a structural qualification before being used permanently.

There's no way of knowing what the builder was doing/had in mind unless he is willing to explain himself, and in the circumstances I'm not sure the OP would be able to trust him anyway.

E.g. maybe he hadn't been able to get the correct specification of steel of the right length, so put in something he had (or could get) as a temporary measure to allow the construction to progress.  That might explain (but not forgive) the use of cable ties for holding the timber in place.

Section62

BlueC said:

The roof was finally re-tiled today although our temporary visqueen fix had held up pretty well. Got a bit of tidying up to do and need to hire a skip.

We're going to be about £6k out of pocket from this saga. How's that for MoneySaving!

Look on it that you've done well to stabilise the situation and put yourselves and your home in a position where you are safe and comfortable for the Winter.  Will you be able to get rid of the scaffolding now, or are you keeping it up until you can restart the project properly?

The financial loss is a painful one, but based on the uncertainty around of this guy's working methods it may have saved you having work completed which is substandard and could need remedial work costing far more than £6k.

What was the final situation with building control?  Had they been out to do any inspections, or had the builder sent them any photos etc?

And any thoughts about your next steps?  Are you planning to restart the project with a different builder, or are you going to need time to build up your finances again?

Picking the wrong builder is something that anyone can do - even the very best (quality) builders/contractors can go bankrupt in the middle of a project - what matters the most is how you take control of the situation when something like that happens. Like I said above, you've done well when it really counted.

BlueC

Hi everyone, thanks for the responses. Tried to answer the questions below...

We'll be speaking to our engineer about the beam - one option may be to weld plates to each end to give the full 100mm bearing but really we're most likely just to replace it with a correct length beam as it just bugs me that it is wrong.

BC never came out so nothing to report there.

Agreed about the financial loss possibly being insignificant compared to the potential losses and stress if he had actually continued. Aside from the feeling of injustice overall we're quite relieved really. It would have been MUCH worse if we'd got 6 weeks in and realised it was going to be a disaster.

Next step is to regroup and then start again. We'll probably remove the scaff because it will be a similar cost to keep it and its not nice having it up. The local builder who has done the work to put things right is interested in the job so we're going to get him to price it. We were very impressed with how he's gone about fixing things - the joiners especially were really professional and knew their stuff.

Thanks for all the great help and support everyone. It's be a real learning curve!

Section62

BlueC said:

We'll be speaking to our engineer about the beam - one option may be to weld plates to each end to give the full 100mm bearing but really we're most likely just to replace it with a correct length beam as it just bugs me that it is wrong.

Site welding a beam to extend it by a small amount is unlikely to be an economic solution, and almost certainly will involve some additional hoops to jump through with BC.  The weld itself would need design and supporting documentation.

If it were me, unless there is already a substantial load on the beam which is difficult to deal with by temporary support then I wouldn't even involve the SE.  The beam would come back out and be replaced by what was originally specified.  The cost equivalent of the replacement beam is not going to buy you much of a good SE's time plus the paperwork.  And you may be able to sell the 'wrong' one on to someone else.

BlueC said:

The local builder who has done the work to put things right is interested in the job so we're going to get him to price it. We were very impressed with how he's gone about fixing things - the joiners especially were really professional and knew their stuff.

This is good, but always beware of first impressions.  

When it comes to comparing quotes, bear in mind this builder will have a better understanding of the work required than the others, so I would give him a decent margin (if he's the most expensive) due to knowing/expecting the costs to be higher.