Poor finishing from tradesmen

DRP

Needs a serious conversation about rectifying (if possible & if trust is not lost), and payment (not really fit for purpose for all the reasons stated above).

diystarter7

OP
Sorry to read about your problems.

Take it on the chin and try and gloss over yourself rather than the stress of chasing a useless person.

It is hard to get a decent trader.  Even worse, about 4 years ago a tradesman laid wood flooring in my son's property in the hall and master bedroom 100% spot on and in the hall there was a step the joint etc and the finish was 100%. We decided to use him for our hall floor all on one level and new skirting. The builder was in the process of a moving home. The finish was 90% and the joker put a nail through a central heating pipe emmbed into a wall as floors are concrete we only noted this at midnight just before going to bed. We told him he was said he was not a plumber, I put the phone down.
We  paid for the fix etc ourselves.

There are good people out there and things can go wrong they will come back but they are now in a miniority.

itssmallstuff

Section62 said:

itssmallstuff said:

So, I only blame myself for trusting a tradesmen with my new Utility room. Here are the issues

1. Small inset (not the undermount) sink fitted however he did not put any supplied clips underneath. Just silicon and adhesive maybe. Left water in the sink and asked not to drain it until next day as it's providing weight for it to fix.

2. He cut a curve on the edge of our new oak veneer worktop, but is not put the supplied edging strip. The tradesmen said it's too rigid to bend the strip. Not I have exposed edge curve 

3. Other straight edge of the worktop has a exposed edge. He did not cut it cleanly and now the edge strip looks like a patch 

4. There is a bit of a gap between worktop and wall behind in one place. Again, it wasn't cut perfectly. He has put silicon in there. Its easy fix if we put a wooden strip along the length of worktop where wall meets the worktop. We have similar thing in our kitchen. Any other ideas? We are not doing splashback all around as it's just a utility room.

If I take time myself and watch videos etc, are these fixable things? He was not very expensive so I guess I got what I paid for .... So not blaming the tradesmen.

There's so much wrong with that job it is difficult to know where to start.

From a safety point of view leaving the square edge on the worktop next to the door is a really bad idea, sooner or later someone is going to hurt themselves on that - and if it is a child then you could be dealing with a very nasty facial/head injury.

It was also a poor choice to put the tap right in the corner.  It might work Ok as a single lever, but means it would be impossible to use the same hole for a different style of tap.

With fundamentals like this wrong, it isn't surprising the quality of finish is poor.

The radiused corner of the worktop also looks like it has just been cut with a saw.  To get the edging to look good the radius will need to be routed with a jig, or carefully sanded with a belt sander, to make sure the edge is square vertically, and that there is a smooth transition from straight to curve.

Was the worktop an expensive one?

Paid £80 for the worktop. It's IKEA Oak Veneer bought from circular hub

itssmallstuff

DRP said:

Needs a serious conversation about rectifying (if possible & if trust is not lost), and payment (not really fit for purpose for all the reasons stated above).

I don't like the person to call them. If I am doing anything, it will be my own time an efforts. There are just too many cowboys out there, and very good ones just don't have time.

itssmallstuff

Norman_Castle said:

Megaross said:

Blimey, how did they screw up that cut so badly? What the hell were there cutting it with?

I'd suspect a circular saw with a limited depth of cut so they've cut from both sides. Unfortunately one cut was in the wrong place.

That might be it.. I did not keep an eye constantly so not sure.

Section62

Norman_Castle said:

Megaross said:

Blimey, how did they screw up that cut so badly? What the hell were there cutting it with?

I'd suspect a circular saw with a limited depth of cut so they've cut from both sides. Unfortunately one cut was in the wrong place.

Possibly, but I would normally suspect the fitter was aiming for a high quality finish, so used a circular saw to cut 3/4's through on the reverse side, to then use a straight trim bit with a router for finishing the top side without any chipping of the surface.

But given the rest of the job, I'm having difficulty believing that's what they were doing.

Section62

itssmallstuff said:

Section62 said:

itssmallstuff said:

So, I only blame myself for trusting a tradesmen with my new Utility room. Here are the issues

1. Small inset (not the undermount) sink fitted however he did not put any supplied clips underneath. Just silicon and adhesive maybe. Left water in the sink and asked not to drain it until next day as it's providing weight for it to fix.

2. He cut a curve on the edge of our new oak veneer worktop, but is not put the supplied edging strip. The tradesmen said it's too rigid to bend the strip. Not I have exposed edge curve 

3. Other straight edge of the worktop has a exposed edge. He did not cut it cleanly and now the edge strip looks like a patch 

4. There is a bit of a gap between worktop and wall behind in one place. Again, it wasn't cut perfectly. He has put silicon in there. Its easy fix if we put a wooden strip along the length of worktop where wall meets the worktop. We have similar thing in our kitchen. Any other ideas? We are not doing splashback all around as it's just a utility room.

If I take time myself and watch videos etc, are these fixable things? He was not very expensive so I guess I got what I paid for .... So not blaming the tradesmen.

There's so much wrong with that job it is difficult to know where to start.

From a safety point of view leaving the square edge on the worktop next to the door is a really bad idea, sooner or later someone is going to hurt themselves on that - and if it is a child then you could be dealing with a very nasty facial/head injury.

It was also a poor choice to put the tap right in the corner.  It might work Ok as a single lever, but means it would be impossible to use the same hole for a different style of tap.

With fundamentals like this wrong, it isn't surprising the quality of finish is poor.

The radiused corner of the worktop also looks like it has just been cut with a saw.  To get the edging to look good the radius will need to be routed with a jig, or carefully sanded with a belt sander, to make sure the edge is square vertically, and that there is a smooth transition from straight to curve.

Was the worktop an expensive one?

Paid £80 for the worktop. It's IKEA Oak Veneer bought from circular hub

If you can live with a less than 100% job then do your best to make it look better.

If you want a 100% job then you probably need to start with a new piece of worktop.

I would definitely try to get a radius added to the corner by the door... that is just screaming out as a hazard.

FreeBear

Megaross said: You always have some gaps because plaster is never fully flat or square.Silicone is a fair fix provided it's not a huge bead, you can also run tile, splashback or worktop upstand - the last is what you're referring to, 10 minute job to fit.

If the worktop was templated & scribed properly, there would be minimal gap - I did two ~3m runs in my kitchen and the biggest gap is no more than 2mm. The walls are 6-10mm out in places, and one side has a 120mm step to contend with. Yes, it is additional work, but really not that difficult to do.

As for fitting the trim on a radiused corner - Regular formica type laminate, the trim bends very easily and would comfortably cope with that radius (just need to use a decent adhesive). With a real timber finishing strip, soak it in hot water and then clamp around a former whilst it dries. With some careful cutting to allow for the thickness of the trim, it would be possible to get a smooth transition from straight to curve without any end grain on show. But that level of finish takes skill and care.

itssmallstuff

Section62 said:

itssmallstuff said:

Section62 said:

itssmallstuff said:

So, I only blame myself for trusting a tradesmen with my new Utility room. Here are the issues

1. Small inset (not the undermount) sink fitted however he did not put any supplied clips underneath. Just silicon and adhesive maybe. Left water in the sink and asked not to drain it until next day as it's providing weight for it to fix.

2. He cut a curve on the edge of our new oak veneer worktop, but is not put the supplied edging strip. The tradesmen said it's too rigid to bend the strip. Not I have exposed edge curve 

3. Other straight edge of the worktop has a exposed edge. He did not cut it cleanly and now the edge strip looks like a patch 

4. There is a bit of a gap between worktop and wall behind in one place. Again, it wasn't cut perfectly. He has put silicon in there. Its easy fix if we put a wooden strip along the length of worktop where wall meets the worktop. We have similar thing in our kitchen. Any other ideas? We are not doing splashback all around as it's just a utility room.

If I take time myself and watch videos etc, are these fixable things? He was not very expensive so I guess I got what I paid for .... So not blaming the tradesmen.

There's so much wrong with that job it is difficult to know where to start.

From a safety point of view leaving the square edge on the worktop next to the door is a really bad idea, sooner or later someone is going to hurt themselves on that - and if it is a child then you could be dealing with a very nasty facial/head injury.

It was also a poor choice to put the tap right in the corner.  It might work Ok as a single lever, but means it would be impossible to use the same hole for a different style of tap.

With fundamentals like this wrong, it isn't surprising the quality of finish is poor.

The radiused corner of the worktop also looks like it has just been cut with a saw.  To get the edging to look good the radius will need to be routed with a jig, or carefully sanded with a belt sander, to make sure the edge is square vertically, and that there is a smooth transition from straight to curve.

Was the worktop an expensive one?

Paid £80 for the worktop. It's IKEA Oak Veneer bought from circular hub

If you can live with a less than 100% job then do your best to make it look better.

If you want a 100% job then you probably need to start with a new piece of worktop.

I would definitely try to get a radius added to the corner by the door... that is just screaming out as a hazard.

Had the other radius been done well, I would definitely ask for more. I hoped the tradesmen would have told me about the edging strip limitations BEFORE cutting the corner round.... I'd have lived with a square edge any day over this!

itssmallstuff

Update -

The tradesmen came back at his own will and did this ... Still a cowboy I'd think!!!