Best ( worst ) DIY bodges.

[Scully]

Am working in a house at the moment where all the light sockets and fittings have been painted over ( not deliberately, just carelessly ) and a thick thermal paper has been hung on the walls, but no joints are butted, some are overlapped, and some joints are curling. Not sure if I'm going to horizontally line it at the moment, but first I have to get all the unstuck bits stuck, and all the gaps filled. Copydex is your friend! Anyhow, I'm having to undo all the previous work by a careless owner before I can make a start, and on commenting on a 'saggy' floor the owner asked me to turn back the carpet to see what was going on. We discovered the previous owner had laid tongue and groove chip board ( not Caberdeck ) on the floor joists. Nothing wrong with that you might think, but they've been laid parallel to the joists instead of across, and any floating joints have been left floating rather than installing a noggin. So the flooring has collapsed at the floating joints, which means decorating has been put on hold while I remove the skirts and pull up the floor. I don't mind as I'm on piece work. 🙂

Over the years I've seen windows built without lintels, painting around any object up against a wall ( including the mirror! ) doors hung upside down, plastering over skirts, silicone around architraves and windows instead of caulk, window openings built to the wrong shape for the window ( measured the actual window as it leant against a wall, then made the hole the same 'portrait' format, only to discover the window should go in 'landscape', and all manner of mistakes and bodges, and it has to be said, DIYers don't have the monopoly on them. 

What have you seen? 

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Blimey all that poor work and now you're there to do the sorting out, I used to hate correcting other bad jobs.

Can pay well though.

Good luck.

[oowee]

I have seen some really bad stuff mostly from where I have tried to do simple stuff. I tried to put up a blind in the bathroom and could not find a solid point to hold a rawl plug as there was a metal lintel in and other obstructions. So i decided to glue it onto the plaster. After about two weeks it fell off bringing down half the new plaster from the top of the window and the wall. I got the builders back in and asked them to do it.

I am so bad at anything diy that I refuse to do anything inside. hats off to you scully and others with the skill to do these things. 

[islandgun]

I dont have to look far as i built my house,  my first mistake was taking the measurements from the plan as centres not to the outside, the house is actually smaller than the plan,  another was i made the scratch coat too weak,  so when the finished coat was applied it pulled the render from the wall, the entire render then blew off in a gale, its not a small house and the only commodities i lacked were knowledge, time and money

[Vince Green]

Somebody I worked for bought a house with a new extension built by a cowboy builder. The mortar that it was built from was virtually pure sand, you could rub it out from between the bricks with a pencil. It had to come down and be rebuilt.

[islandgun]

just found this picture, a catalogue of errors, im the one on the end

[Diver One]

Cupboards glued to wallpaper

cooker wired in bell wire.......cable was hotter than cooker

gas cooker connected with hosepipe and jubilee clips

an entrie newbuild pub with every door upside down

same pub......beer kept in attic, come to accept first replacement delivery ( first barrels were craned in mid-build so it was settled for opening). Beer elevator doors not wide enough to accept barrels

 

last week.....call,to a new accident repair centre.....

 

ramp not working 'our electrician has installed it and says it needs commissioning'

incorrect....it did not work because the 'electrician' had not wired a neutral to it. In fact he had not wired a neutral to ANY isolators anywhere in the building!  Proved it was working ok with a quick temporary dirty fix. Left it disconnected and let their spark field the flak 

 

fire alarm system where all callpoints were screwed to the wall along with the bells.......no wires to them though

 

another fire system where it had been wired by an idiot.. it only worked when every call point was activated along with every detector BUT all at the same time

welding rods instead of fuses in main cut out

blackbox meter fiddling connections gone wrong and a massive black splash mark all up the wall from where it went whoooompf

 

 

something different everyday

[The Mighty Prawn]

My house is an old nailers cottage so the build quality was never great, when we took down one of the ceilings downstairs we found one of the joists was a couple of inches shorter than the rest and was sitting on a lump of rock jammed onto the wall like a Flinstone hanger - left it in as couldn't swap out the joist without much work and if it held for a century so far it's probably okay!

[islandgun]

24 minutes ago, The Mighty Prawn said:

My house is an old nailers cottage so the build quality was never great, when we took down one of the ceilings downstairs we found one of the joists was a couple of inches shorter than the rest and was sitting on a lump of rock jammed onto the wall like a Flinstone hanger - left it in as couldn't swap out the joist without much work and if it held for a century so far it's probably okay!

whats a nailers cottage

[fatchap]

Had some very shoddy work done on my kitchen. I used to come home from work and the plasterer was in my living room sitting down brew in his hand watching TV not a splodge  of plaster on the wall then when he did finally feel the urge to do some graft, most if not all of the plaster he put on the wall slowly made it to the floor.

Obviously as he took his time the actual kitchen fitters where then in a rush and hence cut corners many many many corners. No jig used to cut the corner done free hand and looked like a shot of the Himalayas. Electric shocks from the light fittings, A gas leak from the bayonet fitting on the range cooker. The floor heater blew within days tripping out all the power. 

Overall cost was 12 grand originally it was 8 grand fitted but as we had to get a proper tradesman in to put things right it totalled at 12 grand. He was disgusted with the work, contacted gas safe about the leak they struck the original fitter off. 

All sorted now, well stressful time though.

[Scully]

Joist hangers nailed on upside down...discovered when they tried to hang joists! To be fair I think the beam they were nailed to before installation was put in upside down, and obviously it wouldn’t have mattered which way up the beam sat......if they hadn’t nailed the hangers on first! 😀

Roofshield tacked on from ridge down which meant laps ran wrong way. Again wouldn’t have mattered if they’d tucked the next piece UNDER instead of over. 

I know a bloke who cut a trace line into a wall to fit some copper boiler pipes and then marginally flattened them with a lump hammer when he discovered they were still proud of the wall. Subsequently fired when the owner queried it with HQ. 

[Westley]

As a retired, time served, plumber and gasfitter, I now get frustrated by my health preventing me from doing jobs around my own home. Last year we planned to knock through the wall separating the w.c. from the bathroom. We used a builder who came highly recommended. Well the builder may have been ok BUT his plumber was a complete idiot. After ripping the old bathroom out, the wall was removed between the bathroom and w.c. I had asked that they use plastic piping, from the existing copper pipe, to connect all the appliances. I gave the plumber a roll of both red and blue tape, to help him mark the hot and cold pipes. I also told him that I had put a hose onto the outside drain off, ready for draining the system prior to removing a radiator and moving the pipes, ready for a towel rail. When I was taking in their 2nd cup of tea, I asked the 'plumber' if I should go and drain the system, "Oh, I've done it he replied". He had, he simply cut the pipe and emptied the entire system under the bathroom suspended floor  !  I then spotted the waste pipe from the basin, it came out from the wall, along the floor for around 4"  before dropping under the floor.  His excuse for that one, "there is a joist against the wall under the floor".  I explained that if he went out to the skip on my drive, there were some lengths of 3" x 2" timber, if he screwed a length of that to the underside of the joist he could then notch the top of the joist and take the pipe straight under the floor. Of course that would involve getting under the floor, where the contents of the heating system were now lurking  !  Come the day of the great 'Turn On', I came to get a shower, no hot water. I stripped the thermo mixer valve to ensure that he had the tap heads in the right location, still no joy. I had hot and cold at the bath and the hand held shower head in the bath and thankfully, cold at the loo !  The builder sent his, wait for it, his JOINER round to look at the problem. Transpired that we had TWO cold supplies to the shower mixer valve. I also pointed out that there were no isolation valves fitted to the shower. the 'Joiner' went under the floor  and thanks to using plastic pipe and fittings, was able to sort out the crossed pipes. He then started to try and fit 2 isolation valves, UNDER THE BATH  !  I asked him to wait until I went and got 2 plastic iso valves, which are simply 'push fit'. No, he would use the compression valves he had brought with him. After an hour or more, I asked him where the water leak was. He asked how I knew there was a leak, I informed him that I knew there would be a leak BEFORE it happened.  The leak was at the back of the shower mixer valve, which was now all sealed in place.  The only way to access it,  was to cut a hole in the newly fitted plasterboard, in the hall (where the old doorway had been). A hole was duly made and the compression nut tightened. Now we had to await the plasterers return, to fix the hole in the hall wall.  I served my apprenticeship, like many others over a 6 year period and NOT a 6 week course at the local Tech. College.  IF you find a good tradesman, HANG ON TO HIM.

[moondoggy]

1 hour ago, islandgun said:

just found this picture, a catalogue of errors, im the one on the end

Which end? And which group of people?

[Scully]

I once cut to length an entire roll of very expensive paper, just to realise when I came to hang the second piece, that I'd looked at the wrong repeat! 😳

[spandit]

My last house had a recess in the lounge where they'd had an electric gas effect fire. They'd put the socket inside the recess but it was a bit wide so they'd cut the socket to size with a hacksaw. Exposed edge outwards.

Also found live shower cable under loft insulation with exposed ends

[Paddy Galore!]

see loads in social houses, just replaced a bathroom door, the previous tenant had hung a fire door in a 35mm rebated frame with the hinges about 50mm from top and bottom, hanging by the threads of 2 screws, one of my co workers wanted to replace caberfloor parallel with the joists on a job I was helping with, I had to tell him to go home and i'd finish it, another one spent all day hanging one door, then got it the wrong way round so it was hung on the lock side, had to bolt the handle through to keep it in place.

[figgy]

Seem to many howlers over the years.  But one stands out wife's uncle used six inch nails to nail down a stair carpet. Under stairs cupboard looked like a medieval torture chamber.

My wife when wanting something putting up and I'm busy or working away. Will screw straight into the plasterboard. Even my parents said oh he put it up, said he didn't want it there. Wife replied no I just put the screws into the plasterboard, my parents chuckled and said he will flip. She said yep but he will fix as he won't be able to ignore it.

You gotta love them.

[loriusgarrulus]

The first house I bought with my ex husband was a brand new build. We couldn't afford the builders central heating as well so managed for a year with the gas fire in the front room. Neither I or my ex had any plumbing skills.

We got a recommended plumber in to fit central heating later. He had fitted colleagues heating with no trouble. He had expanded the business in the meantime and taken extra staff on. Two "plumbers" came to fit central heating with a back boiler behind a gas fire in the front room. All was completed and worked well untill we had a heavy frost. Woke up to no heating and water pouring across the front room from under the fire. Couldn't get hold of the plumber and we later found he had gone bankrupt.

We had a firm come from town to look at the system. The cowboys had removed the inner cavity wall as the boiler was to big to fit in the gap. The boiler cooled overnight when the heating wasn't on and froze bursting it in the morning when the gas lit. He discovered we had no drain points on the downstairs radiators. There was a shut of valve by the hot water tank that if we had used it would have caused the boiler to explode. He discovered quite a few other faults and ommissions. He asked if he could take photos for his trade magazine to show what cowboys do. It cost nearly as much to have it put right as the original installation did.

[JohnfromUK]

Some star DIY plumbing in a property a relative bought to rsstore.

[team tractor]

I went to a job last week and the 9” joists holding the floor up in the new extension had bed. Notched to 3” the one end to fit the hangers .

 

[Lloyd90]

4 hours ago, fatchap said:

Had some very shoddy work done on my kitchen. I used to come home from work and the plasterer was in my living room sitting down brew in his hand watching TV not a splodge  of plaster on the wall then when he did finally feel the urge to do some graft, most if not all of the plaster he put on the wall slowly made it to the floor.

Obviously as he took his time the actual kitchen fitters where then in a rush and hence cut corners many many many corners. No jig used to cut the corner done free hand and looked like a shot of the Himalayas. Electric shocks from the light fittings, A gas leak from the bayonet fitting on the range cooker. The floor heater blew within days tripping out all the power. 

Overall cost was 12 grand originally it was 8 grand fitted but as we had to get a proper tradesman in to put things right it totalled at 12 grand. He was disgusted with the work, contacted gas safe about the leak they struck the original fitter off. 

All sorted now, well stressful time though.

You didn't pay the original cowboys did you? 

[henry d]

My daughter had a partial rewire and new distribution box along with a new CH system and I lifted the old floor and laid new, this is what the professional sparkie thought was safe connections to leave under the floor.

[Diver One]

12 hours ago, JohnfromUK said:

Some star DIY plumbing in a property a relative bought to rsstore.

It's  a pity they didn't fit any bonds between the pipes 😂

[TIGHTCHOKE]

On a similar line, the Sky "Engineer" was fitting a new dish to my next door neighbours house yesterday morning. I watched him while I was loading the car.

He went to the bother of hiding the white double cable neatly under the eaves and along behind the black guttering above the lounge window.

But instead of cutting the cable from the real and tucking it behind the guttering for the last vertical drop to where it was to enter the house, he brought it over the guttering and down from there.

It really STANDS OUT as a poor job.

I will photograph it later!

[JohnfromUK]

11 minutes ago, Diver One said:

It's  a pity they didn't fit any bonds between the pipes 😂

It was a house that had belonged (many years ago) to my grandparents.  They 'did it up' in the late 40/s early 50's installing all of the original plumbing, gas, wiring (5 Amp and 15 Amp round pin) and coal fired background central heating.

After it passed out of the family, it was bought by a great 'DIYer' who rewired it with stick on plastic conduit - all slightly off vertical, to 13A sockets on patresses slightly off horizontal on the skirtings - and the plumbing for additional bathrooms and showers that ypu see in the photo.  Sadly, they also messed with the roof water drainage, selling off the gardens where the water drained to greenhouses and putting soakaways close to the house.  This caused huge damp problems (it is a 17th century house with very thick limestone walls that wicked up the water) and when it came back into the family to a relative it was in a very sad state with plaster falling off internally, the roof leaking, and many many issues.

The good side is that the current owners have spent 2 years (and a not inconsiderable sum) putting it all right - and it is now a lovely old house again.