Hi everyone, Just wanted to see if anybody else is going through the same painful routines on new build houses (David wilson in particular). You're given a plot to fit, total shit hole, no build clean, expected to ply and latex AROUND all sanitary (despite the fact they'll remove it for tilers) and a screed on the ground floor that not only has enough fibres hanging out of it that it could be passed off as cheap astro turf, but is also usually out by at least 10mm over 2 metres. Not even mentioning the fact the cavity around all external doors is fully exposed so I'm supposed to somehow fill and damp proof that before latexing?!? It's totally out of hand at this point
Sound like pretty general new build shit. I have found some are better but on a general note no-one gives a f*ck
yeah sounds like every newbuild i go on too. dont do LVT but i do see it. No builders cleans for us, rock solid glue all around the winders, glue expanded out of all the floorboard seams upstairs.Stairs falling apart before youve even started and then they have the cheek to put stickers on them asking you to glue and screw the grippers to the stairs when they dont even screw the stairs themselves.
Well, at least I'm not the only one I guess..... But something definitely needs to change. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a bad fitter, but I'm probably nowhere near the best, regardless I still like to turn out a good job whether I ever meet the customer or not, it's just getting harder and harder to do that. Once upon a time a plot was completed and handed over to sales before the floor layers got sent in, but that's come and gone sadly. At least it was a half decent plot back then
Take photos and make a compliant. Or even better put charges on your terms for sorting it out. I don’t mind a bit of extra work but someone needs to pay for it. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I started charging for cutting out the mastic they put round to pass the air test. The firm I was working for paid it, but said they could not pass the charge on, even though I got a sit instruction. The expanding glue on the chipboard is one of my pet hates also. Along with the taping & jointing mess. All of it really.
Only time I do new builds is for the customer buyer direct now ,not done one for a firm in ages because of the reasons mentioned. Times I've argued that removing the mastic isn't a 5 minute job so I want paying etc. It's just a complete mess especially when it pulls all the paint off the skirts as well. I havnt got the pictures anymore but when I removed the plinths on one job, I was amazed what they had swept under the units, not just the cuts off of wire or the odd bit of insulation but food, drinks bottles and they even tried to blame me for that when I alerted the customer. Labourer had to come in and clean it out but because it was a house that was already handed over he was trying to tell the customer he should be getting paid for removing the rubbish lol
I am am amazed that they sell so well. I would never consider buying a new build, but they seem to sell off plan before there even built. Quality is horrific, but once you price them up you can understand why.
5% deposits and the gov scheme help sell them (and that the poor customers have no idea how bad they are), been trying to get a mortgage for years and for a family home i need to declare profits of 70+k for a house down south, which is a lot of tax...
Everyone i know is sick of cutting out silicone, scraping out glue from floors and fixing half the other trades bodge jobs before doing our own... often doing a chippys job fixing stairs because i cant be bothered with the agg of being asked to go uplift and refit things halfway through the day when ive got a house to do on the other side of site. the only reason i do site work is because the money is so good. theres no appreciation of a good job, they dont even snag the fitters whos work is quite literally horrific,infact so bad even a blind man would feel it with his stick.
Luckily, when i was doing new builds full time, they hadn't started with the silicone, you still had stuff like half eaten sandwiches and crap swept under the kitchen units, dead cat in kitchen cupboard, dodgy stairs with nails sticking out of the treads where they had nailed the risers on, or stairs finishing 1/4 inch higher than the landing floor, but they do seem to be getting worse, it's rare that a wall will line up from one side of a doorway to the other, did one before Christmas, spent about half a day removing silicone, which must have been applied without a nozzle (probably needed to, to fill the huge gaps under the skirting ) ,it was smeared halfway up the skirting in parts
I don`t think anything will change. Ive just taken on 160 new build units, supply & fix, plus the commons. I have met some decent site agents, and if you can build a decent relationship with them, and they can get the units ahead of you ready, it can be ok. Only a few units with stairs on this site so no paper thin mdf to worry about, and no chipboard so no expanding glue. Plenty of other things to go wrong though I am sure.
