Customer had sawn allt he spindles from the staircase along with newel post, because she didnt want to paint them, i fell off the side of the starirs,and it hurt,
chimney breast removed from ground floor leaving a mass of bricks just hanging,
chimney breast removed from middle floor flat, and old bricks droped down the chimney from the ground floor flat, as it was empty, chap didnt realise the hole went into the flat below, he thought they where dropping into cellar.There must have ben hell of a mess.
Velux roof window left open on a student house for 6 weeks over a summer break, lots of water damage,
cold water incomeing supply connected to gas pipe,switched on meter and water flowed out of cooker and flooded gas main, major transco job sucking the water out of the mains.
Vent axia fitted into bathroom ceiling with no where for moisture to go only into the attic,
Dog flap like a cat flap but big enough for an adult to get through.
Row of terraced houses local thief watched homeowners going to work, and would quietly go accross the attics, no dividing walls, and drop down into each house, make sure if you live in a terrace have a bolt on loft hatch
and lots more
When we bought our house we found out they'd removed the chimney breast all the way up to the attic but left the rest of it there so there was this large outgrowth of bricks just hanging over the dining room.
I've posted about the scary electrical bodges in my old house before.
The new one...not so bad but still a pain until they are sorted:
Bathroom sink tap isn't long enough so as soon as you try and wash your hands the water flows over the back of the sink and onto the floor.
Breakfast bar installed over the washing machine space, so we have to buy the marketing mans expensive blister things as its too fiddly to remove the dispenser each time you want to add powder. Annoyingly, the spare bit of worktop needed when the breakfast bar is removed is warped and I don't think it'll straighten unless anyone knows any tricks?
Had to disassemble a kitchen cupboard that prevented the boiler being serviced. Also in the kitchen, the usual 'just for show' cooker hood...not even a carbon filter. Cost about £20 to route some ducting through the loft to a vent in the soffit and its made a huge difference.
Vent axia fitted into bathroom ceiling with no where for moisture to go only into the attic,
you've been to my house?
One I've sorted - and this is more a moan than a bodge - but who decided that built-in refrigerators were a good idea? It took me two hours and a crowbar to remove it when it stopped working, and there were dust bunnies the size of real rabbits all over the cooling fins. Oh, and a normal 13A plug into a socket - thank the gods the fuse never blew.
The worst I've seen was when we bought a big Edwardian house that had been bedsits.Everything was a mess, but in the communal sitting room at the back was a gas fire mounted onto the chimney breast. On top of the chimney,on the roof, was a nice large garden slab to cap it off. How no-one died is beyond me.
The radiator on the hot water circuit dates back to solid fuel boilers and very often pre-dated heating systems in general, so that could well be the only rad in the house. Later when the full system was added that one was left on the HW. Acted as a bit of a safety overheat valve for the old boilers as well.
Our bath taps were live when we moved in
We bought a house with 5 carpets - laid on top of each other. The last three were cut around the furniture in the rooms...
The same house had a dodgy porch added to the back - and the lintel above the door removed to accommodate it...
Oh yeah, my wee brother, in his first flat... For some reason, floorboard nails kept lifting up in the uncarpeted wooden floor- some subsidence or settling thing I guess. Anyone else would tap them back in. He pulled them out. After a few years of living in that flat, half the floorboards were barely nailed down and the floor moved around like a waterbed as you walked across it.
hollow box section metal door frames quite popular after the war around chester, sunk into the floor in some houses, sometimes filld ewith concret, but always attached into wall with huge peieces of metal, pull and crow bar the frame, it comes out as one piece and half the wall moves with it, saughall area and parts of the rural area.
Not a domestic bodge, but a problem I discovered today during a site visit to a school where various different pieces of work have been undertaken during the holidays, which included overlaying the existing tarmac to the playground and courtyards, and replacing the boxing-in to some services bridges containing heating pipes etc that run across the courtyards..
Unfortunately the contractor neglected to realise that by slightly increasing the height of the tarmac, and slightly increasing the depth of the bespoke boxing in, he was no longer able to get the mini-excavator back out of the courtyard 😀
*applause*
Our last place, when we moved in, had what appeared to be an all singing, all dancing shower cubicle with side jets, massager jets and a lovely big down sprayer. It was great, putting out loads of water thanks to the power pump located in the airing cupboard.
Mind you, it did have a bit of trouble draining and it was only when we had a big leak appear in the lounge that we found out why. There was no real U-bend, just a shallow P trap and the outflow ended in a T junction that the installers had filled up with silicone sealant to plug. Excepts it hadn't plugged it. Cue one insurance claim and a lot of new ceiling.
Finally, we had enough and got shot of the shower cubicle (apparently won in a competition and installed in a weekend by two of the previous owner's mates). Whilst taking it apart, I found out that the side jets did not contain and end plug and, if used, would have put all that power shower water all over a lovely un-earthed 13a feed that fed the lights.
This new house is much better. It's new, so no major surprises yet.
I used to help out my painter and decorator uncle. We once quoted on a house where the last owner had painted the bathroom in avocado green gloss paint. Every surface of the bathroom except the mirror: the doors, the hardwood floor, the inside and outside of the bath, and the toilet cistern and bowl. And the inside of the toilet bowl, right down to the water level.
*bokes*
OP, is it a combi? Mine is having similar issues and apparently it's a valve within the boiler that should stay closed to the rad circuit.
Worst DIY fail I have seen is my sisters old house. The roof tiles and liner needed replacing,instead, the prev owner wanted to board the loft out rather than fix this. The solution? Line the outer skin of the loft, joists, felt and all with plastic sheeting. The result, a roof that leaked into a fully waterproof tank which immersed the wood in rain water.
The first time I realised is when I gripped onto a main longitudinal beam and it crushed from my fingers.
"The same house had the boiler in a shed outside to save room in the kitchen"
Best place for it. Noise etc etc. Ours is a slate-roofed brick built shed.
Started to strip a bathroom for refurb , four layers of tiles! The last layer was fixed with cement. It took two weeks to get it back to the brick!! It was only a small bathroom!
Refurb of kitchen , stripped out the nasty laminate floor to reveal no floor joists ,the floor was supprorted by bricks. Tw*ts. The floor had rotted away due to (you guessed it) all the air bricks being covered up by concrete in the yard! I nearly cried at that one. 🙁 🙂
We are house hunting at the moment and some of the finishes looks like a three year old has done it!
Started to strip a bathroom for refurb , four layers of tiles! The last layer was fixed with cement. It took two weeks to get it back to the brick!!
You need an SDS cranked chisel.
I've done quite a few like that. With the right tools that's a day at the most 😉
We are house hunting at the moment and some of the finishes looks like a three year old has done it!
We got a professional Painter and Decorator in. He then sub-contracted the job to what seems was a 3yr old.
You need an SDS cranked chisel.
I used one - it just bounced off!!
To be fair I was working full time , so only had a few hours per day.
I'm not a pro... 😉
Discovered all the metal plug sockets in the front room have no earth yesterday. Another one for the list.
It's new, so no major surprises yet.
How long have you been in? 😀
Mum and Dad had a new build. Couple of days in, Mum emptied the bath and the downstairs cloakroom loo flooded into the hall.
The main drain hadn't been connected between the front garden and street! This was classed as a 'snag' and the whole front garden excavated to repair it and drain the raw sewage.
Our old house is much better. Garage power was run from the house via a 4mm twin and earth interior grade cable that hung unsupported like a 60 foot washing line down the garden at head height. When something high load was plugged in in the garage, it sagged a bit each time.
Plumbing and writing were all odd and the guy used 100mm frame fixings to attach anything! TV shelf, curtain rails, tea towel holder.....
Need to remove that unsightly artex? No problem, just wallpaper straight over it. No wonder it was lumpy, at least it was easy to strip.
How long have you been in?
A year and a half so far. The only problem (touch wood) has been with the shit Istor boiler.
It's got a central heating expansion tank that's shaped like a doughnut and contains a wheelbarrow wheel inner tube that is supposed to take up the slack for the hotter and expanded water. Rubber perishes. When it perishes, it burst and does not take up the expansion, then just leaks out of the pressure relief vale.
But then the pressure drops? OH NOOOOO! Previous owners, to keep the pressure up, had just cracked the cold feed into the central heating open, just a little bit. This worked, but when it's really cold outside, water leaking out freezes and stops more water leaving the overflow. We wondered where the water drips were coming from.
The second time that happened a kettle of hot water over the outflow sorted it, but we got a proper plumber in to replace the expansion tank.
thermostat in the garage - tick
boiler not vented out the garage - tick
dodgy electrics - tick - garage was wired off the lighting circuit - shower was wired in with 6mm cable not 12 and had started to burn back along the wire when i rewired whole house. downlighters wired in by "twist and tape"
PU pipe with no inserts in connections whihc popped off occasionally.
louvre doors.
walllights with the cable chased "slightly" into the surface and skimmed over - then plugged into the wall at the bottom.
fireplace that had a coal scuttle with the bottom cut out and a bit of steel welded to it instead of a register plate and road kerb for a lintel
rather than run the pipes in the service gap under the kitchen units- they stuck them behind the cupboard - cutting the backs 6 inches off - letting mice into the food cupboards - all that we keep in there now is mouse traps and poison 😉 + no more mice get in thanks to wirewool and expanding foam.
light switch behind the open door in the living room.
also - my boiler lives outside in the open air just by my back door - sticking it in the shed isnt an issue ASLONG as you bought the right kind of boiler.
mines a grant outdoor oil boiler - had them and worchester bosch outdoor models in my last 3 houses and they been good.
PU pipe with no inserts in connections whihc popped off occasionally.
Have been to so many jobs to sort leaks that were caused by exactly that.
Half of the time the work was done by people who called themselves "Plumbers"
But clearly had no training whatsoever. That's so basic even an occasional DIY'er should be getting it right.
cold water incomeing supply connected to gas pipe,switched on meter and water flowed out of cooker and flooded gas main, major transco job sucking the water out of the mains.
superb, just superb
actually the worst bit in our house is in the kitchen extension - not techincally a DIY bodge but a bit of a measurement error...
the extension was very carefully built with two chimneys, on the outside of the rear wall of the kitchen and on the side wall of the (brick) conservatory - one chimney was only to hide the boiler's hot water pipes, and the other was the real flue for the (solid fuel) boiler exhaust.
problem is someone forgot the old "measure twice, build once" advice
the result is that the boiler (a) doesn't quite fit in the corner, (b) doesn't line up with the chimney, meaning we have a mahoosive section of lovely hot twin wall flue with about 9 bends in it passing straight out of the kitchen into the conservatory before finally rejoining the chimney - it does keep the conservatory nice and warm, and (c) the pipes didn't line up with the other chimney either, so they're all completely exposed too.
scary part- previous owner told me he was a retired plumber and did the install him self.
my uncle whos a heating engineer came round and condemed the system the day after i bought.
Lucky i am not a retard(all the time) and budgeted for a replacement.
scary part- previous owner told me he was a retired plumber and did the install him self.
my uncle whos a heating engineer came round and condemed the system the day after i bought.
Lucky i am not a retard(all the time) and budgeted for a replacement.
^^ sounds like friend's new house. PU pipe and copper pipe joined just by jamming the 2 together. Hot water feed to bath. Presumably the coefficient of expansion of copper and plastic differ. Made tracing the source of the leak much easier when the water p1551ng thru the ceiling and down the kitchen wall was actually hot.
Dutch plumbing and electrics was dire when I lived there. They're cheaper than certain stereotypical demographics in the UK. Wire was *really* invented by 2 dutchmen fighting over a a 1 cent coin.
Combi boiler needed topping up weekly in summer, and daily in winter. No clue where the water went, but It wasn't into our apartment. Take a shower and you had 4 minutes exactly. After that, you'd be scorched to death and the boiler would trip off. No gas technician / plumber ever managed to sort that until they ripped the whole lot out (was less than 10yrs old) and started again.
Pipe work was apparently a bit "iffy". So they fit a restrictor by the meter to lower the pressure. Nice one. Shame it took 20 minutes for a cistern to refill (and only take about 2/3rd of the water a UK bog takes!). So if there's more than one resident, make sure you don't do a double-flusher in the morning else one of you will be late for work.
Electrics - only plugs in bathroom/kitchen are fully earthed. The rest are unearthed 2 pin, and fitted to walls made from panels with the consistency of chalk, held together by the wallpaper.
The house we've just bought has all sorts of interesting bodges.
The entire chimney breast wall in the living room was clad in brick effect hardboard panelling. There was a cabinet in one of the alcoves with a 2 gang socket next to it, that two was wired into another two gang with a plug and wire behind the unit which in turn was fixed to a bit of skirting board which wasn't attached to anything.
There's other sockets dotted around the house where the cables have been chased into the wall (just) then had polyfilla thrown over it and it's lumper than a lumpy thing.
The there's the damp (on all but 3 walls), which is a result of a combination of blocked airbricks, knackered gutters, a downside that empties onto the floor and render that goes all the way to ground level.
My sisters new house has some weird features. 3ft concrete waste pipes cemented into the downstairs fireplaces to replace the original Edwardian fireplaces as "features".
Very odd tiny downstairs loo with even odder 90degree turn and tiny shower at the end.
Although the favourite. 70's avocado bathroom suit with matching tiles. Not too odd until you notice the single din car radio cassette player mounted in the tiles as a primitive sound system.
The CH pipes run behind the [s]skirting[/s] gert big boxing upstairs in our place, which has been taken right upto the sockets. Thus the sockets have been rendered just about useless as there's no room for the flex to, well flex, and allow the plug to be pushed into the socket! Plug adaptors a plenty..
Cheers,
Jamie
OP, is it a combi? Mine is having similar issues and apparently it's a valve within the boiler that should stay closed to the rad circuit.
Who the hell knows. It was listed as a combi in the particulars but there is a hot water tank and the hot water is on a timer. Lucky we budgeted for a new system in the purchase price.
New bit of fun now as well.
Yesterday evening while sitting on the turbo trainer in the garage I was looking round and spotted a tap dissapearing into the wall. Who knows what it is for! Just the handle of a tap dissapearing into a wall and painted in!
The big question being... do I turn the tap to see what happens or leave well alone?!
Also have some mysterious things in my current place.
1 light just inside the front door that appears to be permanently wired to live mains. Only been here 10 years, and never found the appropriate switch. Currently fixed by having a bulb half screwed in, but not making contact.
1 set of on-off remote relay switches, that trigger the relays in the main breaker panel. Never found what they are actually connected to.
Also got a PIR sensor in the bathroom. Thought it might be handy to turn lights on/off, but seems to be wired only to an extractor fan. Might just replace it with a normal on-off switch, cos the only way to trun the extractor on/off is a tiny switch under the PIR that's designed to select between Off, On or PIR mode.
Hot water tap outside so he could wash his bikes in warm water in winter,
I think that is brilliant. My 'outside' tap in in the garage, as is my boiler. I will therefore be adding a tap to the hot water pipe this weekend and looking forward to winter washing!
We have also discovered that the pipe feeding upstairs outside tap is concreted into our wall, runs off our meter, and is not isolated from the water supply i.e. if it froze and split, we would be in a bit of a pickle.
....the pipe feeding upstairs outside tap
You have an upstairs outside tap.
Is that so the window cleaner doesn't have to come down off his ladders to fill up.
Someone I worked with rented a house that had hidden rooms complete with spy holes into bedrooms and bathroom.
It had previously been a 'Professional's' place of work...
You have an upstairs outside tap
I can't write so good.
The outside tap used by the flat upstairs is what I should have written.
Boiler located in a cupboard in a wet room no visible vent on the outside wall
After noticing a few other possible shortcuts we decided not to put an offer in on that house, despite it being, on first glance,our ideal property
It never sold, strangely as was well priced, is now off the market
Can't think why
Fuses mounted directly under the stairs 😯
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[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/81645202@N02/9617628023/ ]28 Jul 2013-0[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/81645202@N02/ ]Subsea100[/url], on Flickr
In a rental house that was formally the landlords parents.
Tiles that were all square then a line just drifting off on the side on a sort of lame arc with heaps of grout between them.
Aga upstairs (house was bedrooms downstairs/living upstairs actually a good idea) the oil feed pipe from the reservoir half way up the wall as a corkscrew of pipe that constantly air locked.
My dad had re done a bathroom and got all the pipes in properly behind the wall then planned to hang the towel rail and connect it up - on Christmas eve. We got going with this task at which point on of his joints came loose, cue stuffing towels into the void and rushing off to cut up spanners and reweld them into an angle that would fit. Later on I asked why he wasn't going to use flexible pipe to connect it...
The plumber who first tried to do the bathroom in my missus house managed to fit the bath the wrong way round so the drain went uphill and non of the tiles sealed.
When some friends bought their first house they invited both sets of parents round to see what they thought, everything that was pointed at as being nice or wow what a good idea was removed with a sledge hammer 🙂
about it for now...
I can only mention the "rustic" kitchen extension ( meant to be a crude conservatory I think) which had a rough feeling floor. I lifted the carpet to find patio tiles underneath. The same guy (apparently fancied himself as a local builder until the bungalow he was building in the village collapsed) who had put a four foot long window on downstairs but forgot the minor decorative detail of a lintel.
forgot about a rental i was in.
my first flat , cheapest thing i could find that wasnt in an area of aberdeen id get stabbed in on the way home
right next to auchmill road , was very impressed that i couldnt hear the road outside at all even in the bedroom with the window facing it.
found out why shortly after moving in.
you had to run 2 dehumidifiers all the time to keep the damp down , couldnt open any windows ever due to the intense noise and fumes and all the airbricks had been blocked off.
ended up with respiritory problems from the mould that would build up in that house living there - landlords solution - bathroom sealant paint- all symptoms cleared up soon as i moved
