What discount for damage done by bulding contractor

I’m unsure what would be reasonable in this scenario. We’ve built our own house over the last 18 months doing most of the work ourselves but of course there are some jobs that get contracted out.

We had a set of in-situ concrete stairs built for us on site that go down to the basement (utility room/workshop). The concrete is the final finish.

We have polished concrete floors in the basement and on the ground floor. The stairs were in place when the concrete company came to lay/polish the floors but and we had warned them that they were final finish and they’d said they could access the basement externally. I’d built some formwork and framing that blocked them off just to be sure.

The floor layers removed my formwork and dragged the concrete pump down the stairs chipping the front edge of about half the steps. Some were very small chips, some a couple of cm across. They accepted responsibility and said they would repair.

However, I was always worried that the repairs are never going to be completely satisfactory and sure enough, a couple of weeks after it was done a few of the repairs have already fallen out.

What’s reasonable to resolve this? I can accept sometimes damage to other areas is inevitable when doing a job but this could, and should, have been avoided. I accept that they have a right to try to put it right but it looks like it’s never going to be 100%.

Stairs cost about 5k, floors about 13k. I’ve been holding back a retention of £1k.

You paid 5k for basement stairs! 😯

Get a professional specialist concrete repair company in to quote for the repair. Give the quote to the floor layers and give them the option to settle the bill, if they refuse then you get the repairs done and deduct the monies from the floor layers retention.

Contractors repairs for damage are nearly always sub standard, because return visits eat directly into their profits, and usually, they damage something that’s not their area of expertise. Filling chips in the lip of concrete stairs is likely to be utterly pointless, but I guess you realise that now.

Put together a short letter with evidence of the failed repair and state you will be keeping the retention as compensation for damage. Chalk it up to experience and live with the chipped stairs.

Alternatively, go full legal and get them to break out and recast the stairs, but you’ll have a fight on your hands for that one.

If you put up protection, warned them and they still damaged it i would guess you would win any case relating to re-casting. HOWEVER you would be required to give them opportunity to repair.

Get a solicitor and record EVERYTHING. Calls, site meetings, informal chats etc. get a third part specialist in to see what they can do and as suggested get them to pay.

I`m guessing any remedial works costs will be more than £1K if done properly.

To be fair to them they do sub-contract the repairs to a specialist but there’s only so much he can do – it’s an epoxy repair on top of concrete.

Recasting now would almost certainly cause masses of collateral damage – we’ve moved in, walls are finished and so on. Solicitor is going to be overkill.

I’m suspecting a letter and keep the retention – not enough for them to spend money chasing.

Get a professional specialist concrete repair company in to quote for the repair. Give the quote to the floor layers and give them the option to settle the bill, if they refuse then you get the repairs done and deduct the monies from the floor layers retention

This

We have used Fosroc, Sika and Flexcrete products applied by specialists in the past – usually for structural repairs to multi storey buildings but often for cosmetic repairs too.

Contact each of the above (ask for your local rep) – he will give details of the best product and names of local specialists who can do the application. Will be guaranteed too then.

(This is very common on construction sites, no matter what protection you put in and whose responsibility the protection is)

the-muffin-man – Member

You paid 5k for basement stairs!

Have you never seen how much he sells Nicolais for?!

😉

They’ll just write off the retention and leave you to it I would think.
And re the repair. It’s never going to look right as I’d suggest there will always be a colour difference.

IAAL (as opposed to IANAL) and I would say your first recourse would be to the contract terms. If you didn’t have any written contractual terms, they were still under an obligation to carry out their works with reasonable care and skill, and provided it was possible to get in and out of the area without damaging the treads, it sounds like they’d probably be found in breach of contract.

As for retaining the monies, absent some specific contractual provision to allow for this you may find yourself on the end of a claim for unpaid invoices. Of course, you have a counterclaim but you may still end up drawn into a claim you didn’t want to be in.

On a purely personal note, I wouldn’t be inclined to leave it. One of things that sold us on our last house was a new wooden space saver staircase up to the loft conversion. When we moved it, it transpired that the vendor’s movers had taken chunks out of most of the treads. My better half persuaded me not to pursue the vendors, but it bugged me each and every time I walked up them, because owing to the nature of the staircase they were at eye level as you went up, so I regretted not pursuing it when I had the chance.

As an alternative to a repair.. are these stairs of particular aesthetic significance? If not, would a stair nosing over the top – in stainless steel or similar not cover the damage and be a lot less prone to damage in the future?

Jeff

I’ve had a bit of a confab about this with one of my colleagues, our suggestion would be to either cut out the arris of every tread maybe 50mm deep on the stringer and 25mm on the tread and pin a new sacrificial stair nosing into the RC. You’re going to get more damage to those stairs and this would be a way to keep them sharp, and easily maintainable.
Or alternatively cut back the chips a bit more and give them all 30/45 degree angled edges then drill in and secure pins so that the repair material has a reasonable key.
Whatever you do you’re going to have a different colour/ material line…

Not sure on the profile/stair regulations but could you form a small chamfer on each stair, then finish to match the adjacent material? Still probably >£1k but robust.

I remember this house build being mentioned a while back, when is its Grand Designs airing? (or if it failed to make the cut, where is the build thread!)

can you build some shuttering that adds say 1″ to the tread and back of each step, drill some keying holes in the existing surfaces and then create a new 1″ layer of of fresh concrete around each step? Shuttering could be single or several steps and be re-used. Lot of messing but would give you back the finish you had.

edit: I guess you would only need to shutter the back edge of the step and level the tread with the top of the shuttering. If you start at the top any mess at the bottom would be covered by the new tread below but you would need to make provision for getting out again!

Thanks for all the suggestions. I think we are going to get back in touch with the guy who cast the stairs originally and see what he suggests now. Will,write to the floor command tell them we are still not happy.

Build is coming to an end. We moved in mid November but we’ve probably still got anothe could of months to completely finish. Will post a proper thread of pics soon.

Just had another thought although it might be a bit messy – scrabble back all the treads and risers by about 25-30mm and then use granolithic concrete to reform the finished surfaces.

Or you could just sheath them in wood.

Our neighbour in Germany did this as the stone ones that came with our houses were lethal (my wife skinned her shims falling up them).

Just had another thought although it might be a bit messy – scrabble back all the treads and risers by about 25-30mm and then use granolithic concrete to reform the finished surfaces.

A *bit* messy?

Or you could just sheath them in wood.

polished concrete stairs meeting polished concrete floor at top and bottom so cladding them isn’t really an option or aesthetically desirable.