Terrifying DIY

[womble69]

One house I bought was owned by a DIY nutter. That's nutter in capitals and neon lights. I think B&Q must have had his picture up with candles in front of it. If he could get at it, he wrecked it. The only thing that was good was the roof, and that's only because he couldn't get on it.

Water? Oh yes. Everything compression joints. Never heard of a pipe bender. Radiators on the floor or half way up the wall. Or at odd angles. Pipes that went out and came back again. Wrong diameter pipes. One tap is a fire hose, but the bath only dribbles.

Gas? He tried that, he really did. To bend a feed to a gas fire, he simply put the pipe on the front step and stamped on it. Then he set it straight into cement.

Electrics? Now you're talking. He did everything. How he lived so long is a mystery. Boiler with connections wedged in with matchsticks. Cooker that could have gone live at any moment. Wires appearing out of nowhere (trying to hang a picture could be the last thing you ever did). Power shower into the wrong circuit (the fusebox caught fire later). He even made a light switch out of a large box of matches plastered into the wall with wires poked through the cardboard.

And there's more. Much more. But enough. The guy should have been stuffed and put in a glass case at the entrance to some technical college.

I feel better now.

 

[londonboy]

Surely you must have got some pictures!!

 

[dextrous]

I'd pay good money to see this. Where in Manchester are you?

 

[1john]

indeed, pictures would be amazing. any chance of a few??

 

[dolph]

I would like to see the survey you had done pre purchase.

 

[Alastairreid]

If he could get at it, he wrecked it. The only thing that was good was the roof, and that's only because he couldn't get on it.

brilliant post.

 

[Meeja]

I absolutely must see photos of this!

 

[Blagard]

Water? Oh yes. Everything compression joints. Never heard of a pipe bender. Radiators on the floor or half way up the wall. Or at odd angles. Pipes that went out and came back again. Wrong diameter pipes. One tap is a fire hose, but the bath only dribbles.

Very funny all - Got to be an auction buy with the intent to gut it!

I had to see the work of an existing owner who was planning a major improvement. Stunned comes to mind when I stepped inside, almost disbelief as I walked around and finally thinking where on earth do I start with this one! Among the things I was looking at were knock throughs into the outbuildings with hardboard nailed to uneven timbers for a ceiling. Sort of anything and every thing was used to "improve" this property.

I'm not sure if it was the same one as I later inspected post improvement but all the same it was funny. I was looking at the decor - patterned wallpaper hung with mismatched joints untrimmed ends overlapping skirtings and overlapping sides/gaps in the vertical, tears just pasted back in and finally an extraordinary rough plaster above the 1m high replastered area for DPC seems to completely ruin the paper finish. Turning to the builder (One I respected and worked well with) I said "How on earth did I miss that bad plaster!" Back comes the reply - Its not the plaster, the owner did not strip off the old woodchip before redecorating!

 

[Chukka63]

i know people who have cut out all the cross bracing in their loft to convert it and he mentioned the roof was now sagging.

another one where a bloke i use to work with went to look at a property he had sold years before.the new guy had taken out the supporting walls throughout most of the house and it was now condemned

 

[FeeB]

I came onto the forum with a view to getting some advice about a leaking bath and no hot water... but reading your account, I couldn't help suspecting that the previous occupant of your house must have moved here next!

He "worked" at a builder's merchants and seems to have spent all his time "improving" the house with the cheapest materials possible, as shoddily as possible. Thus we have dozens of power points, not a straight one among them. The wall in the garden fell over when I pushed it to see if it was safe for small children.

He's known as Bodgit in our house - a sort of evil genie of overconfident DIY. Many people, and I am one of them, suffer from sensible DIY fear, worrying that mistakes in important matters may lead to life-threatening accidents for our nearest and dearest. Not him. His boarding in the loft is badly installed...any of the walls he built have now fallen down.

Our lawn is like a building site covered in a smattering of grass. My next door neighbour tells me that Bodgit dug a huge channel in the lawn for drainage, as the garden used to flood in winter. This ended up in a 12 foot deep soakaway. My neighbour heard a small voice calling for help one day and found Bodgit had dug himself into a hole he coudn't get out of, without a ladder. That seems fairly typical of the man.

He filled the whole thing with hardcore and gravel, and consequently we have the knobbliest lawn in Christendom.

We've been living in this house for 20 years now, and nothing surprises me any more. We'd been here about three months when we had a drain blockage, and I looked out of my back door on a patio where the drain cover *ought* to have been.

I phoned up the guy (who had laid the patio). He told me he knew EXACTLY where it was - one patio slab out from the back door and three along, and I would find the drain cover. So I went one out and three along to the right, assuming that the drain cover would be where the piping turned the corner beyond the house. Lifted the slab. Nothing. It was laid on soil, on top of concrete.

I went the other way, lifted the slab. Nothing. It was laid on sand on top of bricks. I went three out and one along, lifted the slab. Nothing. It was laid directly on concrete.

You can imagine... after three or four hours I had the whole damn patio piled up with no sign of a drain cover anywhere. I reckon it's under the concrete somewhere.

Dyno-rod with extra long rods solved that problem, which was only a precursor to the sorry tale of things falling down/over. We discovered that the carpet in the bedroom had been laid over underlay, but under the underlay was the old carpet and under that, the old underlay. That sort of surprise was in store over and over again.

All the doors in the kitchen cupboards fell off. When we boiled a pan of water, tiles in the kitchen dropped off the wall (secured with a dab of tile cement in each corner, apparently). It got to the stage where you were taking your life in your hands if you made pasta and a sauce - we had to ban people without hard hats from the kitchen in case they were killed in a tile falling incident. Of course, when we tried to remove the tiles to replace them it turned out that one in five of the tiles was secured with epoxy adhesive of some sort - no more nails or similar... it had obviously come off before he sold the house and been hastily reattached.

Mrs Bodgit was scared of burglars and so had him remove all the windows at the side of the house. He put new windows in which were bedded in with an interesting variety of materials at a variety of heights. I didn't go out the back door and down the garden to observe the extremey ugly effect of that BEFORE we bought it.

I'll stop now. Just be aware that he didn't stop when he had finished with your house....

Fee

 

[Lincsbodger]

There was a house here in Lincoln that became famous locally, originally a very nice three floor 5 bedroom Victorian end terrace house.. The guy set about it removing internal walls, including all the load bearing ones, until eventually one fine spring morning the entire front wall of the building fell into the garden. At that point Build Inspection stepped in and condemned the building. There then followed along protracted legal battle, the council eventually winning about ten years later, and they pulled it down, much to the relief of everyone, the whole site having become a bloody eyesore.

This bungalow I live in was built in 1932 by a local builder on the back of a fag packet, and then set about by a cowboy DIY'er in the late 1960's. There isnt a single floor in any room the same level as any other, no wall corner is square, and every room is a trapeziod. The entrance hall imperceptibly tapers and is 4 inches narrow at one end than the other, which nearly gave me a mental breakdown trying to tile it with square floor tiles , wondering why my grout lines kept wandering out of true. The Bathroom had a shower with al the pipework buried in the plaster, except all the solder joints leaked and the bathroom was permanently damp, and we didnt discover why for 10 years. The electrics are a nightmare, theres wires running round with odd combination's of sockets and lights on different circuits. Theres two circuits where the wires vanish into the plaster and i still cant work out what they do. All the wires buried in the plaster have no form of protection, so drilling into the wall can be lethal. On the other hand the woodwork in the loft is unbelievable, you could service 26 ton artics up there. Just the ceiling joists alone are 9" x 3", some of the tie beams are a foot square. There must be a hundred tons of timber in the loft.

 

[zaphodbeeblebrox]

I think this guy must have set up his own contracting business in Kent.

He obviously worked on the terrace we bought 2 years ago.

First he removed the chimney breast in the kitchen and 3rd bedroom. Didn't seal it properly so the stench of the neighbour's chain smoking permiated those rooms. We ended up having to take the walls back to the brickwork and seal the lot with expanding foam and pva before replastering. As for the remnants of the chimney in the loft there has been some shifting lately and we'll have to get it looked at sooner rather than later. Wooden gallows and a bit Heath Robinson but it was accepted and signed off by an inspector so if it does crack or subside someone else gets to pay for it.

The back garden was a masterpiece of bodge. The ground was levelled with building rubble and domestic waste. (bottles, cans, bits of tin foil, bricks, tiles, etc) The patio was laid over the drains as well. With about 4" of concrete and mortar on top of the cover to ensure no aligators can escape. The rest of it was landscape fabric and bloody pea shingle. Like walking on Brighton beach but with slugs.

Wiring is a joke. Some of the ceiling fixtures were hanging on by a thread. They've all been replaced as have the switches and most of the outlets.

The central heating and plumbing looks like copper crochet under the floors. Some taps are dribbles while others are more like pressure washes. If you want to shut off the mains you have to rip up half the floorboards under the front hallway to get at the stop cock.

Oh the joys of inheriting someone else's bodge.

 

[womble69]

After my experiences and reading those of other posters, I've come to the conclusion that some people (is there a type?), simply shouldn't be allowed to own property.

Or maybe even to live in houses at all. Even tents might be too good for them

 

[jimmyrd]

I got double glazing fitted a number of years ago in one of my old sash windows. Recently because of drafts I opened the sill and surrounds to have a look at what was wrong. Talk about botching, no window insulation, window set to minimise inside joinery work, and secured with 2*1 inch timber straps. And this I was told by a joiner who effected a repair to my spec. was the standard way to fit windows.
I also have a bedroom roof extension, probably fitted about 50 years ago, and often wondered why the room was so cold. Again I found that there was no insulation in the ceiling and an inch gap at the surrounds letting all the cold air right into the room.
This was done by professionals.

Jimmyrd

 

[Matty35]

he may be a DIY nutta but he is very lucky not to have had the whole house blow up in his face! why people risk their lives for a few bob and have no clue is beyond me!