Urgent please! Advice needed for tomorrow

[grayster]

I needed a doorway cut from my hallway to a downstairs cloakroom; I rang a builder who works in my village, X and son. He said he couldn't do it but said his son could. The son turned up as agreed today, and cut the hole in the place I had marked. However he had not measured the width before cutting (he thought I had marked the width with my positioning marks) and so had to do a secondary cut, meaning a lot of the render has come off. When I pointed this out to him, he said this may have come off anyway, and that I could just get it plastered. My first Q - is this correct, and should I have to expect plastering the wall would be needed, instead of a neater edge that I could fill in myself?
Edge looks like this:

Untitled

• grayster
• 18 May 2008
• 1

Neater edge:

Untitled

• grayster
• 18 May 2008
• 1

The much more worrying and possibly serious point is when I look at the lintel he has placed, it is resting on blocks, and has a gap all along its length both above and below - so it is not mortered in. So it is not supporting anything. So my second Q - is this correct? I'm sure it can't be. The lintel is there for support, surely?

Untitled

• grayster
• 18 May 2008
• 1

Untitled

• grayster
• 18 May 2008
• 1

Untitled

• grayster
• 18 May 2008
• 1

The third point is that the width of the doorway at the top and at the bottom differs by more than 7mm. 3rd Q - is this going to mean I will have a much harder job fitting the door and frame, and should I expect this?

Untitled

• grayster
• 18 May 2008
• 1

I was quoted £250 for the work, and for that I expected a professional job, but besides the points above, the builder turned up without tools, and borrowed some from his mate, who lives next door to me; left doors open and made no attempt to minimise the brick dust spreading throughout the house; seems to have used a lot of expanding foam, wants paying in cash tomorrow when he returns to cut the expanding foam... I feel that this is a poor job, that is not worth £250. However maybe I am expecting too much?

Please tell me what you think. I have to get the work signed off by the council planning dept and I thought I might ring them for advice tomorrow morning too.

 

[Joe Malone]

1. It's extremely reasonable to expect you would lose some plaster for a job like this. The alternative would have been to make a neater cut with a Stihl saw which would have created a huge amount of dust indoors. The issue is, did you include for making good in the cost? If £250 was for labour only then as far as I'm concerned it's enough money to expect that the builder makes good but it's what you agreed that's important.

2. The Lintel isn't supporting a huge amount of weight and is fine resting on brickwork or blocks but he should have pointed it in.

3. The door frame should be square, 7mm difference is unacceptable.

4. Personally I'd never use expanding foam for a job like this. It isn't a good substrate for the plaster and you may find you have problems with cracking once the plasterwork is made good; especially given that the frame and surrounding plasterwork will be subject to vibrational stress from the door repeatedly closing.

All in all I'd say that it looks like a pretty pi** poor job!

 

[noseall]

we stitch drill an opening like this. it is neater.

if it is constructed with soft aerated blocks then we will also run a reciprocating saw up the drill holes rather than bolster.

we make the opening slightly wider than necessary, then dab some plasterboard up the cut masonry, tapping it true and plumb. when the plasterboard has set you then have a solid true surface upon which to fix the casing back to.

i find this method is more reliable than expanding foam, though foam does have its uses. with the dabbed board you can space the casing to the millimeter.

 

[diy_darren]

I rang a builder who works in my village, X and son

That wouldn't be Pike E & Son would it

I'd refuse to pay for the work until the lintel was mortared in and the door frame was square (or at least squarer!). Trying to hang a door will be a real pain otherwise.

 

[jbonding]

are you sure the walls not running out 7mm?
It depends what you actually agreed to pay for at the beggining, you should of been made aware of plaster coming off and negotiated a price.
Did they remove the rubbish and supply the casing and lintel in the price?
are they hanging the door?

 

[diy_darren]

are you sure the walls not running out 7mm?

Does that matter? Shouldn't a door surround be padding out to make it square regardless of the wall it's attaching to?

 

[Joe Malone]

I agree, my understanding is that the builder cut out the opening so if it's running out then it's his fault. Even if it was an existing opening he should have packed the frame til it was square.

 

[Bowness72]

Joe Malone wrote:

The Lintel isn't supporting a huge amount of weight and is fine resting on brickwork or blocks but he should have pointed it in

How do you know its not carrying much load ?
You cant tell from the pictures. There could be another couple of floors and roof above

 

[Joe Malone]

Obviously I don't without doing load calculations, it's just common sense advice, I've not seen many door frames with RSJ's installed. Even if what you say is true, loads don't transfer as you seem to imagine. The Lintel only directly supports a small triangular shaped head of brickwork.

 

[Richard C]

It’s almost impossible not to loose some plaster when cutting a new opening but if I’d produced something like that I’d be totally ashamed of it; the guy is a muppet who either has no idea what he’s doing or just doesn’t care. The vertical cuts are a joke, using foam to hold it together is a joke & that lintel support is an even bigger joke; I’d be surprised if the BCO passed it. If I had more time to work out how to do it, I’d pin a couple of photos of one I’ve done recently for you to compare it with; unless you’ve already paid him, I wouldn’t until he does it properly.

 

[Bowness72]

Joe, You are probably right about it not having much weight on it but you cant tell for sure from the photos. The masonry above will only arch if its of reasonable quality and has enough masonry at each side to resist the horizontal thrust. If not it will pick up more load from above (assuming there is any load above)

 

[Joe Malone]

Bowness, you're absolutely right but as I said we can only give common sense practical advice on here. My guess is that if the brickwork was that bad it would have collapsed during construction. This particular builder doesn't strike me as the type to use acro props prior to installing the lintel.

 

[Bowness72]

Fair enough Joe. I suppose the fact that he mentions there is a gap above the lintel also confirms your first statement.

 

[Shytalkz]

The Lintel only directly supports a small triangular shaped head of brickwork.

Not always. Depends on whether or not there's a further opening a short distance above the opening in question.

 

[Joe Malone]

Shy, better late than never. I wondered when you were going to comment on this one