BRE Good <...> Guides

[ban-all-sheds]

Useful/interesting/worth the money?

Was looking at these:

http://www.brebookshop.com/details.jsp?id=144501

http://www.brebookshop.com/details.jsp?id=326671

and on the face of it they look all three (especially the CD)

 

[stuart45]

I have seen quite a few of them, and are overpriced as individual items.
GBG 38 for example is still on my computer. I just had a look at it, and it's only 6 pages, most of which are pics.(£10 new)
Maybe £150 for the lot is a fair price. A lot of the info is available on the net now. Pity you don't know someone who has access to the Construction Information Service, as you get the lot for free.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

That would probably involve piracy.

It was actually GB53 I started looking for, as we might be building a single story extension to a house built 55-60 years ago, on the type of foundations (or possibly just a concrete slab, as the ground floor is concrete) that Jerry The Builder would have used back then, and I would like so like to avoid as much as I can cracks appearing the next time we have a drought and the house and extension move by different amounts, so I'll be wanting Building Control to agree to some kind of stepped foundations.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Maybe £150 for the lot is a fair price.

Maybe. I had decided that it was likely enough for me to make the purchase.

But now I've decided I don't want to do business with a company who views me with such contempt as the BRE do.

They want £30 postage for a CD. Rapacious doesn't begin to describe that.

They also make the exact same PDF files available for download. At £180 - £30 more than the CD even though their production and distribution costs are lower. Disgustingly cynical doesn't begin to describe that. Even if they made it the same price as the CD I might swallow it, but to add on the £30 they don't get for postage is so disreputable that it beggars belief.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

That would probably involve piracy.

But given the BRE's piratical treatment of their customers, I would have no qualms about blagging the material. Do as you would be done by.....

 

[RonnyRaygun]

They want £30 postage for a CD. Rapacious doesn't begin to describe that

Ask them if you can pick it up from Watford

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I have.

I can't.

 

[jeds]

I wouldn't pay money for them but I've got dozens that I've picked up over the years. The information is very low level. Some are so basic it's untrue. Others are just common sense or common knowledge. Most of the information is available elsewhere for free and in most cases if you follow good general building practice and comply with regulations you will automatically cover everything in them anyway.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I'm sure that's true, but starting from a fairly low base of knowledge, I thought I'd take a punt on the CD, if only for efficiency reasons.

 

[angelboy]

I've just managed to source and download the first three for free (airtightness).

Do you want me to email them to you to help you make a decision?

 

[angelboy]

http://www.slashdocs.com/mruqmp/bre-gbg53-foundations-extensions.html

Not sure if this is the full document.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I've just managed to source and download the first three for free (airtightness).

Do you want me to email them to you to help you make a decision?

Thanks for that, but I no longer want to buy them, at least not from BRE, no matter how good they are - I simply will not allow them to behave that way towards me.


And I shall write to their chief exec to let him know just what I think of their cynical greed.