Hi all, I'm back for a bit of advice please. We got a builder in to waterproof our basement and have got a real mess on our hands.
A bit of a long story..
We have a narrow Victorian basement that is pretty damp that we wanted converting into a dry utility room. We got some surveys and quotes from waterproofing firms but they were out of our budget and also required us to get a builder in also to do every bit of the conversion bar the wall and floor waterproofing. We got another quote from a guy who could do the whole job but at £16k this was well out of our budget. We know a couple of people who got theirs done on the cheap all in for £6-8k and finally found a guy who would do it for £5.2k.
The alarm bells of course were ringing, but I have done an insane amount of reading around the topic and was happy to keep an eye. He also had good reviews (the one basement he had done the owner was 'away in Turkey'). Also, his dad who came for all the inspections seemed very knowledgeable but he didn't speak any English.
He started the job and tried to use what looked like PVA on top of a render that he was going to add bitumen to. He did this very quickly in the middle of digging up the floor so was half done by the time I got home. We took him aside and explained we weren't happy as we thought he was going to use a tanking slurry. He agreed to take off the render, strip the paint from the brick and apply the render than we supplied for 1.5k extra. He clearly didn't read the instructions but we kinda guided him through. Next major alarm was when he screwed batons straight into the wall without any silicone but at this point I was trying to trust him (error). He dug up the floor, found a very wet part so stopped and laid a concrete slab on top of membrane. A few days later, the conrete had water on it coming from somewhere so he dug it up (damaging the membrane) and laid a new thicker slab as the back where the floor is more wet (potentially a leak?.. did not smell like waste water) but did not properly seal the damaged membrane. One this area was dry, the basement got even wetter with a pool of water coming in. At this point I wanted to stop and dig up the whole thing but he convinced us to lay more concrete (that we paid for) but the final straw was when he claimed to have gon overboard and had the membrane go all the wall up the walls but he had cut the membrane so it fit round all of the corners and battens (rendering the whole thing useless). We've paid him about £4.5k so far and have told him we want to stop. His contract was to tank the basement, do all electrics and plumbing and plasterboard and fit an extractor and lights and fix some pipes and he hasn't managed to get further than the tanking and putting a few wires in place. I will add that his dad who had most of our trust has been on site once. He wants us to pay him the full £7ish K despite us still having a wet basement that we need to start again basically.
Thank you if you read this far- wouldn't blame you if you didn't. Do we need to pay him the full amount? It's taken 4 weeks so far rather than a planned 2 weeks but he has taken a lot of half days/ waiting for stuff to dry.
A bit of a long story..
We have a narrow Victorian basement that is pretty damp that we wanted converting into a dry utility room. We got some surveys and quotes from waterproofing firms but they were out of our budget and also required us to get a builder in also to do every bit of the conversion bar the wall and floor waterproofing. We got another quote from a guy who could do the whole job but at £16k this was well out of our budget. We know a couple of people who got theirs done on the cheap all in for £6-8k and finally found a guy who would do it for £5.2k.
The alarm bells of course were ringing, but I have done an insane amount of reading around the topic and was happy to keep an eye. He also had good reviews (the one basement he had done the owner was 'away in Turkey'). Also, his dad who came for all the inspections seemed very knowledgeable but he didn't speak any English.
He started the job and tried to use what looked like PVA on top of a render that he was going to add bitumen to. He did this very quickly in the middle of digging up the floor so was half done by the time I got home. We took him aside and explained we weren't happy as we thought he was going to use a tanking slurry. He agreed to take off the render, strip the paint from the brick and apply the render than we supplied for 1.5k extra. He clearly didn't read the instructions but we kinda guided him through. Next major alarm was when he screwed batons straight into the wall without any silicone but at this point I was trying to trust him (error). He dug up the floor, found a very wet part so stopped and laid a concrete slab on top of membrane. A few days later, the conrete had water on it coming from somewhere so he dug it up (damaging the membrane) and laid a new thicker slab as the back where the floor is more wet (potentially a leak?.. did not smell like waste water) but did not properly seal the damaged membrane. One this area was dry, the basement got even wetter with a pool of water coming in. At this point I wanted to stop and dig up the whole thing but he convinced us to lay more concrete (that we paid for) but the final straw was when he claimed to have gon overboard and had the membrane go all the wall up the walls but he had cut the membrane so it fit round all of the corners and battens (rendering the whole thing useless). We've paid him about £4.5k so far and have told him we want to stop. His contract was to tank the basement, do all electrics and plumbing and plasterboard and fit an extractor and lights and fix some pipes and he hasn't managed to get further than the tanking and putting a few wires in place. I will add that his dad who had most of our trust has been on site once. He wants us to pay him the full £7ish K despite us still having a wet basement that we need to start again basically.
Thank you if you read this far- wouldn't blame you if you didn't. Do we need to pay him the full amount? It's taken 4 weeks so far rather than a planned 2 weeks but he has taken a lot of half days/ waiting for stuff to dry.
