Old fashioned building site quality control?

[BML]

Back in the 1950s when I was serving my apprenticeship as a Bricklayer working on a Council estate there was a Council employed person walking the site checking that things were done correctly. Looking at the level of complaints regarding the builders currently throwing up speculative housing appears to me to demand that they be reintroduced. Old age has blanked out the section of my memory regarding what the correct name of those officials was. Can anyone remember them?

 

[Brigadier]

Clerk of works?

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

'Clerk of Works' ?

 

[Brigadier]

I was rather hoping you were going to post up some piccies or videos of comedically-hapless and hopeless builders, and their produce

 

[BML]

Yes, Clerk of Works it was. We had one who was so keen that when he knew chippies were on second fixing if he heard a hammer being used he used to run into the building to check whether or not they were hammering in screws. As for hopeless builders, well we had an estate being thrown up at the end of our back garden where Deer and other wild life used to run and I saw one so called Bricky putting a corner up lay his level against it and use a hammer to persuade it to be plumb.

 

[durhamplumber]

Yes, Clerk of Works it was. We had one who was so keen that when he knew chippies were on second fixing if he heard a hammer being used he used to run into the building to check whether or not they were hammering in screws. As for hopeless builders, well we had an estate being thrown up at the end of our back garden where Deer and other wild life used to run and I saw one so called Bricky putting a corner up lay his level against it and use a hammer to persuade it to be plumb.

My joiner had to sack his apprentice..He did not know how to countersink holes...After a 3 year joinery apprenticeship on new builds.

 

[Notch7]

My joiner had to sack his apprentice..He did not know how to countersink holes...After a 3 year joinery apprenticeship on new builds.

Ive had apprentices that didnt know how to use a cordless drill well -know idea how to put in a screw without mushing the head

the favourite is they drill a 4mm hole for a 5mm screw then wonder why the bit of wood doesnt pull up tight..... Grr

or ones that cant read a tape measure.

what da funk do they teach em?

 

[johnny2007]

I had countless apprentices and most of them lacked common sense: you can't teach that.
But I had a few of them who would learn very quickly and be on the ball.
I remember one of them was so good that after a couple of weeks I was letting him hang doors while I passed tools.
He went to university and became an engineer.

 

[securespark]

I worked with a young lad (when I was also young) who got asked to put a drill bit in a Hilti and when he passed it to me, it was in the wrong way round.

I remember working on a multi storey office block renovation in Leeds in the 80s where the Clerk of Works issued a warning for undoing a pipe clip to free a cable.