to not pay the builder who has done a shoddy job?

[JackBlackRoady]

We rang a builder to ask for a doorway knocking through - he said his son could do it (his company name is his name and son, so that seemed fine). Son said he could only do it yesterday, turned up with no tools, had to borrow some from our next door neighbour (his mate). He then left both doors open so the brick dust went everywhere (I had taken out the 5 week old baby to get away from the dust - should have stayed to make sure the doors were shut ). Then after knocking it through he measured and saw he had not cut it wide enough, so he widened it and knocked a lot of render off the wall in the process. When i pointed this out he said 'you can get your plasterer to do that' (yes, but at what cost?). Finally, after being here all day he puts expanding foam in the holes around the doorway and goes. When DH gets in, he points out that the lintel above the door is not mortered in, and isn't supporting, and that the doorway is more than 7mm different between the top and the bottom and so fitting a door is going to be a problem for DH, or the carpenter.

Feel so and as this is a pretty piss poor job and we were quoted £250 for it - for that, I thought the walls would be made good, so DH could just fine filler the edges, and no expanding foam - this will leave cracks after painting with the door opening and closing.

I want to phone the builder this morning and tell him that £250 was for a professional, wiht the right tools, and taking care, doing a good job. What he's done DH would have done better. But can I really not pay him? He did spend nearly all day here, and we do have a doorway...

Any comments appreciated, thank you for reading such a long rant !

well i wouldn't be impressed with a builder who didn't turn up with the right tools

i would have sent him away to be honest

anyway, he has done a shoddy job so i wouldn't pay until he has made it right

Sounds like O'Reilly from Fawlty Towers!

YANBU, I wouldn't pay him either until it's been sorted out to your satisfaction.

was his name John Wayne?
Don't pay him till he does what he was asked to do and puts right the damage he has caused. Phone Citizen's advice.

This is so typical it erally annoys me.Be really careful some cowboy builders turn nasty if you even question them.I have had some nasty ones over teh years Phone the dad and tell him how it has been left and then get a quote to re plaster and tell tehm you want a reduction

Get in another, reputable builder in (ask friends for recommendations). Get him to quote for putting right all the errors. If it comes to more than £250, then I would say you owe the first builder nothing. If it comes to less, pay the second builder to do the job and pay the first builder the balance.

Actually to be fair, you should get 3 quotes and go for the cheapest.

Sorry i wouldnt pay them anything, id ring and tell the father(owner) to come round and take a look, ask why he had to use YOUR neighbours tools, why he hasnt supported the lintel, why he's botched it up and messed up the rest of wall??..ask him what he's going to do about it!..no softly softly approach for me, been there done that..actually MADE plasterer come in and re do the points i showed him and NOT let him leave until it was done..but im rock ard' me](was wobbling at time, retrospects a wonderful thing)

Thank you for those messages, that's made me feel better. I am steeling myself to make these points and not pay him - I just phoned the council too and there is a building inspector who could come around and check the work. I think I will phone the dad, like a lot of you have said, tell him what it is like and also phone the son and tell him I am not going to pay him tonight, need more time to check the work.

Softly softly is always best!
Def phone the dad and ask if he could come and look over the job as you have some concerns.He may well be mortified at his son's workmanship!

I once streassed out for ages about a job one half of a building pertnership did ( it was not majorly awful but just not as good as i thought it should be and I was not sure whether to make an issue)

The other partner came round about something else, saw the job ( without me saying anything) and said " oh look that's not right I will have to redo it for you"

If I were you I would not mention the dust or the borrowed tools because i don't really think it is relevent. You could have still had a great result with dust and borrowed tools! But it sounds like you did not.

Best of luck and be calm and pleasant!

Oh and the bit about the walls being made good.

This may be a genuine misunderstanding as it is common preactice for surfaces NOT to be made good after this type of building work.

That part should have been clearly discussed up front to avoid confusion.

thank you jasper - that is helpful too. going to ring the dad now.

do let us know how you get on.

On this very subject a friend of mine was so upset ast various below standard builders' jobs on her house that she now does them all herself including knocking down walls, building walls, building an external wooden door with a stained glass panel from scratch.... She said she looked at each builde hwo came and thought none of them looked as bright or as artistic as herself which inspired her to do all the work on her own to great effect.

thankfully, this is NOT typical, it does make me angry to think that all builders do this sort of thing.

If i were you, i would take pictures of the doorway and then refuse to pay.

I have to say, that quote actually sounded extremely cheap. If this was a load bearing wall that was being removed then it should really be examined by a building inspector. Around here, that is a charge of £129 before you even start. The builder often incorporates this into the quote. Did you get a written estimate stating exactly what was to be done? It is generally assumed that any making good will be carried out by the person removing the wall, unless stated otherwise. My DP always includes this in his price but states in the estimate that this is covered. Was the wall supported by acro props while waiting for the lintel to be installed??

Im sorry but this really does sound like a cowboy firm.

My DP is a member of the federation of master builders. To be totally honest it is just a money making scheme imo. BUT in order to be accepted my DP had to have 6 references from happy customers, all of which were chased up by the FMB. To maintain his membership he has to then keep paying them bucket loads of money . But it is worth looking for this sort of thing. My DP isn't more expensive because of this, but he is more expensive because he is good at what he does.

There is often two sides of the story when clients are pissed off withthe builder and it is usually the builder that ends up making concessions to keep people happy. Having seen the other side of it, i know that it can be very stressfull having clients on the phone thinking that their job is the only job on the planet and that the builders life revolves around it. BUT this case is not like this, the person sent around to do your work was a cowboy, and so it seems was the Dad.

Saying that, DO give the guy a call and tell him you are not happy and give him the opportunity to put things right. Make it clear you expected a finished job. You never know, he may well be more than happy to put thigns right. My DP had a similar situation this week, the person whom he sent to do the tiling in a house messed it up, so DP obviously put things right, at his own expense and time. This was BEFORE the client even knew about it - instead of being happy that this was done no question, they are whining that it has put the job behind, um, well...........there are so many hours in the day.

This sort of thing really annoys me, thankfully it is far from typical, unless you typically deal with cowboys. But it gives everyone else a bad name.

One thing my dad always used to say though: If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys to do the work!

Do not pay for it until they do the right job, tell him you will pay gladly the original quoet when the job you've asked for is done. If he asks for more money say NO.

£250 for a day's labour is not cheap for a builder, he supplied no materials and borrowed tools.

well i rang the dad, he has just been round, he said there was nothing wrong with it and that it was a good job.

however the building inspector from the council also came round and he said that it poor and if it was in his house he'd not pay until it was fixed.

got the dad to say the son will alter the door frame so its true, point the blocks and lintel, chop the expanding foam and render the wall ready for plastering.

btw, it is not a load bearing wall, and this firm do a lot of work in our village - thought i was getting a good firm in.

still feel upset about it all. i am such a wuss. i blame the baby hormones but really i know i'm just rubbish. i'll probably still not be happy but end up paying as i won't be able to keep arguing. woe is me! poor me! (oh do stop whining JBR...)

oh and we had bought the door lining, so he didn't buy that, and he used a lintel we had, leaving the one he brought in the cupboard (?)

we always use the same electrician and plumber, thought we might have found a good builder, but no...

o'h JBR you poor thing - we are having probs with our plumbers and builders at the moment too!