Well, here’s a bunch of cunts who built a load of sub-standard ( and rather pricey) housing, which they’re now having to demolish and rebuild.
Why? Well, apparently the site surveyors son? ( on a working with parent day) measured the footings with his handkerchief ( attrib. Fred Dibnah) and called it good.
Except it wasn’t. Now all these houses, some of which have been sold, with folk expecting to move having also sold their current home, have to be demolished and rebuilt.
Will they get a round coin in compensation, or even a personal apology? I doubt it.
By the way, sonny, inches and centimetres are not exactly the same.
Nominated by Jezum Priest.
I have lived in nine houses in my life. Each house was newer than the previous one and they were built from the middle of the nineteenth century up to 1997. From my point of view each house also was superior to its predecessor. Modern houses are warm, comfortable, easier to clean and maintain. Modern plumbing in particular is vastly improved over former years. Plastic fascias, soffits, windows, mains water pipes, gutters and downspouts also are a huge improvement on softwood, lead and cast iron respectively and much more suited to the British climate. I don’t rate all changes as improvements though. I need a charging point for an EV like a fish needs a bicycle. To meet the regs now the builders put all your electrics on RCD. A fire starts downstairs at 3am, RCD trips as soon as the fire finds a cable, smoke alarms are dead and if you are fortunate enough to wake the lights are off. Handy.
We bought our previous house brand new off the builders and we wouldn’t do so again. Apart from being probably 30% overpriced living there while they carry on building around you is a fucking nightmare. You also risk who the neighbours might be who will move in beside you probably on the same day as you. If the house is a few years old you can survey the street and the local area at various times and you could find some pretence to knock your potential new neighbours doors to find out what colour they are. The most iniquitous thing about new builds though is what is euphemistically called “snagging” by the builders. This means they return after you’ve moved in to fix the things they fucked up. If it means fitting a missing screw you’re OK but if it’s substantial they will either bodge it or flatly refuse to fix it. When I persisted chasing the builders about a fault on our new house they finally responded that they would put their lawyers on it and see me in court. The NHBC 10 year warranty is the same as warranties on used cars i.e. worthless.
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No point taking out a 25 yr mortgage on a new build.
The dump would have collapsed years before then.
Seriously though I know of a small development of “luxury HOMES “ (whatever was wrong with the word “house”?) you know the type where the glossy brochure has cgi pics of Audis,Range Rovers and Porsches in the drives surrounded by beautifully landscaped gardens. The greedy developer , based in a city beginning with’E’ in Devon cut corners by employing a firm of cowboys to carry out the work.
Their shoddy workmanship resulted in all of the properties in development requiring expensive repairs to sort out all the faults (don’t forget that these were all signed off as being satisfactory)
This would have cost the developer far more money than if they had hired decent contractors in the first place!
You pay peanuts, you get monkeys.
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It’s a lottery. In theory, well insulated energy efficient homes can be built (i’m not trying to be an eco warrior, its just nice to have lower bills). Lessons learnt from previous centuries of housebuilding can be applied as well as the latest technology.
Just none of that seems to happen. The plots are tiny and they build ‘3 bedroom semis’ that are much smaller in square footage than many older terraces.
My mate bought one – you aren’t allowed to send a snagging expert in until after the money has been handed over. His snagging expert found about 350 snags – and it was big stuff like brickwork and plaster walls out of tolerance as well as smashed up and aesthetically shoddy finishing. The developer (think wimpy burger) basically laughed in his face when he requested it all be fixed and told him he could get fucked if he thought they were fixing 350 snags. They have a 2 year snagging period but if you report more than about 3 they just tell you to fuck off. That and the nhsbc warranty are worth as much as used toilet roll. He was also one of the first in and lived on a building site for about 3 years.
Theres also a scam called fleecehold where a covenant is places on your freehold obliging you to pay some cunts for the upkeep of a few bits of grass dotted round the estate on top of your full council tax bill.
My brother worked as a sparky on a modular homes site near stratford on avon. All the prefab wooden sections had warped over a wet winter so they dried them out with big space heaters and then bodged them together with big screws, expanding foam, extra bits of timber, filler etc and then put a piece of ‘corner trim’ on the exterior of every corner of the house to hide the massive deformities where edges of pre fab panels met. Think they were upwards of 450k.
If cunts buy them they’ll carry on building them, quicker, cheaper and with more bodge artistry.
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