Just a rant really!

[worms]

I’m afraid I’ve just “lost my cool” with a nice man in a white van who wanted to replace all my cast-iron gutters with uPVC. When asked why I would want to do this, he insisted that the old gutters would “perforate” and he could offer a 35 year guarantee with his replacement. Since he is more than likely from the “travellers” site that has appeared locally in the last couple of weeks, I wouldn’t give much for his 35 years guarantee! He likewise wouldn’t believe that the gutters had probably been installed when the building was put up in the 1850s and were still perfectly serviceable. I’m afraid it really makes my blood boil that he will go on his way and find someone gullible enough to be taken in.

I was previously quoted £800 by an apparently reputable builder to sort a single run of this same gutter. He wanted to add a barge-board and put on a large-flow plastic gutter, when all it needed was the sections removing and rejointing. And due to high ground level all this can be done without a ladder!

Is it any wonder so many of us have so little respect for the building trade and unfairly tar everyone with the same brush?

Sorry for the rant!

 

[skier-hughes]

Just watch it is still there in the morning.......not that I want to add to your woes!!!!

 

[Penners]

Did you also tell him, Worms, that it's probably only the cast-iron downpipes that are holding the building up?! :wink:

 

[Ian Bond]

Trouble is, some people really do think plastic's best.

A neighbour recently asked me to look have a look at her cast iron gutters, as she'd been told they were leaking. I had a look, tested them and they were in perfect order.

A few weeks later and the gutters have been replaced in plastic, shortly followed by all the original sash windows. Nice, "maintenance free" uPVC sealed unit double glazing is, unfortunately, what most people seem to choose to make their houses more energy efficient. And the sales people are very persuasive.

I'm often visited by the uPVC window folk, as are the other few remaining houses with timber windows in our street. I asked the last lot why I'd want to replace my windows with plastic. The answer 'Because they're better, innit.'.

There's no point arguing with logic like that. So I just politely declined. Yet again.

 

[worms]

Ian, I think what troubles me most is that I didn't manage to politely decline, I argued and we didn't exactly part as friends!

Graham, I had already thought through the risk of a re-visit and we will definitely up the security for a while, although if he has found someone who will give him permission to take their guttering away and give them the cash to go off and buy the replacement, then why bother with me?

David, Sadly most of the cast-iron downpipes are gone already (blocked, then cracked when frozen and finally replaced with plastic as a temporary measure). So its only the skin of Weathershield which is holding the place up - he offered to paint over that as well!

 

[middi]

Since you are on the subject of intruders no minding their own business-----------.
Some poxy D.G. inconsidered salesman wanted to replace the tatty unpainted wooden single glzed cottage windows on my house.

I spent hours making these. ( the cheeky * b*****d)

 

[Ian Bond]

Indeed Middi, and we saw you doing it on 't telly.

I expect you politely declined too!

 

[middi]

Of course I was polite Ian.

I could repeat what I said here with a very good chance of being banned from this site.

 

[biffvernon]

On a different rant, I discovered today that eight by four sheets of OSB are still exactly eight foot by four foot. I had, wrongly, assumed that since they were described as 18mm thick the other dimensions had been metricated to 2400 x 1200mm. I only discovered my stupid assumption when offering sheets up to rafters that I had carefully set at 600mm centres and finding that my rafters were too close together.

 

[NT]

Why are people so eager to throw away good quality goods and pay to exchange them for inferior new items? Never makes sense to me.

Adverts miseducate people and schools fail yet again.

Shame on you Worms, I could think of a much better way to deal with the sales parasite. Just cant say it on this site...


NT

 

[worms]

NT, this wasn't the common or garden sales parasite, this was the rogue trader - a much more dangerous species.

The former I would simply have laughed at and he would have gone away to honestly deceive others (most of these guys genuinely believe the utter s***e that they tell you).

The latter will dishonestly relieve little old ladies of their money and leave them with hefty repair bills to put right the damage they cause. There is no form of animal life that I can think of that is remotely comparable - even parasites pursue an honest existence!

 

[Penners]

I had, wrongly, assumed that since they were described as 18mm thick the other dimensions had been metricated

A while ago I asked a guy at a timber yard for their price on ex 1" x 7" PSE softwood. "You mean ex 25mm x 175mm", he said. "Yeah - sorry," I said. "I don't know why I reverted back to Imperial there."

"Anyway," I continued, "how much is it?"

"78p a foot," he replied.

:roll: