The worst bodge

[Zebra]

Likewise FF, I have hoses gaffer-taped to downpipes, rubble sacks as flashing, bits and pieces of ply as outer wall coverings - but it's all temporary and in the name of progress, so probably doesn't count!

 

[dans]

A section of a main corner beam that had been replaced but didn't quite fit, so they filled the gap with expanding foam :shock:

Cracks in exposed oak beams filled with some some of filla. :shock:

Lovely old red brick wall that was layered with cement to smooth the appearance before painting it :shock:

Cement stuffed into the edges of a wattle n daub panel that didn't quite fit the infill :shock:

Much more to come I'm sure of it....!

 

[Keithj]

Absolution time, is it? Consider it done! The hard bit is the next bit: "Go, and sin no more."

Part of the process is learning: I first came across double-glazer's foam when the installers used it extensively when fitting the new windows in the Welsh cottage. There, it was only for insulation/draughtproofing and seemed to do a job. The new windows were uPVC, but I didn't know better and they were far better than the old ones, which consisted mostly of well-rotted softwood held together with paint.

The Suffolk house was different: foam had been used to replace timber that had rotted away, and the whole was in some danger of collapsing. That builder hasn't been seen in the village recently, although I suspect the news has reached him about opinions on his work.

He's not been back for absolution, either.

 

[angrybird]

ive had cast iron drain pipes held together with yellow insulation tape, walls covered in waterproof tile adhesive and then plasterboarded over! Todays "find" was a newly discovered stone wall covered with 3 inch thick cement mortar on removal of the cement ive found the stone had been pointed with silicone sealant!!!

 

[bartonp]

Oh where to start...

• Our entire front wall was built in a single layer of block on the very edge of a narrow stone rubble wall. It was supporting the weight of the first floor and the roof. We had to rebuild the whole thing properly. The stone rubble wall we demolished by kicking it...
  
• The first floor joists were supported by the above wall simply by them poking through the block wall with render then applied to the whole lot. All the joist ends were rotten as you might expect.
  
• Electric cables went over the floor joists but under the floor boards with no notch. Walking on the floor upstairs was hence squashing the cables.
  
• An electric cable was joined in the roof by simply baring the ends then twisting them together. It was then hidden under a layer of rockwool just waiting for somebody to put their hand on it. Fortunately it was spotted first..
  
• The block built garage was built directly onto top soil with no foundations at all.
  
• The thin layer of concrete floor was letting the damp through so a new layer of concrete was added straight on to the old floor. However the plaster wasn't removed from the wall so it still went down to the old damp layer providing a nice route for rising damp to wick up all the way around the room.
  
• A block pillar was built to support two lintels, an I beam, the floor above, the wall above and the roof above. The foundations for this pillar turned out to be 40mm of concrete on top of a thin layer of sand (mostly washed away) on top of some large rubble (full of voids).
  
• A plastic window upstairs turned out to be directly supporting the end of one of the six A frames that made up the roof. i.e. the window was directly taking the weight of a twelfth of the entire weight of the roof.

Credit where it's due though - it must have all be OK as it had not fallen down (yet)! :shock:

 

[MdB]

Current Status

• Front wall replaced.
• Joist ends removed with remainder supported by new wall
• Complete rewire
• Garage currently still standing but only for a short while longer.
• Floor replaced
• Pillar replaced

• Lino removed
• Guttering front of house replaced, back of house to be done shortly
• Soil removed
• Partitions replaced
• Stopcock removed
• A frames reinforced
• Plasterboard removed
• Cooker fixed
• Wiring replaced
• Almost all the cement replaced with lime. Last section to be done shortly

Credit where it's due though - it must have all be OK as it had not fallen down (yet)! :shock:

Interestingly, our two old stone end walls which visually look identical, are actually quite different in their construction. It is strongly suspected that one wall fell down a long time back and was rebuilt stronger with buttressing. The other wall is not in a great state and is going to be reinforced shortly when we butt an extension up against it. My feelings are that the 1850's builders were as much bodgers as the more recent work.

 

[Pford75]

Worst bodge i've ever seen - student digs of mine...old style blown fuse replaced with a spoon!!

Same house...a rotten windowsill, the gap was filled with.....a spoon and then filler...maybe the owner was in the spoon business and had easy access to an unlimited number.

In our current house, the top floor ceiling joists were nailed underneath the floor of the attic...meaning that when walking in the attic only panel pins (and I do mean panel pins!!) were holding you up.

 

[Zebra]

Perhaps they would have been better off using spoons.

 

[Roger H]

Another student digs bodge:
Room rewired with wiring surface-mounted across walls and ceiling.
Surface mounted light switch transpired to prevent door being closed as it projected by 2".
Solution: Cut 5"x2" notch in door to enable closure. Luckily, it was an internal door.

 

[steveb]

I give you pipes buried in screed.



The copper pipe was "protected" from the cement by being partially covered in gaffer tape, and as such is only partially effective at stopping the pipe from rotting.

The iron pipe had a isolator valve, actually buried in the screed.

The concrete floor surface, once we had removed the wooden floor, had writing on it in various places. Warm. Warm and Wet. Wet. Wet. Dry. Someone had been there before and decided to document but ignore the problem...

 

[Easrow]

We too have had out fair share. One that springs to mind is the cooker cable that ran along the landing under the floorboards. We were rewiring and tried pulling it though. It would not budge at all. So we lifted more carpet and found a note written on the floorboard..."cable nailed here!" We thought surely they don't mean right through it...they did! The cable was nailed and they knew about it. It was in use until that day too.
Another one was the leaky roof we had to temporarily bodge ourselves (yes it's sorted now) It obviously had a leak before so was bodged under the tiles with shed felt and a rubber car mat witch had perished so much it was sticky.
There are other and more to come I'm sure but I haven't got all day.

 

[Owain]

For me I think it's just rainwater disposal methods that send the water into gullies in the ground that go nowhere, right next to the house.

Neighbour found their bath did something similar, into the floor void under the bathroom.

 

[paulc]

Had a local window company come and fit a new external door and replace the fascia boards arond the garage (a flat roof with a step up two thirds of the way along). Felt cut away on the step to allow the board to go all the way in - Left a nice big hole that you could see daylight through. Peeled back the felt at either end to get the boards up behind the overhanging lip. Stuffed a brick under the downpipe to lift it up high enough to connect with the guttering....

First time we had strong winds, it got under the felt and ripped half of it up (less than a week after they had done the "work"). Some very choice and stiff words to the company involved, and they sent some 'erbert over. Nailed the felt down with a mix of clouts and filled the gaps with silicone sealant despite being told it was an unacceptable method of repair. If I had been around at the time, I'd have given him a flea in his ear and shot the horse.

 

[steveb]

previous owner had the uPVC fitters in to replace the sashes. They seemed to make the windows the same size as the external opening , so about a 6 inch gap on each side where the frame and sash boxes used to be.

The "solution" was to fit plastic cover strips over the gap, except these aren't available 6 inches wide. So they fitted three of them , two side by side at the back to cover the hole and then one over the middle of the joint to make a feature of it. Would have been more efficient to put doors on and used them as cupboards

 

[steveb]

This is intriguing.



so buried unprotected directly in the screed (and hence corroded through) are the copper heating pipes

Outside the screed and under what was a nailed and glued wooden floor are corrosion proof plastic pipes. plus a couple of extra fittings where it wasn't planned properly. And a drain cock.

I applaud the principle of putting a drain cock at the lowest point in the system, but surely "lowest accessible point" would be better...?

--edit-- also got some uphill drainage from a shower waste too

 

[malcolm]

That does seem inventive Steve.

Bodging is good sometimes. I pulled a window out this morning which had been fitted in 1996 judging by the newspaper used as filler. The inch thick glob of concrete between the window and brickwork hadn't stuck to anything and just fell off with the window. I expected more work. I get an afternoon off!

 

[Cubist]

My whole house is a bodge , I am seeing bodging dating back to the late 1500's. We might have to change it's name to ''Bodgeme Cottage''

But it is still standing from a time with no building regs,no building inspectors,no government training schemes,no foundations,no HIP packs (sorry had to post the last one as I paid £600 for one on a house that has yet to sell!) They did`nt do bad for "yokels" did they?

And who amongst can say, hand-on-heart, that there are not some of our own bodges lying in wait for a future purchaser? You know, these need-a-quick-repair-tonight-in-a-howling-gale, I'll-do-it-properly-come-summer, a-blind-man-on-a-fast-horse-would-never-notice type of jobs?

Or is it just me?

Nah.

 

[noj]

It's the logic behind the bodges that defies me.

In our small kitchen there's a row of a sink, dishwasher and washing machine. There's a plastic waste pipe for the sink that goes out through the wall, then there's the waste for the two appliances...



Kitchen



Outside



Maybe the waste hose on the washing machine was a bit short so the easiest route was to add new pipe and trap, smash a hole through a 300 year old, three plank door that you don't use (picking the point that there's moulding too) and job's done?

And on the inside, why not add some fiber-board and some leftover tiles to finish the project.

I do wonder how it was described on the LBC application, you wouldn't do something like that without consent would you?

 

[noj]

The inside of the door - exceeded my attachment limit on the previous post



Not enough tiles to even reach the level of the work surface

 

[Feltwell]

Some people are just lazy b@rstads!

Not quite so dramatic, but here whoever fitted the gas supply thought the best way to get it from the external meter into the house would be to run it along the external wall, smash one of the small panes out of our cellar window, and run it through there - bodging a bit of Perspex back around the pipe with a about half a tube of silicone to badly seal the hole in the window. :roll: Every time it rained water ran along the pipe and into the cellar.

Daft thing is, directly through the wall behind the gas meter box, is an easily accessible service void that water pipes run through - that also borders onto the cellar wall. So pretty easy to go through the wall behind the meter box, across the service void and through the cellar wall - which is exactly how the gas pipe is now routed. All for the sake of drilling two holes.