The worst bodge

[MikeG]

.......[*]Main "A" frames supporting the roof only having 50x75mm cross pieces to stop spreading...........

You've got an absolute catalogue of nightmares there, but this isn't necessarily one of them. A tie beam is in tension: you could do the same job with a piece of fencing wire*. Obviously, one would need to see the particular case to be able to comment directly.

*There is a famous cathedral in Venice which uses chains, hidden inside wooden boxes. The span must be 15 to 20 metres, from memory.

 

[Feltwell]

A regrettable need to drag an old post back up....

What do you do if you want to fit a shower tray but the waste fouls a floor joist? Why, you cut away the top two thirds of the joist of course! Problem solved!

:roll: :roll: :roll:

(Guess what Feltwell has been taking apart?)

 

[MatthewC]

Actually Feltwell, I had pretty much the same in my bathroom here, now 10 years ago.

There are 7" x 2" joists in the floor, and when I lifted the boards I found that at one time the loo must have been installed a foot to one side. To use the same hole in the wall for the foul waste pipe, someone had cut a nice 30" notch in one joist, to a depth of 5.5"! I repaired this by adding a 4' length of 6" joist with a huge number of screws at either end. The sad thing is that the next person to lift the floor will probably blame me for the notch!

Is it really ten years ago that I removed the hall ceiling plasterboard and sat on those joists with my feet through, wondering if I was ever going to get it all back together?

Matthew

 

[Feltwell]

More bathroom bodges found today, to go with the cut away floor joist -

Wallpaper on the wall you want to tile? No need to waste time stripping the paper off, just tile over it!

Water damage & timber rot from old leaky bath that you've found when putting your new shower enclosure in? No need to fix those, just shove in lots of no more nails!

Big hole under the floor where heating pipes go into another room? Bubble wrap makes a great filler, just stuff it in!

Knackered lath & plaster wall? Just dot and dab plasterboard over it, no need to worry that what you're sticking it to isn't secure. Just use ordinary cheapo plasterboard despite the fact that it's a shower cubicle, by the time it leaks and turns to mush behind the tiles you'll be long gone!

Old doorway to cover over? No need for any extra noggins, just stick plasterboard straight over the old frame with no more nails!

Shower power cable boring you by running in straight lines? Take it up the wall straight then veer off at a jaunty 45 degree angle for no apparent reason!

Putting a water feed pipe for the shower into the plasterwork? No need to protect it and whilst you're at it, put a nice badly soldered joint in that can leak in years to come.

There's nothing catastrophic here but it just goes to show the level of care that Butch & Sundance put in when they fitted this bathroom out :roll: . Needless to say it's getting the full "strip it all out and start again" treatment now, with the best waterproof system I can find to build the new shower cubicle up with.

If anyone is doing the same the "Skillbuilder" channel on Youtube is worth a look - some good tips in there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J19y7nGHM3c

 

[MatthewC]

OK, you win. :lol:

 

[Feltwell]

OK, you win. :lol:

A hollow victory I think you'll find :lol:

 

[Lime]

Shower power cable boring you by running in straight lines? Take it up the wall straight then veer off at a jaunty 45 degree angle for no apparent reason!

When I was in the trade and witnessed many horrors, that had often been done because the cable was found to have been cut too short.
The straight bit running up the wall was a vague attempt to be comply with the Regs.
This type of work was often accompanied by wiring under the floor wired so taut that you could play a tune on them.

 

[Feltwell]

I started taking the internal masonry wall down between the bathroom and en-suite today - filthy job. Anyway, it's a single brick thickness wall laid in stretcher bond and I expected it to be toothed in to the external wall of the house, which it meets at a 90 degree angle.

Nope - just butted up to it, with a 6" cut clasp nail stuck in every other course of the external wall for it to hang on to, for all the good that would do! Suddenly the modern "Furfix" type wall starter bars don't look so bad after all... :lol:

Still, it hasn't moved in 121 years so I suppose it did the job!

 

[CliffordPope]

Still, it hasn't moved in 121 years so I suppose it did the job!

That doesn't really seem like a bodge to me. As long as the wall has adequate footings it's not going to go anywhere, and a stout nail every second brick course is over-engineering the solution in my view.
Of course if it is buttressing the outer wall then it doesn't need attaching anyway - but then you probably wouldn't be removing it anyway.

 

[Feltwell]

It's not exactly a secure tying in. I guess I'm surprised it wasn't built up at the same time as the outer wall and so toothed into it - it must have been built after the outer wall went up. It's an extremely tall single skin wall, but it is of course supported laterally by the floor joists throughout the building.

But, it's made removing it much easier so I suppose I should be grateful!

Tomorrow's fun and games is getting a new beam in place to support the floor joists of the attic room above - there's one already there that was on top of the wall I've removed, whilst I don't believe the wall was offering any support to it I also can't say for sure that it wasn't, plus it's only bearing into the outer wall by 1 1/2" - I think the BCO will want 4". It's also got big chunks morticed out of it where other joists join into it - so - better safe than sorry, a new beam will go beneath it. Acros are holding it all up for now!

 

[88v8]

...the internal masonry wall ...I expected it to be toothed in... Nope - just butted up ... it hasn't moved in 121 years so I suppose it did the job!

In our first house, built 1932, the internal walls of ye old heavy breeze were just supported by the suspended floors. No fat joists, no special sleepers.
The hall wall, which continued upstairs, was the place I chose to hang my prize wall-mounted cast-iron radiator weighing about 350lb.

Discovering this structural oddity when I went to plumb it in, I... decided to do.... nothing.
Is inaction a bodge?

Ivor

 

[Gothichome]

...the internal masonry wall ...I expected it to be toothed in... Nope - just butted up ... it hasn't moved in 121 years so I suppose it did the job!

In our first house, built 1932, the internal walls of ye old heavy breeze were just supported by the suspended floors. No fat joists, no special sleepers.
The hall wall, which continued upstairs, was the place I chose to hang my prize wall-mounted cast-iron radiator weighing about 350lb.

Discovering this structural oddity when I went to plumb it in, I... decided to do.... nothing.
Is inaction a bodge?

Ivor

Doing nothing in my view is not a bodge, nothing happened to make a successful bodge. Doing nothing gives you time to come up with a good plan, I call this ‘conceptualization time’ . Currently I have many fixes at this stage of repair.

 

[Feltwell]

Currently I have many fixes at this stage of repair.

Oh Lord yes! I've plenty of those.

Is doing nothing a bodge? Generally, no - but I would cite certain exceptions, such as the earlier example of this thread of someone having knowingly nailed through a cable and just leaving a note on a floorboard!

 

[philpjuk100]

The timber in my roof is terrible, it is just bits of tree straightened out a bit with an adze, and some bits are put in with the major dimension horizontal. I used to worry in windy weather but nothing seemed to move. We had the county buildings archeologist point out that the soot on the beams is left from the open fire when the house was a three bay medieval hall house so they may be a very old bodge

 

[philpjuk100]

 

[Lacan07]

I have a roof bodge too, when the previous occupant had the roof re-tiled the roofers removed the old slate and proceeded to cover the old bitumen felt with a new breathable membrane. Removing the bitumen felt first must have seemed like too much work!

 

[NecessaryWing]

A local one but not mine was quite dramatic. So called ‘brick’ period house sold locally. Bad damp issues and no one could figure out why because external bricks were bone dry. Turns out it was a timber framed building in need of bad repair and the owner bricked in front of it to cover it up. Went to court and think the seller got prosecuted.

 

[Feltwell]

I have a roof bodge too, when the previous occupant had the roof re-tiled the roofers removed the old slate and proceeded to cover the old bitumen felt with a new breathable membrane. Removing the bitumen felt first must have seemed like too much work!

I'm wondering how they managed to do that, as the membrane has to go under the roofing battens, so they have to come off - and I defy anyone to remove them without destroying both the battens themselves and the old felt underneath them.

Unless they put the membrane over the battens of course

 

[Lacan07]

I'm wondering how they managed to do that, as the membrane has to go under the roofing battens, so they have to come off - and I defy anyone to remove them without destroying both the battens themselves and the old felt underneath them.

Unless they put the membrane over the battens of course

I'll check next time I'm up there

 

[00rebsta]

1930s semi -
We’ve found a steel that at some point in the past has been put in the wrong way around. Our builders said they’d never seen anything like it. It’s holding a brick wall above it. (What would the logic/situation of sticking a beam on its side ever be?)

Fitted wardrobe in the way of your electric wiring? No problem - just send it straight through an outer corner of said wardrobe straight through from top to bottom ceiling and floor

Dread to think what else is coming when we start renovating properly