Top bodging!

[Feltwell]

What are the best / worst (depending on your point of view) bodges that everyone has come across?

As I mentioned on another thread, my parents have just bought a bungalow with a conservatory which for some reason a previous owner thought needed a Rayburn cooker in it. So they cut a hole in the polycarbonate roof for the flue. A hole that started out the same size as the flue we guess, but ended up about 6 inches bigger.

Just to make it better, the flue stopped just above the roof, and just under the (plastic) guttering for the main house roof. Which melted and so convieniently pours the entire roof's worth of water through the hole around the flue every time it rains.

A friend of mine bought a 2 up 2 down terrace a while ago, that had had the wall and chimney breast between the front and back rooms removed. But, in the loft, the chimney breast remained. Still, never mind, the cautious DIYer responsible for this particular feat realised the dangers of a ton of unsupported masonry sitting directly over their sofa, so they carefully chiselled some brick out of the sides and inserted 2 pieces of 4"x2" screwed to the ceiling joists to support the entire remants of the stack.

Good eh?

 

[FamilyWiggs]

I was mildly surprised when undoing the 1970's modernisation in my project recently, to discover that when the previous "electrician" (I use the term in its loosest sense) ran out of twin and earth behind the (damp-inducing) tanking in the dining room he used some spare doorbell cable for the last couple of lights on a spur.

Not content with this, he very generously left a number of live unterminated cables (well to be fair to him, *some* of them were taped) for future occupants to run additional switches/sockets, etc.

Frankly I am amazed the house hadn't burned down inside a couple of years. It makes me run cold to think that we lived in the place with our 2 kids for 2 years before we started the project....

Of course, these days with Part P and HIPs, something like that couldn't happen, could it? :wink:

 

[Pford75]

Two bodges spring to mind.....

An old cartridge fuse in a property I rented as a student replaced with tinfoil

In our current home, a windowsill had been repaired with filler....beneath the surface of filler a large gap had been packed out with 2 bent teaspoons!!

 

[FamilyWiggs]

In our current home, a windowsill had been repaired with filler....beneath the surface of filler a large gap had been packed out with 2 bent teaspoons!!

You didn't buy it from a Mr Y Geller, did you?

 

[Lime]

About 6 years ago my friend had his new gas multipoint boiler fitted by a CORGI engineer so that water came out of the pilot and gas out of the tap.

Honest, it's true.
My friend was furious as he worked for the area water company and could easily have done it himself but wanted to do things properly.


How about the old block of flats that had been mis-connected by the electricity board in the street so that in all the flats the live was neutral and the neutral live?
They had been connected like that for about 20 years.

 

[Flyfisher]

My outbuildings were powered from a single 5A circuit. OK for lights but clearly not for all the power sockets. Still, the 2x 30A fusewire in the distribution panel fusebox soon solved that problem :roll: (All now properly rewired, thank goodness).

In a previous house, I needed to replace a cracked mains socket. I plugged in a table lamp and removed one of the 30A ring-main fuses (all unlabelled of course). The lamp stayed on. Replaced fuse and removed another. Lamp stayed on. Must be the last fuse (typical). Replaced 2nd fuse and removed the remaining one. Lamp stayed on! Hmm. OK, switch off master switch (lamp goes off), remove ALL fuses and switch on power (lamp stays off), insert 30A fuses one at a time - lamp comes on when EITHER of two fuses is inserted.

After much tracing of wiring it turned out that an additional socket had been connected across TWO ring mains, effectively fed from a 60A fuse. Lovely.

 

[Roger H]

Student House. Electrician had surface mounted a light switch box. On closing door on his handiwork evidently discovered that it stopped the door closing. So he cut a 4 inch by 3 inch notch in the edge of the door to facilitate closure... Neat.

 

[Penners]

Now, you just take care how you use the term "bodger". Bodging is highly respected craft.

http://www.bodgers.org.uk/

 

[middi]

Now, you just take care how you use the term "bodger". Bodging is highly respected craft.

http://www.bodgers.org.uk/

I second that, and give bodging my blessing.

How would anybody react if they purchased a car and found rhat the radiator rubber heater pipes had been repaired by " in-line"joining them with a piece of bamboo cane ?

That is exactly what I did to a rented car many years ago to get out of trouble. I ran over some rocks on an isolated road on the back of beyond somewhere in Italy, all I had was a penknife. I returned the car back two weeks later with the " bodge" still going strong.

 

[Feltwell]

Now, you just take care how you use the term "bodger". Bodging is highly respected craft.

http://www.bodgers.org.uk/

Well, you learn something new every day. I can't see the "Guild of Master Bodgers" catching on too much though....

 

[Feltwell]

That is exactly what I did to a rented car many years ago to get out of trouble. I ran over some rocks on an isolated road on the back of beyond somewhere in Italy, all I had was a penknife. I returned the car back two weeks later with the " bodge" still going strong.

Ahh, but that's bodging in it's good sense, to be admired. I had a student friend once who, with no money, decided to run a heated screwdriver over his bald motorbike tyre to give it some tread to get through the MOT. It worked as well, and perhaps even more amazingly he is still alive, as his other "inventive" habits have been similarly dangerous.

 

[chuckey]

The rear extension on my rock and rubble cottage, had its lime mortared joints packed out with soil (the garden type!) and then butter pointed with cement mortar.
Half a floorboard in a bedroom had been replaced with one 1/2" too thick, luckily it was next to a wall.
When the ceiling was raised, they carefully replastered, the new gap, 1/4" too thick all around two rooms? Why, they got it smooth enough but the level was rubbish. I attempted to taper this step back to the correct level over about two feet.
Radiator system drain cock hidden behind skirting board. As it dripped it had rotted the skirting board, builder thought it was a mouse hole.
Metal protecting channel carefully nailed to wall with a nail though its centre, caused cable to burn slightly, never the less it got plastered in. Still got the piece of cable with its hole and smoke marks.
Two under floor air ducts for a baxi fire, chopped through limestone flagstones, ruined about 4 sq. m. of them.
Oil boiler with 4" flue going into a stone wall, then gap, then 3" flue termination unit outside.
Garden wall moved 9" outwards onto verge, so garden gate hinge pins on house don't line up, and gate is askew.
Also house over 200 years old, due to lie of land the garden has had a mound in it since new(?) allowing a puddle to form in front of the entrance to it from the patio( flagged walk way, more like). What are some people like???? :evil:
Frank

 

[shelli]

the far barn end of our place is integral garage. you can see garage door on following pic




Well the former owners were very security concious and, being in insurance, wanted to fit both cars in the garage (his n hers vintage porsches according to our neighbour).

Because garage only 9' wide they had to go in front to back - but 20' long garage not quite long enough

SO (will get to the point eventually) - they excavated out at the back of the garage an area 5' wide, 4' high and 4' deep - this was under the access road at the rear of the property - and for safety and to support the entire back wall of the building they put in 5 pieces of 4 x 2 wood as a lintel :shock: when the farmer took his tractor across the road last month and the paving cracked into 3 we were a little worried (understatement)

 

[Penners]

Now, you just take care how you use the term "bodger". Bodging is highly respected craft.

http://www.bodgers.org.uk/

I second that, and give bodging my blessing.

How would anybody react if they purchased a car and found rhat the radiator rubber heater pipes had been repaired by " in-line"joining them with a piece of bamboo cane ?

That is exactly what I did to a rented car many years ago to get out of trouble. I ran over some rocks on an isolated road on the back of beyond somewhere in Italy, all I had was a penknife. I returned the car back two weeks later with the " bodge" still going strong.

An admirable piece of creative repair work, Middi, but the point I was making is that the word "bodger" has become misused. Bodging is actually a highly skilled and ancient craft. I reckon we should try to find another word for dodgy repair work.

 

[Moo]

Dodger?

 

[Penners]

Very artful, Moo!

 

[Edwardia]

Seven times too much current running round our ground floor socket circuit..a bare wire earth to lead water pipe that wouldn't have worked because the mains in the street had been changed to plastic..junction boxes in the loft so overloaded they could have caused a fire at any time..the previous vendor ran out of wallpaper paste in the hall and used PVA glue and there was nice mould growing out of it under the top layer..when the dining room was made a through lounge/diner one side the square arch is wonky..the bath waste pipe was routed into the downpipe from the gutter..a partiton wall made from A4 size off cuts of plasterboard covered with 6 layers of woodchip paper..after the earthquake in 2007 our garden sunk 2 inches as under the paving slabs its mostly rubble not soil..someone attempted to level the kitchen floor by dumping concrete on top of the dips without removing the vinyl flooring first..

 

[DaveBrigg]

Some years ago I was hiking with friends in Norway. It had rained all day, most of our kit was soaked, and one of the group was starting to feel decidedly unwell. At 6pm, miles from anywhere, we were searching for a piece of ground dry enough to pitch a tent on when we stumbled across a wooden cabin. Clearly a holiday home, in our condition it looked like a palace.
It was locked, but closer inspection showed that one window had very loose putty, which fell out at the merest touch. After a quick debate, we were soon in the warm and dry, being careful to remove boots and not touch any of the food or utensils which had been left there by the owners. The next morning we cleaned up, removing all traces of our visit, and even found a small tin of putty on a shelf, for just such a problem as we now faced. It was only when we were all safely out that we noticed that the putty tin was almost empty.
We never did find out if the owners discovered that one of their window panes was held in by toothpaste.

 

[Penners]

What's the Norwegian for "vandal"? :wink:

What a great story!