What's the worst bodging you've had to put right?

[Lindyboo]

It’s hard to choose from a long list here at chez shack, but nudging into the lead for dangerous bodging is the copper chimney hood (made from an old immersion tank) fitted over the open fire grate, which on removal was found to have been fixed to the wall with a couple of (badly charred) wooden batons. The other fireplace was clad with, among other things slabs of polystyrene.

Then there’s the car-body filler caked into various cracks and gaps all over the place, and other cracks and gaps filled with window putty.

Then there was the enormous bathroom sink which took up so much space in the tiny shower room that the inward-opening full size door (now replaced with a sliding door) cleared it by barely 2 mm, requiring one to lean backward into the room to allow the door to close. Then there was the shelf in the corner of the shower room which could only be accessed by getting down on all fours and crawling under the edge of the sink and standing up in the space between it and the shelf. Then there was … well, you get the idea.

Surely I’m not alone in these trials?

 

[Roger H]

Good idea for a thread.

My recent one would be the register plate serving a wood burner which was made of plasterboard and affixed to timber batons. Although its replacement with a steel register plate on angle iron was on my ‘to do’ list, this accelerated after the top of the plasterboard plate caught fire. This necessitated a midnight visit from the brigade who made a very neat job of unscrewing plasterboard from flaming batons and extinguishing.

In a former student house the landlord had surface mounted a lightswitch box in a room. On attempting to close door to said room he found the box impaired closure. His solution? Cutting a 4” x 2” notch out of the door :? ...

 

[malcolm]

My barn roof is the worst I've found so far (the one with spreading troubles). It must have had rot problems at some stage and the principal rafters were removed, tie beams not properly attached, and a section of rotten wall plate not replaced presumably because it was in a tricky area. All covered up with plasterboard without any ventilation to encourage future rot.

The best bit was some fairly sturdy metal braces someone had made to secure the tie beams to the walls. One had pulled away from the walls and broken the fixing. Most people who looked at it muttered something about the amount of force you would need for the fixing to break. Turns out the fixing was made of No More Nails.

 

[angrybird]

Any walls which were damp had been smothered in waterproof tile adhesive and then 5 layers of plasterboard placed one on top of the other! I presume as each layer of plasterboard got damp the PO placed another sheet of plasterboard on top instead of rectifying the damp problem!
Electric cables joined together with sellotape!

 

[philpjuk100]

Not one of mine,spotted at B and B.

 

[Me!]

Several downpipes from gutters that went about a foot below the ground and then just stopped. No drain, no soakaway, just stopped in heavy clay soil.
A homemade concrete drain gully that wasn't sealed to the wall of the house, and also missed the drain it connected to by 2". This was supposed to collect all the water from the kitchen sink, the washing machine and the dishwasher, but resulted in about one quarter of all that water soaking under the house and adjoining patio for about 20 years.
The electrical earth connection for the entire house was via a 20' length of bell wire with just twisted connections at either end.
An attic conversion where the eaves vents were now venting the outside air straight into the room.
Any wall showing signs of damp on the inside was treated to a coat of black gunge, a layer or roofing felt and a sheet of plasterboard.
A hood over an open fire where the hood was mounted with a gap of about 2" between it and the back wall, so all the smoke going up that 2" gap then hit the register plate and billowed out into the room.
A large fireplace that had been bricked up inside but not capped off outside. When I opened it up to try and cure the damp, I shovelled out 2 bin liners of dead birds :shock:
And one I haven't dared investigate yet, but a major spine beam in one room appears to be supported at one end only on a rotting 1970's window frame!

 

[MatthewC]

Before Penners tells us, a bodger was actually a skilled job in making turned legs and other bits for chairs. Sadly the use of the word has changed over the years.

In terms of old bodging on my house, the worst were the ceiling joists above the back bedrooms (erected c 1860). Most of these were 2" x 2" and a few were 3" x 2"; there is a cross beam of a good size (~6" x 2") running at right angles across these, and I suspect that the instruction was to cut a one inch notch in the 3x2 joists so that the the beam rested on all of the joists at 2" think. Sadly, what was done was to cut a lot of one inch notches in the 2x2s! Someone then realized the error and moved these so that the notch was NOT under the beam (fine...) but then at various points through the ceiling that left a lot of weak points where a heavy lath and plaster ceiling depended on just one inch of pine in almost every joist.

I spent a fair time up there before the plastering, adding strength in the form of lengths of 2x2 laid beside the existing joists, with many plated screws horizontally. The whole structure seems to be much stiffer, but I have no desire to go back up there and add any weight to them.

 

[Penners]

Before Penners tells us, a bodger was actually a skilled job in making turned legs and other bits for chairs. Sadly the use of the word has changed over the years.

You know me too well, Matthew - I was just about to post a rant about that when I read your comment. Bodging was indeed a noble and skilled craft, seen practised here:

 

[Penners]

Not one of mine,spotted at B and B.

That is a solid gold, one hundred per cent classic! I have so much admiration for the Philistine who saw no shame in perpetrating it!

 

[TheRoost]

The mains stopcock was totally unaccessable inside a stud wall, and appeared to of been that way for decades :shock:

 

[Feltwell]

A house that a friend of mine bought, a fairly classic 2-up 2-down terrace, had had the separating wall between the two front rooms taken out by a previous owner - there had been a chimney breast on this wall.

The chimney breast on the first floor and above was still there, "supported" on a couple of bits of 4 x 2. In the first floor room the front of the breast had been roughly demolished and the flues inside opened up, a hanging rail put in and turned into an built-in wardrobe of sorts. The rest of the dividing wall at the first floor was, luckily, only lathe & plaster.

All the rubble had been pushed into the sub-floor void at ground level, and had then had concrete poured over it to bring it back up to the level of the remaining timber suspended floor. The floor in one room was a few inches higher than the other, so they'd poured some concrete on top of the floorboards and made a bit of ramp about 4' wide to even out the difference between the two rooms.

The house was, unsurprisingly, very cheap!

My parents bought a repossessed bungalow where the previous owners had put a Rayburn in a plastic-roofed conservatory, and the flue had melted a large hole in the roof. Even better, they'd stopped the flue just under the (plastic) guttering for the main roof of the bungalow - so every time it rained all the water from the main roof flowed round the guttering and poured directly down the flue into this Rayburn, flooding the conservatory.

 

[Penners]

The rest of the dividing wall at the first floor was, luckily, only lathe & plaster.

That sounds dangerous... lathes can be big, heavy things, y'know.

 

[Feltwell]

How did I forget one that old????? :roll: :lol:

 

[Penners]

Go on - you only did it to see if I was awake! :wink:

 

[Feltwell]

Just checking that standards aren't slipping :wink:

 

[Penners]

Certainly not on my watch!

 

[xanthe]

That airing cupboard... wow... just wow... :shock:

Building regs would have a field day with some of these.

 

[jjj75]

Small south London 1870's detached, three up/three down layout.

I think some of the bodgery started when the house was built really, but then I doubt very much the original builders would have though the house would still be standing nearly 140 years later..

Wall foundations only about 18" below ground level, which gave no space for a good air gap under timber floor, which rotted and was subsequnetly replaced with concrete which made the walls and underfloor electrics damp.
Concrete also laid outside 6" above innner floor level.

Front windows widened and reveals roughly rebuilt, then instead of lintels or an arch, the outer wall was built back off of the new windows in soldier bricks, which dropped and distorted the windows.

The front room/back room dividing wall knocked though and supported on a 4" x 10" timber spanning 2.5mtr which sagged, causing the remaining wall and floor upstairs to drop an inch. All hidden with the wallpaper and filler and packing in the floor. All of the loft water tanks and hot water cylinder were on that wall too!!

Rear side ground floor extension built, chimney breast removed flank wall knocked through and rsj's put in, except the upper part of the wall did not touch the rsj's, and the wall behind the former chimney breast was only a single skin which had worked loose and dropped.

Newel, handrail removed, open stair string cut to accept deeper treads, which removed so much strength that a peice of angle iron was screwed to the underside to strengthen.

Electrical cables running in rebates cut into the floorboards!

Front Chimney breast removed from front room but remaining in bedroom above and completely unsupported in floor space, ovetime the bottom 6 courses of brickes had worked loose and were sitting on the ceiling.

All the downstairs walls covered in thick 'rustic' white plaster to hide a multide of problems and fake black painted beams fitted up the walls and accross ceilings. Nice!

I could go on, It's been a difficult few years!! Needless to say the suveyor gave me my money back (I should have held out for more!).

We've turned the corner now and have put a look of character back, and although not quite as 'Period' as some here, we're pretty happy with how it's turning out.

 

[CliffordPope]

Wall foundations only about 18" below ground level,

That's a bit excessive isn't it? I don't think our house has foundations at all.

 

[plasticpigeon]

18" or 6 bricks. Ours are 2 at a single brick width and 2 corbel courses or about 12" if I remember correctly.