Measure Twice, Cut Once

[Yellow_Festiva]

Needed to get some gyprocking work done. At the same time I asked the guy to patch 2 holes in the ceiling on the rear balcony. The roofer needed to inspect where water was leaking through.

No worries - walk through the house, point out exactly what needed doing and the 2 holes that needed repairing. How hard could it be?

I'm at work, boss calls me to confirm that the workers have started. Confirmed the work we agreed to as well as the 2 holes out the back.

Come home to find that they had patched up the 2 holes in the rumpus that were cut out by the AC guy for manhole installation.

Boss is Middle Eastern, workers Chinese.. What could go wrong?

If I ever build again I will never leave the site and watch every worker like a hawk.

Everything is a 'misunderstanding' when they screw up.

Boss tried to blame me for not being there as well... I can just see him now.

'Yeah boys, the bulkheads above the robes and the 2 ceiling holes at the back of the house'...

[Citroënbender]

Sadly, the experience doesn’t surprise me. Courtesy, commonsense and an idea of building being a team exercise - they’re all gone.

[.:4:.]

Originally Posted by Yellow_Festiva

Needed to get some gyprocking work done. At the same time I asked the guy to patch 2 holes in the ceiling on the rear balcony. The roofer needed to inspect where water was leaking through.

No worries - walk through the house, point out exactly what needed doing and the 2 holes that needed repairing. How hard could it be?

I'm at work, boss calls me to confirm that the workers have started. Confirmed the work we agreed to as well as the 2 holes out the back.

Come home to find that they had patched up the 2 holes in the rumpus that were cut out by the AC guy for manhole installation.

Boss is Middle Eastern, workers Chinese.. What could go wrong?

If I ever build again I will never leave the site and watch every worker like a hawk.

Everything is a 'misunderstanding' when they screw up.

Boss tried to blame me for not being there as well... I can just see him now.

'Yeah boys, the bulkheads above the robes and the 2 ceiling holes at the back of the house'...

The complete wrong result, i get that and the boss who i assume looked at the job should be kissing your feet and try to fix it, im assuming he simply just plays the blame game instead for the labour he hired probably at the cheapest possible. I see it all the time on site. Its a language barrier thing most the time. Yeah sometimes its just crap workers. Crap workers can be from anywhere. What i see most often is on site the builder, data guy, plumber, whatever, just throw jobs at non english speaking background people and not have a bar of their questions they have because they dont have enough english to understand properly. Hence the stuff ups. And the scapegoat for jobs not running to schedule is the easy option, blame the ones who dont speak english. Yes there are pretenders, ive worked on sites where you can have a normal conversation with a gyprocker but when they stuff up suddenly they dont speak english. In the same token ive worked on sites with guys who only speak basic english, their supervisor has taken the 2 minutes to explain as best they can the task, and the blokes do very good work. Yeah you can throw in different industry standards between countries etc, but thats a rabbit hole. We have an Italian bloke at work. He is a gun at what he does. Nowdays his english is pretty good, but when he started, it wasnt. But no one in his new to the country days was too busy to take the extra 30 seconds to explain things in an easier way to understand. Same way as early on some questions he had he knew the name of the part in Italian, but had to take 30 seconds for us people to work it out. But the bloke is very good at what he does. My work has had more australians get shown the door in the past decade then imports. Guys from overseas typically leave to go home as they get homesick. Work never employ labour hire people who are australian, reason being, if they had to sign up for labour hire, theres probably a reason. We have a few guys from england and ireland who were labour hire who work took on. New to the country and needed work, and theyre hard workers. Not cant get a job for whatever reason so relegated to labour hire.

[Yellow_Festiva]

Originally Posted by Citroënbender

Sadly, the experience doesn’t surprise me. Courtesy, commonsense and an idea of building being a team exercise - they’re all gone.

Here is another one...

Tell me, what is wrong with this picture?



What? They are different colours you say?

The top lighter colour is the original tile. Tilers had already laid several rooms.

They forgot to send the last 15 boxes with the original delivery. No worries, when the ute is doing a delivery in my area in the next few days they can drop by.

So they did, tilers start helping to unload...

I bet had I not turned up they would have started laying them right along the lighter ones.

[.:4:.]

Originally Posted by Yellow_Festiva

Here is another one...

Tell me, what is wrong with this picture?

image

What? They are different colours you say?

The top lighter colour is the original tile. Tilers had already laid several rooms.

They forgot to send the last 15 boxes with the original delivery. No worries, when the ute is doing a delivery in my area in the next few days they can drop by.

So they did, tilers start helping to unload...

I bet had I not turned up they would have started laying them right along the lighter ones.

They never had the 'forgotten' 15 boxes. They were winging it thinking she'll be right with the next batch. Or conversely, thinking the same but pleading ignorance and flooging the last part of your order to another client in need who payed a bigger mark up. Im used to the bs of suppliers invoicing 'delivered' goods when they were either delivered to the wrong place and signed for by other companies, delivered to the wrong people from my company regardless of delivery instructions yet the potatoes still sign, wrong parts delivered (thats pretty black and white when you order something in white and they deliver it in black) or simply they invoice something they never received, claimed they sent out and have no drivers manifest or signature for the drop.

[Citroënbender]

Absolutely.

This has been screwing my crook mate’s workplace, they are a good sized developer but a minnow compared to someone like (say) Mirvac. Stock to hand, set aside, evaporated as wholesalers’ incoming supplies dried up - it will have gone to finish projects for the heavy hitters, guaranteed.

[Yellow_Festiva]

Originally Posted by .:4:.

They never had the 'forgotten' 15 boxes. They were winging it thinking she'll be right with the next batch. Or conversely, thinking the same but pleading ignorance and flooging the last part of your order to another client in need who payed a bigger mark up. Im used to the bs of suppliers invoicing 'delivered' goods when they were either delivered to the wrong place and signed for by other companies, delivered to the wrong people from my company regardless of delivery instructions yet the potatoes still sign, wrong parts delivered (thats pretty black and white when you order something in white and they deliver it in black) or simply they invoice something they never received, claimed they sent out and have no drivers manifest or signature for the drop.

They actually did. I went to collect and saw them on a pallet wrapped on their own.

The 2 shades you see are different colours.

When they sent the ute back they returned with the wrapped pallet I saw the previous week.

Just ridiculous....

But yes, the same mob tried to charge me for stuff they knew they couldn't deliver in the timeframe I asked for.

You learn a lot when you do this stuff mostly on your own...

Sent from my LG-M700 using Tapatalk

[.:4:.]

Originally Posted by Yellow_Festiva

They actually did. I went to collect and saw them on a pallet wrapped on their own.

The 2 shades you see are different colours.

When they sent the ute back they returned with the wrapped pallet I saw the previous week.

Just ridiculous....

But yes, the same mob tried to charge me for stuff they knew they couldn't deliver in the timeframe I asked for.

You learn a lot when you do this stuff mostly on your own...

Sent from my LG-M700 using Tapatalk

Mate, if i went to work for myself id have little to no weight to throw around with suppliers. The main wholesaler my work uses, the branch work uses is the highest output in the state for that franchise, my boss is best mates with the branch manager. They go to every years nfl superbowl in the states kind of mates. But, as opposed to 2 years back theyve been dropping the ball. Any complaints from anyone from my mob get taken seriously, they used to get actioned, but lately theres been no change. So now my boss has allowed multiple quotes from wholesalers to both test the waters and also get things into line. So i send 1 email to 2 or 3 places. Its obvious im not asking 1 person. Its 2 or 3 people in the same recipient box. Its first in best dressed, and so far its the other 2 places wanting our business who quote back faster and also do better prices and faster deliveries. Maybe not for oddball stuff, but off the shelf stuff typically moves from their shelf to the shelves in my ute in 8 to 24 hours

[Citroënbender]

A different job, someone else’s screw-ups:



Comments:

1. You attach the cistern to the pan before setting it down, there’s no excuse for not shimming it to finish with a 5mm wall gap (max) to white silicone fill, and building up the base with white cement, white sand mortar. You could even rake this out slightly and come back to glaze the mortar with a layer of white silicone.

2. The inlet has been set so low in the cutout that the float (inlet) valve can’t be adjusted any further up, or removed for service without unscrewing the cistern stop.

Both these issues as presented, are unprofessional, the second is - to my perspective - dishonest, as it is not really in a practically serviceable state. I feel for people who get told “that’s how it is” and pay up.

[CJR09]

Originally Posted by Citroënbender

A different job, someone else’s screw-ups:

image image

Comments:

1. You attach the cistern to the pan before setting it down, there’s no excuse for not shimming it to finish with a 5mm wall gap (max) to white silicone fill, and building up the base with white cement, white sand mortar. You could even rake this out slightly and come back to glaze the mortar with a layer of white silicone.

2. The inlet has been set so low in the cutout that the float (inlet) valve can’t be adjusted any further up, or removed for service without unscrewing the cistern stop.

Both these issues as presented, are unprofessional, the second is - to my perspective - dishonest, as it is not really in a practically serviceable state. I feel for people who get told “that’s how it is” and pay up.

No.1 - no one uses mortar anymore - people want cheap and fast and pay as such - a quick look on their website and even their marketing photos show how poor the castings are - i have installed (well tried to) some that have had 15-20mm casting deficiencies and been through sometimes three or four replacements to get one that is ok and passable (try finding a client that will pay three or four times to have their wc installed that more often than not they chose without consulting the plumber) - the floor can also exasperate the situation if there is fall on it to a floor waste

No.2 what normally happens here is a change in spec to the floor coverings - the worst ones are a change fron vinyl to tile as the tiles set the pan higher some 15-20mm higher in relation - even a change from ceramic to porcelain can upset the applecart - not that this actually matters in this instance as the flush valve can be set to the other side giving the required clearance anyway

Dear to my heart - as a plumber for over 20yrs this was one of the reasons i left the trade

[Citroënbender]

There was ample time available, it wasn’t a “just get it done” job for an office crapper, and the place isn’t yet occupied - bedding the pan would have given the best possible fit (and I agree with you totally about the quality, it’s a good bit “hmm”). It’s like having a special purpose tool in the kit; you break it out when needed but if you don’t have it the results are never going to be ideal.

Changing the inlet valve to the other side would have been commonsense, didn’t happen though.

[CJR09]

The pans have their own fixing kits - you do not use mortar

A way around getting the cistern more plumb was to use silicone in conjunction with the gasket and put a packer/shim wherever it was needed

It does not matter if there was ample time available, it matters how it was priced which unless the job was done as a charge up (doubt it) then most likely priced to do bare minimum once - that is what leads to the 'thats how it is' mentality because if it was priced allowing for the extra work every man and his dog would easily undercut him and he would never have any work

Was this work undertaken direct to client or to main contractor or group housing outfit?

[Citroënbender]

It was effectively “do and charge”.

This was the last job for the same client, to give a idea of where expectations lie. Lots of finicky details you will notice from your time in the trade.

[CJR09]

Yeah well, no excuse if done as charge up - let the client know, do it, charge it, everyones happy


All looks fairly standard - not much room to read the paper on that one!

[Citroënbender]

Exactly. The client is happy when things are right, any modest extra cost is forgotten.

[Citroënbender]

One from next door. I’d say wrong setout by the builder, bad drawings or a massive change in spec.

[CJR09]

Yeah looks like the plumber is on a hiding to nothing on that one!

[Citroënbender]

This does my head in, the tapered and missing eave. All because the chippies couldn’t draw a mud map to work out the roof.

Downpipe is an interesting extra, can’t see that ending well - even with a spreader it would discharge at some speed into a gutter abutting a wall - a sure recipe for grief.

[Citroënbender]

Righto boys, let’s get those downpipes hooked in!



Ohh... **** me ****! Hang on a minute! ...Davo - get the Husky saw and Kango, will ya?

[hayseed]

Originally Posted by Citroënbender

Righto boys, let’s get those downpipes hooked in!

image

Ohh... **** me ****! Hang on a minute! ...Davo - get the Husky saw and Kango, will ya?

image

Pave or Tile it, & no one will ever Know..

[Citroënbender]

That brings you to Problem 2... By the time you add enough mud bedding over the top to stop the pipe flexing, outside floor level will risk exceeding the inside.

[CJR09]

Lol - was there to be a verandah or such there?

[Ross 1]

Can't tell from the photo but is there enough fall in that pipe and if they glue down porcelain pavers are they going to have 100mm to floor height?

[Citroënbender]

CJR: Yep, there was. But they had to delete it at excavation stage - there was plenty of time/opportunity to rough in after that.

Ross - 1/100 if you’re lucky, and nope. We’ve got a problem with “paper builders” in NSW, tertiary qualified and signed off by mates, no trades background or practical experience. These roosters didn’t even know about profile hurdles.

[roKWiz]

Typical Sydney stuff, no doubt brilliantly designed by a flash architects office.

Contractor, Can I have the plans, please....?

Architect......Here you go........

Contractor....Hum...... plan, road elevation, rear elevation,
do you have any working detail drawing to go with that........?

Architect..... .No we don't need any and we can visit you onsite and work that out as you build our wonderful cutting edge design.
Now go away as I have a very important lunch meeting.

[Ross 1]

Originally Posted by Citroënbender

CJR: Yep, there was. But they had to delete it at excavation stage - there was plenty of time/opportunity to rough in after that.

Ross - 1/100 if you’re lucky, and nope. We’ve got a problem with “paper builders” in NSW, tertiary qualified and signed off by mates, no trades background or practical experience. These roosters didn’t even know about profile hurdles.

I packed away the laser level about 8-9 months ago and I am making the young ones only use a dumpy and hurdles. Should start messing with their minds and make them use a water level.

[roKWiz]

Originally Posted by Ross 1

I packed away the laser level about 8-9 months ago and I am making the young ones only use a dumpy and hurdles. Should start messing with their minds and make them use a water level.

Everything I do is by eye. As most walls are battered. Level is found siting other roof ridges in the distance if needed.

[CJR09]

Originally Posted by Ross 1

I packed away the laser level about 8-9 months ago and I am making the young ones only use a dumpy and hurdles. Should start messing with their minds and make them use a water level.

Lol - i was too tight to buy a laser level, i used a water level setting out a patio on a rental just a few month's ago, true story

For work when i was plumbing/drainlaying it was always laser - easy to f that up though if you're a noob - where i work now as qs is more dumpy than laser

Am i correct in thinking that the water is still the most accurate??

[CJR09]

Originally Posted by roKWiz

Everything I do is by eye. As most walls are battered. Level is found siting other roof ridges in the distance if needed.

I was working an industrial site some time ago - prob 20yr or so - was a dairy factory - the 50m high drying towers were precast - one of the head honchos turn up stops in his tracks, turns to the site manager and say 'that tower wall is not plumb' site manager calls bs gets his laser out f's around for a bit 20min or so - comes back all sheepish and says 'ah yeah looks like its 45mm out of plumb'

Turns out dudes put it up with un-calibrated gear...

99% of people wouldn't know - some just have a real good eye

[Ross 1]

Originally Posted by CJR09

Lol - i was too tight to buy a laser level, i used a water level setting out a patio on a rental just a few month's ago, true story

For work when i was plumbing/drainlaying it was always laser - easy to f that up though if you're a noob - where i work now as qs is more dumpy than laser

Am i correct in thinking that the water is still the most accurate??

Is really accurate if done properly and especially good for going around corners, that's where the young guys still risk losing accuracies. They will get there though, repetition.