We have decide on a winner of the Cowboy Of The Year Award for 2008!! Looking back over the photos of unsafe situations that we located in 2008 was an interesting yet unsatisfying  process. It is disheartening to see so many poorly done jobs by cowboys, DIYers and just plain lazy builders. It gives everybody in the business a bad name. We have discovered a pattern through this process however and we reckon that three categories of individual sum up all of the poor workmanship we have seen.

If you had to place poor workmanship into only three categories they would these:

1. Johnny Cut Corners – who gets the job done faster than humanly possible gets the cash and gets out usually with poor and unsafe end results
2. Harry Houdini – who starts the job with vigour but then has lots of excuses for not showing up until one day ‘poof’ – like magic they disappear
3. Bite Off More Than They Can Chew Charlie – who start a job larger than they can cope with and in many cases won’t stop no matter what even when unqualified to undertake certain aspects of the job. These guys sometimes turn into Houdinis late in the job.

The latter is the most dangerous from what we see on a day-to-day basis. The unqualified builder, kitchen fitter, bricky or any trades person who modifies the fabric of the property without the knowledge or a clear understanding of what they’re doing and without the TEST equipment to check their work and without a thought to the homeowners, neighbours, apprentices or even themselves is the most dangerous person out there. Although a lot of what we see on a daily basis are dangerous with a small ‘d’ many of the jobs we see are DANGEROUS with a capital ‘D.’

The 2008 Cowboy Of The Year Award from February of this year is just such a job and the worst in the sense of a dangerous trap set for the homeowner so that if the conditions were just right – BANG! Someone was going to get very hurt! The original post ( see original here ) for the winner was from February of 2008 and was a cowboy kitchen fitter.

A kitchen fitter had already replaced laminated work surfaces with granite and had disconnected the old hob in order to do the work. When queried by the home owner about disconnecting the gas appliances he told the home owner that he was allowed to disconnect the old hob but wasn’t CORGI Registered so could not install the new one.

Despite the fact that the counter top bloke couldn’t check the pipework for leaks (tightness test) before they started they most certainly couldn’t check for leaks after they removed the appliance. Also, you cannot leave an open gas pipe such as the one shown in the first photo! It must be capped using an approved fitting before leaving the site. Mr. Counter Top Installer left an open gas pipe for over a week with no cap or means of isolation except the main gas valve into the property which hadn’t been checked for leaks!

As for the electrics, the bare wires in the first photo were attached to a 13amp plug that was hidden behind the food in the cupboard just to the left. The plug can be seen (unplugged) in the bottom of the second photo. The home owner was not aware of the plug but were trying to get the light in the extractor to work after the counter tops were replaced because the kitchen is dark in that corner. They were VERY lucky that they didn’t find the plug for the light as it was also connected to the stripped wires that were left hanging loose. Plugging it in would have resulted in the cooker and hob and the non-isolated gas pipe becoming live!

Not a good scenario at all. Dangerous gas and electrics all in one.

WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!!!!! If you’re not CORGI Registered you can’t touch the gas – PERIOD! If you’re not Part-P you can’t touch electrics in a kitchen.  This is why! This is the perfect example of why you want a time served licensed gas fitter and/or electrician in your house.

Related Posts

1. Danger of the Week Award – Cowboy Kitchen Fitters
2. Danger of the Week Award – Cowboy Electrics
3. Danger of the Week Award – Cowboy Gas Fitter
4. Home Made Building Regulations!