DANGER OF THE WEEK AWARD

Bad ‘Plumbing’

Regulations broken: BS7671:2008

We were at this property a month or so ago to repair some dangerous electrical work left over by a central heating engineer. He left some live and uninsulated wires in a wall and told the homeowners it was safe to cut them out. It wasn’t safe and fortunately they urned the power off first. We came back this time to look at running an outside cable to their new shed. They moved the washing machine aside so we could see the wall behind. Ooops! Band plumbing.

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So it would seem that with a large space in which to place the hot and cold water feed the obvious choice to this idiot was directly above the existing electrical socket! This type of crappy workmanship is wearing thin with me. With all of the self certified workers running around and no formal inspections EVER taking place on small jobs it seems to be getting worse.

It all boils down to this. If your plumber or electrical doesn’t have any common sense lend them some of yours. In the end it’s your house and not theirs. And in the end it’s your electrics that are going to short out and get damaged when the washer hose leaks not theirs. As well, tell contractors what you want. You don’t have to be snotty to get them to do what you want. If it’s a reasonable request such as ‘please could you move the cold water feed away from the socket’ it’s reasonable to think that they’ll do it.

A small tip to get this type of small job done correctly is one I use when working in your homes. I ask the home owners to mark the spot where they want to place sockets, light switches, lights, etc. I then take pictures of those spots and file them away. Every now and then I use them for reference purposes such as the homeowner that says ‘I’m sure I asked for the living room light to be placed over there!’ I can show them that they actually asked, and marked the spot, over here. My point is that it works for you too. Mark the spot where you want the pipe, socket, switch, etc. Providing it’s safe to do so (building regulations override personal taste) then you’ll get what you want. Just remember to mark it, show the contractor, take pictures as you discuss the location and keep a copy of those pictures until the job is completed.

In this case we’ll be moving the socket while on site to sort out the shed electrics in a couple of weeks. Incidentally the socket was already damp enough that the screws could not be removed and we’ll have to break the fixture to get it off of .the wall

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DANGER OF THE WEEK AWARD

Bad ‘Plumbing and Decorating’

Regulations broken: BS7671:2008

We received a call to look at ‘some’ water around the bottom of a tub. When we arrived we removed the tub panel and found a leaking flexi connector which had been previously packed with a cheap DIY leak repair epoxy. It didn’t work and the joint kept leaking. The leak had been there for some time as the floorboards were well soaked. When the landlord went to the empty downstairs flat to see if anything had leaked through the fun began.

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The landlord came running back upstairs and urgently asked us to go downstairs. The entire kitchen was soaked in water with some kind of mushrooms growing from the ceiling. We decided that we had better put some holes through the ceiling to let the water to leak out. When we climbed up and started peeling back the wallpaper we found that the decorator had used duck tape to seal the plasterboard joints before he papered. I mean really…duck tape!!

So bad plumbing caused damage to the hob, oven, worksurfaces, flooring on both floors and the ceiling. For the sake of a three quid flexable connector.

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DANGER OF THE WEEK AWARD

Bad ‘Business Owners’

Regulations broken: BS7671:2008

It’s the time of year when boilers get switched on after a long break. It’s good practice to get your boiler serviced sometime before it needs to be switched on to make sure it’s safe. What is safe? Safe can mean a few things more than just the boiler itself. It relates to the room the boiler lives in, the air vents if required that allow the boiler to burn and dispose of the products of combustion properly and many other factors that you the end user may not fully understand. Here’s a good example of what could happen when you don’t service or inspect your boiler regularly.

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To put these pictures into context, these photos where taken at a daycare centre where lots of staff, children and parents enter and leave everyday with no knowledge that the boiler is in a dangerous state. And just to make the point that even though the boiler was working correctly on the day we visited it might only take an exceptionally cold day to stop the flue from pulling properly thus allowing the products of combustion (carbon monoxide and other deadly nasties) to come back down the flue and enter the room. That’s a situation that will end in tears.

So you could say that people and carbon dioxide don’t mix but that’s not actually true and that’s the main problem. People and carbon monoxide DO mix and your body likes carbon monoxide much more that it does oxygen and will absorb as much CO as it can get. Well, as much as it can get until you turn blue from lack of oxygen and die that is.

So the boiler pictured above has been plugged up with the daily assortment of dust from the building and extra lint from the dryer, The dryer was pushed up tight against the front or the boiler when we arrived and was also plugging the lower air vent to the room. That was the least of the problems however as the other side of the same air vent was blocked off with a trampoline, various toy boxes and toys stacked up against it and the outside wall. The top of the boiler was stacked with ‘things to dry’ and when we removed the cover plates from he boiler we found all kinds of flammable material which had fallen inside and touching the top and sides of the heat exchanger.

To make matters worse the front vent of the boiler was completely plugged with lint (see the photo with the light shining through brighter on one side than the other), the back end of the boiler where the products of combustion exit and are sucked up the flue were heavily plugged up with debris and lint. The more fluff, lint and debris that collect on the sides of the flue the more difficult it is for the fumes to escape up the flue and make it outside.

After we removed the rubbish from around the boiler we stacked it up and took the last picture in the series. That’s a serious pile of debris and a record breaker! We hoovered out all of the air vents inside and outside of the building and re-assembled the boiler for the remainder of our safety checks. So the lesson here should be to check on your boiler yourself regularly for obvious issues such as debris piled on top or the fresh air vents plugged up with dust, debris, climbing plants or trampolines!. YOU DON’T NEED A GAS ENGINEER FOR THESE COMMON SENSE CHECKS. Once a year or as required get your boiler checked out by a Gas Safe Registered engineer who can test all the bits that you can’t. An extra 50 quid a year might just save someones life and keep you out of jail for corporate manslaughter. Fifty quid!!

Don’t be like this business which was really on the verge of causing some serious health issues with their staff and clients. And don’t be like the many customers I meet on a daily basis who actually BRAG about not having their boiler serviced for 10 or 15 years! Unbelievable!

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DANGER OF THE WEEK AWARD

Bad ‘Electricians’

Regulations broken: BS7671:2008

You may have never heard of a Marrette or Marr connector and I was surprised as anyone to see one in a job to remove a fluorescent light fixture. As an ex-Canadian I’ve used hundreds and have seen thousands of Marrettes over the years…but never in the UK.

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During a small renovation we had to remove two separate lights from a kitchen that was having the ceiling lowered a few inches. During the removal I found the usual mess or wiring and blobs of tape. When I peeled the tape off what looked like a Marrette I was surprised to see said Marrette!

So a Marrette or as it known here in the UK a scru-it or wire nut is used for connecting two or more cables together or for terminating a cable. The idea is that once the insulation is stripped back  the wires are then twisted together. You can see the twisted cable in the photo after we removed the Marrette. Once the wire is twisted together the wire nut is screwed on to the exposed ends just like screwing a lid on a jar.

The problem is that these devices though used in their millions in the Americas and not used over here anymore. In all of the years I’ve been working I’ve never come across one in a residence until now. The one we found was ceramic and about the size of a sewing thimble. They were in use in the fifties but disappeared for reasons I have not been able to uncover as yet. Watch this space. As for this property it was rewired in the last ten years so these wire nuts were no longer in use then and the electrician probably had one in his bag which was easier to use than it was to go get a proper connector.

We removed all of the tape, the scru-it and the terminal blocks which were screwed down so tight the copper was flattened to the point of breaking. We mechanically crimped our connections and fit a choc-box. Job done. Correctly!

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DANGER OF THE WEEK AWARD

Bad ‘DIY Property Maintenance ‘

It’s getting on to the end of the year. No Really! If you don’t believe me take a walk through your town centre. Christmas sales and decorate remind us that the cold weather is coming. My interest in the seasonal change however is safety. The big burning ball of mostly hydrogen called the sun is around in shorter supply every day. Especially here in Oldham. Your heating systems and fires are starting to get turned onto supplement.  If you haven’t had your fire or boiler serviced recently here’s at least one good reason why you should.

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The first picture shows the fresh air supply vent for this homes back boiler.  The screen behind the vent is not allowed for the very reason shown here. It’s clogged up with paint, dust and debris. The second photo is what the vent should and now looks like.

I’ve not met many people who take the fresh air vent seriously. I had one client boast a few years ago that she plugged the vent in her property and then hung a radiator over it. She was not amused when I gave her a choice of re-establishing the vent or having her gas turned off. Incidentally she has not used us since. Better to bitter and alive then happy and dead though. I’ve been to many more homes the fresh air vent has been plugged up and plastered over during a renovation! Now this may not seem like a big deal. The vents do cause a nasty draft at times and it’s near impossible to be comfortable in a room where the vent points straight to outside especially in the minus 20 degree weather we had last year. Problem is this. If that vent is missing then your flue may not function properly and you may indeed die from carbon monoxide poisoning and them’s the facts, Jack!

The science of flues is simple. In order for a flue to work it must be able to remove the products of combustion which are the fumes from the fire. The fumes go up and out of the terminal at the top of the chimney. Simple enough. Hot air rises so in the most simplistic way this works without a fire too. Warm air from a room heated with nothing more than the sun will drag air up the flue and deposit it outside.  Problem is this. If there a vacuum in the room and I don’t mean a Hoover! If there is no way for fresh air to replace the air that’s going out through the flue then a couple of things are going to happen. Firstly the fire is going to light with the oxygen that’s already in the room. The fire is going to burn with the oxygen already in the room. As not enough fresh air (oxygen) can get in then the flow of air and the products of combustion will stall and start to back up down the flue and spill back into the room. Depending on how cold the air is outside this can happen even on a flue in good condition as well. Most gas fires and back boilers have safety devices to stop them from working if there is a lack of oxygen however it doesn’t stop you from breathing in the carbon monoxide in the meantime and if the devices aren’t sensitive enough you could die before the fire goes out.

So back to our fresh air vent. It’s there for a reason. Fresh air means fresh oxygen. In today’s homes the vents are even more important as older houses had drafty floor boards and windows as well as air bricks peppered around the perimeter. There was no shortage of fresh air (a.k.a. adiabatic air flow). As homes improved over the years things like laminate flooring and underlay can plug up all the air flow that used to come through the drafty floor. Double glazing now stops all air flow around the windows and sealed outside doors stop the flow there. Even conservatories can dramatically change the way a house breathes. With all of that air flow dampened down you create a sealed environment. Poison gas can’t escape and no fresh air gets in. It’s only a matter of time before that room is inhabitable.

So before the heating season really kicks off get your gas fire (back boiler, coal and wood fires follow the same rules!) serviced. Make sure that service includes a flue flow test (a smoke bomb up the flue to check for leaks throughout the property) and that the ventilation is good (no shrubs, bugs, paint or other substances) with nothing is blocking the fresh air vent. A Gas Safe Registered engineer will know what to look for in every circumstance so always trust them. DO NOT TRUST ANYONE ELSE!!!!

If your current service engineer can’t show you a valid ID card then he/she/it isn’t Gas Safe Registered. You might as well hire a BABOON! You’ll have about the same chance of getting it done safely and correctly. Here’s a short video on what the ID card MUST look like.

More question?  Gas Safe Register Website – Click Here or ring them on 0800 408 5500

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DANGER OF THE WEEK AWARD

Bad Plumbers

The delivery driver who was also going to hook up the new washer and take away the old had to abandon his idea. He was unable to locate the washing machine valves in order to turn off the water.  It was the old hidden hose trick!

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So we were called in and tasked with carefully removing sections of the carcass backing until we located the hose connections. We did get the water turned off and the old hoses removed. Once the old washer was out of the way the new one was installed quickly, tested and we departed.

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DANGER OF THE WEEK AWARD

Bad Builders

Firstly, my apologies for not posting last weeks award  until today. It seems that I didn’t press the Publish button last week.

This particular property has been winning awards for poor workmanship for over a year. We keep getting called back in for one problem, get it sorted, and then several months later get called in for something else. This week was another  issue with the central heating system and another wet patch showing up on the ceiling. There may also be a hive of bees in the flat roof too!

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So I think it’s finally time to name the new build terraced property in question. The property is located on River Street in Manchester City Centre. We have documented via hundreds of photos the poor workmanship, shoddy design and damages caused by the aforementioned issues.

When we arrived we were also asked to look at a section of downstairs flooring which is lifting up and causing the door to scrape along the floor. There is a dark discolouration around the same lifting boards denoting yet another leak from somewhere. That somewhere has yet to be located but we have started the hunt

We also had to look at another wet patch in the lounge on the next floor up. It was a patch from the original issue we sorted last year but has appeared again after decorating. This patch might be coming from the bathroom above and we are slipping cameras into the walls to try and locate the problem.

The entire property is built from stressed concrete and then has steel stud work is hung throughout the property. The mechanicals are all put in and then the walls are sealed up. There is no map of where anything runs and from what we’ve seen there is no consistency in the quality work that was done. Different manufacturers fittings are used in different areas of the property. Before we departed this week we opened up a downstairs crawl space hatch to find that the builders were kind enough to leave there building rubbish in when they were finished. Nice!!

Previous articles about this property:  or

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DANGER OF THE WEEK AWARD

Bad Electricians

Another week and yet another electrical issue located during a Periodic Inspection.  This is the kind of issue we see on  regular basis. When we removed the oven to test the cooker circuit we found two connections to a single spur which under certain circumstances would be correct. Under this circumstance however all is not good, correct or safe.

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These photos highlight the issue of two appliances with different current requirements hooked up incorrectly. What is correct is that the electric hob is wired with a 6mmT&E cable to the cooker connection point. That’s it! Note the LARGE hole that has been cut into the connection cover and that the earth had not been properly sleeved!

The built under oven is a fan assist unit and requires a hookup to a 13amp supply. This is where problems really begin with this installation. The circuit breaker is rated at 32amp which is correct for the hob but not correct for the cooker. The cooker requirement is 13 amp and therefore that is what it should be.  Why the big deal over this?

The big deal is that if a short circuit does happen within the cooker the fuse is double the amperage it should be. So when the fuse should go BANG it doesn’t! That in turn causes metal to vapourise, plastic to burn and the very good possibility that the live side of the circuit could energise the cooker housing. Not good for your heart or your house and in this case it’s a rental property.  As I’ve said before “you wouldn’t want to injure a tenant would you?”

The solution here was to remove the oven from the cooker circuit and plug it in via a 13amp plug instead. The connection cover was easy enough to replace and of course we also placed an earth shield over the exposed earth cable. We tested the circuit and with everything looking safe we put it all back together.

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DANGER OF THE WEEK AWARD

Bad Landlord Planning

We’ve already  highlighted  Landlord Licensing Schemes on several occasions. Our aim in those articles was to highlight other contractors unsafe or poor working practices. An interesting pattern has emerged as we undertake more of these checks on our landlord’s behalf. The pattern is that we are always the last people called in. The assumption by the property owner seems to be that because everything appears to work there should be no issue. That is the wrong assumption and it could end up costing you cold hard cash!

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In many cases such as the one highlighted in the photos above we are being called in after the property has been painted, decorated and carpeted. In the case of this property a quick visual inspection provided the information we needed to declare that nothing would pass! The electrics were so poor that not only would the consumer units require replacing but almost every switch and socket were  damaged in various ways. It got a lot worse once we got the meter out. It turned out that the circuit labeled ring main wasn’t, the kitchen sockets ere all was being run from only the cooker circuit and some other electrical work that was completed by the decorator was also incorrect due to bad workmanship and assumptions on his part.

The only solution was to install two new consumer units. One for the overnight storage heaters on an Economy 7 tariff and another consumer unit for everything else. We also had to run a new ring to the kitchen as the exiting sockets were all connected to the cooker spur which was not safe in SO many ways. Unfortunately the decorator had also just fit new work surfaces and tiled the walls before we were called in. He had also added an electric space heater which was not safe for use in the kitchen but was also wired into the kitchen wiring which we found to be incorrectly wired. There were some other smaller issues which also required cutting channels into the wallpaper, tile and plaster. The decorator had to come back after we finished our work and fix up the damage…again.

The moral of the story is to call in the builders, electrical, plumbing and heating engineers before anybody else! In most cases the mechanical issues involve at the very least pulling up a few floor boards and many times the addition or removal of cables embedded in the walls.

Please remember that a PIR is just that. It’s an inspection. It highlights issues with the electrical systems in the property and that’s all.  It is not an automatic pass for the property. In the case of Salford Council it won’t go away nor should it. If the inspection highlights safety issues that require sorting out then those issues will need to be sorted out. You wouldn’t want to injure a tenant would you?

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DANGER OF THE WEEK AWARD

Bad ‘Tiler’

This weeks winner highlights an issue that we see over and over and over again. Bad tiling. Like many other poor finishing work a bad tile job can look good for a period of time then come back to haunt anywhere from a few days to a few months after the job is finished.

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We were removing the existing tiles so we could fit a new bathroom and then tile the entire room. As can be seen in the pictures aboove the tile adhesive did not stick to the tiles.  It was just the grout holding everything in place. Once moisture from the shower started to get in hehind the cracked grout the tiles started lifting in spots. That in turn caused grout to further crack which in turn allowed more moisture in behind the tiles which in turn caused more damage.

The cause for this type of issue varies. We’ve seen situations where too much adhesive is applied to the wall. This can be especially bad if the weather is warm. The first tiles to be applied will usually stick but as the later tiles are applied the adhesive may have already gone off enough to not bond properly. The solution to this is to apply no more adhesive than can be used in a short space of time. This issue is also more prevalent with premixed adhesives versus powder based adhesives. Pre-mixed adhesive dry out a lot faster.

Another big issue is that many times the back of the tiles are not covered in adhesive commonly refered to as buttered. The issue of buttering is important as many tiles are slightly concave on the back. Without buttering the tile the wall adhesive may not catch the entire tile leaving a poor bond or as the pictures above show, no bond at all. Buttering is also important when using large format tiles and most especially with floor tiling.

Tiling is an art but there is a science to it too. If done correctly it can last thousands of years as seen in many Roman ruins. If done incorrectly it can last as little as a few days. We’ve seen tiles come up within a week of being applied because they were done incorrectly.

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