DANGER OF THE WEEK AWARD

Bad Bathroom Fitter

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When asked to plumb in a new tub, shower, basin and toilet we always expect to find something that doesn’t match between the old appliances and the new. Pipe work sometimes needs shifting left or right and waste pipes usually require some modifications to make them fit the new location of the tub and basin drains. In this house there were a few more surprises than expected and the problems started appearing as soon as floor boards were lifted.

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DANGER OF THE WEEK AWARD

Bad Kitchen Fitting

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We were asked to modify this kitchen extractor to extract to the outside instead of recirculating. The moisture content in the kitchen was causing condensation problems associated with three cold outside walls.  We new it was about to get messy when we couldn’t isolate the extractor power no matter what we unplugged or switched off! It doesn’t take a rocket engineer to put two and two together and guess that the kitchen fitter had ran the extractor straight from one of the two double sockets located nearby.

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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.

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DANGER OF THE WEEK AWARD

Bad Electrical

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Whilst undertaking a job elsewhere in this flat we came across this mess. The fan had obviously been replaced at some point in the past and perhaps the new one had a smaller case than the old one. The owners solution was to leave the wires exposed. If you look closely you can see a cut in the brown (live or line).  Althougth the earth usually isn’t required for a double insulated appliance it is customery to cut it off and tuck it tucked away within the unit where moisture cannot gain entry into the cable sheath. This particular bathroom is on an inside wall with no windows so moisture build up would be a concern to all wires that are exposed.

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Location: Oldham, Gtr. Manchester, Lancs

Date: Feb 2009

Description: Another kitchen and another set of problems to sort out. The job was to replace an electric double oven with same and swap a gas hob with a new gas hob. The owners also wanted to add an extractor unit at the same time. We found that the original housing that the cooker sat in was out of square and out of plumb so we had to remove the existing shelves which were pinned in place and adjust them to level. Also the electrical connections were incorrect and we sorted out those issues as well. continue

DANGER OF THE WEEK AWARD

Bad Gas Fitters

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…but half an oven is ridiculous!

When called to replace an oven and hob with a range cooker the last thing we expected to see was a hob mounted in a section of a work surface, un-fastened to the rest of the work surfaces nor to the wall and all of that was perched atop an old free standing cooker which had the top surface removed. The gas valves and mechanisms were still fully functional as well!

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Date: July 2008

Description: We were asked to remove a 4 ring hob and fan assist oven and replace it with a range style cooker. Also, due to lack of space the client wanted to have a counter top added where the tall fridges now stood. We also added a new extractor unit as the old one was faulty.

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