Is this acceptable, or poor work?

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JeffT

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Hi folks,

Can I ask for a professional opinion or three, please?

Had walls & ceiling skimmed and coving replaced in one of our reception rooms. Found the guy from RatedPeople, had decent reviews and plenty of them.

Not happy with the look of it:
(1) There's a very thick bed of adhesive between the cove and the ceiling, 5~8mm, around the entire room (it's not gap fill/uneven ceiling, as it's the same depth all round); plasterer claimed this was "the only way to do it".
(2) He's also "had to" shave down the width of the coving on the way into some of the corners to make it meet properly. He's done that from about 6 inches out from the corner, which looks obvious and frankly a bit ugly.

With the previous coving in that room and still in place in the rest of the house, the front edge is almost flush to the ceiling (maybe a 1~2mm adhesive bed at the front edge) and has no nasty corners, they all fit neatly even where the walls aren't square.

A few photos attached. The forum has shrunk them, but hopefully the detail is still clear enough.

Before I tackle the bloke with "take it down and make good, or refund me; I'll have to pay someone to re-do this!", I thought I'd get a professional view: Is the plasterer right with his thick adhesive bed and that handling of the corners, or is this a sub-standard job?

Thanks v much!

Jeff
Adhesive.jpg Adhesive2.jpg Length view.jpg Corner1.jpg Corner2.jpg
 
i think that clueless is the word to explain this. looks like you found a chancer there!
it does not matter if the walls are out of square the cove must be in alignment. it shows the applicant on the box how to measure down 83mm put a pencil mark and ping a line around the room so that his cove all marries up together. i know this is the boys way and not the way that i fit cove, but when the applicant is clueless this method will give him a better quality job then the one that he has produced for you. when is he going to clean all that excess adhesive off the cove?
 
Hi Jeff.

What I believe hes tried to do is put a level line around the wall edge all the way around the room and if/ where hes lost the height on the ceiling hes taken it of the height of the coving in the internal etc.

With plain gyprock coving as this is personaly I offer 2 templates into the internal and external angles first and mark them where im happy that they fit and let the coving follow the ceiling/wall regardless of if level etc.

Inevitabley with both routes you can encounter problems due to iffy contours and some filling may be required.

I like to give people the benefit in general on these threads and try not to turn into a witch hunt as sometimes without seeing the problem the trade personhas encountered its quite easy to shoot from the hip etc.

Personaly I wouldn't have been happy to leave those internals like that and at the very least would have pulled you up and explained the problem and what I would be able to do though not A1 etc and let you decide at that point if to continue or not etc.

But to summarise I think hes tried to follow a pencil line off the wall aposed to working out from the orners outwards and follow the walls lines etc.

Zombie
 
Its easy for us to come on here and say its bad work. But your job is sh1t. Get money back get someone off here to fix it.
 
JeffT said:
Hi folks,

Can I ask for a professional opinion or three, please?

Had walls & ceiling skimmed and coving replaced in one of our reception rooms. Found the guy from RatedPeople, had decent reviews and plenty of them.

Not happy with the look of it:
(1) There's a very thick bed of adhesive between the cove and the ceiling, 5~8mm, around the entire room (it's not gap fill/uneven ceiling, as it's the same depth all round); plasterer claimed this was "the only way to do it".
(2) He's also "had to" shave down the width of the coving on the way into some of the corners to make it meet properly. He's done that from about 6 inches out from the corner, which looks obvious and frankly a bit ugly.

With the previous coving in that room and still in place in the rest of the house, the front edge is almost flush to the ceiling (maybe a 1~2mm adhesive bed at the front edge) and has no nasty corners, they all fit neatly even where the walls aren't square.

A few photos attached. The forum has shrunk them, but hopefully the detail is still clear enough.

Before I tackle the bloke with "take it down and make good, or refund me; I'll have to pay someone to re-do this!", I thought I'd get a professional view: Is the plasterer right with his thick adhesive bed and that handling of the corners, or is this a sub-standard job?

Thanks v much!

Jeff
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what's his name :RpS_sneaky: have you got the link in rated people :)

it's a monstrosity. i think you know that. you would have done a better job yourself.
 
Fibrehand7 said:
Get money back from that clown - good job it's not painted, so they needs coming down and fit up new ones by other professional clown plasterer.
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have you had a nervous beakdown or something ... :RpS_confused: or are you taking meth or pcp .... your posts are becoming increasingly erratic :huh:
 
One thing i've found with this forum is people aren't keen to put an arm round you and encourage better work or practices, never mind give you the benefit of doubt if they disagree so let me just give you a neutral opinion.

I've done some coving where it's really really hard to get a nice mitre joint and had to free hand some out of the cuts and fill/sand it.

This bloke seems to have hit it with a ******* hammer and threw the adhesive in from off the floor. Its genuinely awful unfortunately and i doubt anyone on here could show the bloke that did it how to make a nice job from a hard situation. Terrible that people do stuff like this because it taints everyones view of tradesmen.
 
I disagree with the beginning of your post. This forum has plenty of member who help and encourage. I've had loads of help since joining so I'm not sure what your getting at beefy?
 
Put your arm around a chancer and give him some advice and help , maybe he try harder next time
 
Well said arti mate , obviously still new with 73 posts so you may not of learnt anything from here yet. Your time will come though :RpS_thumbsup:
 
I can almost hear the bloke saying " **** it the decorator will get over that" piss poor I'd get my money back
 
As everyone is saying the work is of a poor standard, I doubt you will get much sense out of him when you talk to him maybe excuses. Just leave a bad review , and try and save someone else from his poor work.
 
Arti said:
I disagree with the beginning of your post. This forum has plenty of member who help and encourage. I've had loads of help since joining so I'm not sure what your getting at beefy?
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Sorry im a sarcastic sod by nature it was clearly lost in that one. Already pulled plenty of tips out of here in my measly 74 posts

Apologies to anyone offended by my posts past present n future
 
That's the problem with rated people, the customer gets three quotes and 9/10 they go with cheapest and things like this happen. I done a job for a woman who was using it and the spark she got of it would put first fixings into a room and get paid for it then next time he was in he took all the cable out room he just done and put it into next room, showed the customer the room he just done and took more cash. She still never learned and used the next two cheapest sparks off it with nothing but bother until she finally got someone decent.
 
TPF taught me to cove and think it was @TonyM that post taught me to scribe them in :)

Lots of ways to do things and from the pictures it looks terrible... but pictures are not seeing it in the flesh ... that being said it doesnt matter if we think its rough or bad if your not happy then I would call him and get him back to ask him how to make it the way you want it :)
 
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Thanks guys, a bit of entertainment as well as a very clear verdict.

The bloke's from Romford, or Havering someplace. I won't name him here unless he p*sses me off with how he handles this, but either way he will get a factual, clear review on RP in the hope that other people find it among the many. I don't think it allows pictures on reviews, but I might try to link to them.

He wasn't the cheapest (that one seemed like a total eejit!). His quote was to do it in 2 days, pro-rata about the same per day as the third guy, who wanted 3 days. Three days seemed a bit long to skim & cove a 4mx3.5m room, so I tried this bloke. Lots of - hundred or so - good reviews on RP. Makes you wonder! His plastering's ok, looks a tad thick in one of the corners but mostly fair enough.

Now I'll talk with him about some refunding / take-down and tidy up options, ready for someone else to do the coving nicely. I'm not leaving a review for him until I see how he responds; how someone handles problems is an important part of any review! Might send him a link to this thread, let him see the judgment of people he'd like to call his peers!

Thanks again!
 
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