Livid….

Tell you what, this keeps on coming up in one form or another so I’m going to give you my take on it.

Bacl in 1982 when hardly any 16 year old had a job. I did.
Ok. It might not have been the RAF engineering apprenticeship I wanted but at the end of the week I had enough money for 8 pints Friday and another 8 pints Saturday with enough left over for a Chinzano and a packet of johnnys, should the occasion present itself..

im not sure where folk get the idea from that you can only be one thing in a lifetime?

I’ve now been working 40 years. Say I do 2 or 3 years on the brush and change trades and do another 37 as a spark. (not that I did, I’m just saying) Does that mean I’m still a painter?

’Cus I’ve never heard some say to me, ‘Well I’d like to give you the job mate, but the other bloke applying has got 40 years and you’ve only got 37, so I’m sorry mate but I’ve gotta give the job to Kenny because he’s got more experience.’

Now I ain’t saying I could still earn a living on the brush, because these days I’m only slightly faster than the late Stephen Hawking, but the quality is still there, so that means I can do it it without paying good money to someone else and without being disappointed with the results when they crash it in because all they wana do is get in and get out.

Plumbing: If you’re a JIB Approved spark with an industrial background like wot I is, you’ll have probably done about a mile of steel threaded conduit in the course of a year, on year, on year and those bending skills (quiet at the back) are transferable into copper. Now all you gotta do is learn how to solder and if you apply yourself and keep on applying yourself, you’ll get better, but no *u** is going to hand it to you on a plate.
You can learn the terminology and look on YouTube and familiarise yourself with Part H of the building regs and if you ask questions on site, I find people are only to happy to tell you.

Likewise with plastering. You’re in the s**t with a project at home, you cant afford to pay someone, so you have a go yourself under a bay window. Because you’ve got no other options. It’s only slighty f****d up and you go into work on Monday morning. Eh mate, I did this and then this happened, why? Where did I go wrong? How can I stop such and such happening? So the following weekend you take on a small wall and repeat the process. Then you might find yourself under notice for redundancy and by this time the blokes on site let you trowel up a whole wall because you ain’t really interested in joining bits of copper together anymore. It’s a new skill you’re acquiring. It’s exciting. But at this point you must be very careful not to get an erection - that just wouldn’t do at all…
Then they invite you to put some float on. ‘Don’t fk about with it. That’s what the Derby’s for..!’

To my mind, if you’ve worked several decades in the construction industry without acquiring another skill, ok perhaps not to the point where you can earn a living out of it, but certainly to advanced DIYer level or beyond, then I gotta ask you, How did you manage to avoid this wealth of information thats out there?

You get sparks with gas safe as well, or F gas as well. The lad who I went to school with, whose dad i worked for crossed over into spraying cars and later plastering too.

I look back now and remember a job at a flat above a Rumbellows in Birmingham and one of his blokes spent an entire day patching up the walls either side of a flight of stairs, mixing up about 5 boxes of Polyfiller in the process. And I think WHY? FFS! Simply because there was no one on the firm with any crossover skills.

where does the notion come from that you can be one thing and one thing only?

It takes 4 years to do an apprenticeship and to be fair perhaps as long again to learn the actual job.
But 2 of those years will probably be labouring and going to the shop while you’re waiting for the lad to mature. So take that out, you got maybe 2 years learning and after another 2 you should have someone capable of being meaningfully productive. Say like in the case of like an adult trainee.

65-16 equals a working life of 49 years. And you really think that’s only long enough to learn the one trade?

I went to uni as a mature student. I dropped out of a BEng Measurment and control Engineering.
I did 2 years at spark night school in one and got JIB graded up after 30 months. That was 25 years ago.
Do you wana tell me I’m not a spark now?
Is 25 years long enough to learn a trade?
I can move at a decent pace, but I’ll never be the fastest.
ive seen the fastest, I’ve worked along side the fastest, but I personally don’t think they’re any better, they just know which corners to cut so the work is just a good enough quality.
Ive seen £2.5k worth of custom light fittings blow up because Mr Fast did it so fast that the neutral fell out, resulting in 400volts through em, they were ruined. (3 phase lighting track)
im too meticulous for that, but that does come at the expense of speed.

and thank you all for your replies, some are especially insightful.
Did it take you a long time to write that?
 
Tell you what, this keeps on coming up in one form or another so I’m going to give you my take on it.

Bacl in 1982 when hardly any 16 year old had a job. I did.
Ok. It might not have been the RAF engineering apprenticeship I wanted but at the end of the week I had enough money for 8 pints Friday and another 8 pints Saturday with enough left over for a Chinzano and a packet of johnnys, should the occasion present itself..

im not sure where folk get the idea from that you can only be one thing in a lifetime?

I’ve now been working 40 years. Say I do 2 or 3 years on the brush and change trades and do another 37 as a spark. (not that I did, I’m just saying) Does that mean I’m still a painter?

’Cus I’ve never heard some say to me, ‘Well I’d like to give you the job mate, but the other bloke applying has got 40 years and you’ve only got 37, so I’m sorry mate but I’ve gotta give the job to Kenny because he’s got more experience.’

Now I ain’t saying I could still earn a living on the brush, because these days I’m only slightly faster than the late Stephen Hawking, but the quality is still there, so that means I can do it it without paying good money to someone else and without being disappointed with the results when they crash it in because all they wana do is get in and get out.

Plumbing: If you’re a JIB Approved spark with an industrial background like wot I is, you’ll have probably done about a mile of steel threaded conduit in the course of a year, on year, on year and those bending skills (quiet at the back) are transferable into copper. Now all you gotta do is learn how to solder and if you apply yourself and keep on applying yourself, you’ll get better, but no *u** is going to hand it to you on a plate.
You can learn the terminology and look on YouTube and familiarise yourself with Part H of the building regs and if you ask questions on site, I find people are only to happy to tell you.

Likewise with plastering. You’re in the s**t with a project at home, you cant afford to pay someone, so you have a go yourself under a bay window. Because you’ve got no other options. It’s only slighty f****d up and you go into work on Monday morning. Eh mate, I did this and then this happened, why? Where did I go wrong? How can I stop such and such happening? So the following weekend you take on a small wall and repeat the process. Then you might find yourself under notice for redundancy and by this time the blokes on site let you trowel up a whole wall because you ain’t really interested in joining bits of copper together anymore. It’s a new skill you’re acquiring. It’s exciting. But at this point you must be very careful not to get an erection - that just wouldn’t do at all…
Then they invite you to put some float on. ‘Don’t fk about with it. That’s what the Derby’s for..!’

To my mind, if you’ve worked several decades in the construction industry without acquiring another skill, ok perhaps not to the point where you can earn a living out of it, but certainly to advanced DIYer level or beyond, then I gotta ask you, How did you manage to avoid this wealth of information thats out there?

You get sparks with gas safe as well, or F gas as well. The lad who I went to school with, whose dad i worked for crossed over into spraying cars and later plastering too.

I look back now and remember a job at a flat above a Rumbellows in Birmingham and one of his blokes spent an entire day patching up the walls either side of a flight of stairs, mixing up about 5 boxes of Polyfiller in the process. And I think WHY? FFS! Simply because there was no one on the firm with any crossover skills.

where does the notion come from that you can be one thing and one thing only?

It takes 4 years to do an apprenticeship and to be fair perhaps as long again to learn the actual job.
But 2 of those years will probably be labouring and going to the shop while you’re waiting for the lad to mature. So take that out, you got maybe 2 years learning and after another 2 you should have someone capable of being meaningfully productive. Say like in the case of like an adult trainee.

65-16 equals a working life of 49 years. And you really think that’s only long enough to learn the one trade?

I went to uni as a mature student. I dropped out of a BEng Measurment and control Engineering.
I did 2 years at spark night school in one and got JIB graded up after 30 months. That was 25 years ago.
Do you wana tell me I’m not a spark now?
Is 25 years long enough to learn a trade?
I can move at a decent pace, but I’ll never be the fastest.
ive seen the fastest, I’ve worked along side the fastest, but I personally don’t think they’re any better, they just know which corners to cut so the work is just a good enough quality.
Ive seen £2.5k worth of custom light fittings blow up because Mr Fast did it so fast that the neutral fell out, resulting in 400volts through em, they were ruined. (3 phase lighting track)
im too meticulous for that, but that does come at the expense of speed.

and thank you all for your replies, some are especially insightful.
@makeit smooths got compitition
 
Tell you what, this keeps on coming up in one form or another so I’m going to give you my take on it.

Bacl in 1982 when hardly any 16 year old had a job. I did.
Ok. It might not have been the RAF engineering apprenticeship I wanted but at the end of the week I had enough money for 8 pints Friday and another 8 pints Saturday with enough left over for a Chinzano and a packet of johnnys, should the occasion present itself..

im not sure where folk get the idea from that you can only be one thing in a lifetime?

I’ve now been working 40 years. Say I do 2 or 3 years on the brush and change trades and do another 37 as a spark. (not that I did, I’m just saying) Does that mean I’m still a painter?

’Cus I’ve never heard some say to me, ‘Well I’d like to give you the job mate, but the other bloke applying has got 40 years and you’ve only got 37, so I’m sorry mate but I’ve gotta give the job to Kenny because he’s got more experience.’

Now I ain’t saying I could still earn a living on the brush, because these days I’m only slightly faster than the late Stephen Hawking, but the quality is still there, so that means I can do it it without paying good money to someone else and without being disappointed with the results when they crash it in because all they wana do is get in and get out.

Plumbing: If you’re a JIB Approved spark with an industrial background like wot I is, you’ll have probably done about a mile of steel threaded conduit in the course of a year, on year, on year and those bending skills (quiet at the back) are transferable into copper. Now all you gotta do is learn how to solder and if you apply yourself and keep on applying yourself, you’ll get better, but no *u** is going to hand it to you on a plate.
You can learn the terminology and look on YouTube and familiarise yourself with Part H of the building regs and if you ask questions on site, I find people are only to happy to tell you.

Likewise with plastering. You’re in the s**t with a project at home, you cant afford to pay someone, so you have a go yourself under a bay window. Because you’ve got no other options. It’s only slighty f****d up and you go into work on Monday morning. Eh mate, I did this and then this happened, why? Where did I go wrong? How can I stop such and such happening? So the following weekend you take on a small wall and repeat the process. Then you might find yourself under notice for redundancy and by this time the blokes on site let you trowel up a whole wall because you ain’t really interested in joining bits of copper together anymore. It’s a new skill you’re acquiring. It’s exciting. But at this point you must be very careful not to get an erection - that just wouldn’t do at all…
Then they invite you to put some float on. ‘Don’t fk about with it. That’s what the Derby’s for..!’

To my mind, if you’ve worked several decades in the construction industry without acquiring another skill, ok perhaps not to the point where you can earn a living out of it, but certainly to advanced DIYer level or beyond, then I gotta ask you, How did you manage to avoid this wealth of information thats out there?

You get sparks with gas safe as well, or F gas as well. The lad who I went to school with, whose dad i worked for crossed over into spraying cars and later plastering too.

I look back now and remember a job at a flat above a Rumbellows in Birmingham and one of his blokes spent an entire day patching up the walls either side of a flight of stairs, mixing up about 5 boxes of Polyfiller in the process. And I think WHY? FFS! Simply because there was no one on the firm with any crossover skills.

where does the notion come from that you can be one thing and one thing only?

It takes 4 years to do an apprenticeship and to be fair perhaps as long again to learn the actual job.
But 2 of those years will probably be labouring and going to the shop while you’re waiting for the lad to mature. So take that out, you got maybe 2 years learning and after another 2 you should have someone capable of being meaningfully productive. Say like in the case of like an adult trainee.

65-16 equals a working life of 49 years. And you really think that’s only long enough to learn the one trade?

I went to uni as a mature student. I dropped out of a BEng Measurment and control Engineering.
I did 2 years at spark night school in one and got JIB graded up after 30 months. That was 25 years ago.
Do you wana tell me I’m not a spark now?
Is 25 years long enough to learn a trade?
I can move at a decent pace, but I’ll never be the fastest.
ive seen the fastest, I’ve worked along side the fastest, but I personally don’t think they’re any better, they just know which corners to cut so the work is just a good enough quality.
Ive seen £2.5k worth of custom light fittings blow up because Mr Fast did it so fast that the neutral fell out, resulting in 400volts through em, they were ruined. (3 phase lighting track)
im too meticulous for that, but that does come at the expense of speed.

and thank you all for your replies, some are especially insightful.
It’s got nothing to do with your vorsrprung derch tenqnuiqe ya know. Or those joggers who go round and round and round. PARKLIFE.
 
Tell you what, this keeps on coming up in one form or another so I’m going to give you my take on it.

Bacl in 1982 when hardly any 16 year old had a job. I did.
Ok. It might not have been the RAF engineering apprenticeship I wanted but at the end of the week I had enough money for 8 pints Friday and another 8 pints Saturday with enough left over for a Chinzano and a packet of johnnys, should the occasion present itself..

im not sure where folk get the idea from that you can only be one thing in a lifetime?

I’ve now been working 40 years. Say I do 2 or 3 years on the brush and change trades and do another 37 as a spark. (not that I did, I’m just saying) Does that mean I’m still a painter?

’Cus I’ve never heard some say to me, ‘Well I’d like to give you the job mate, but the other bloke applying has got 40 years and you’ve only got 37, so I’m sorry mate but I’ve gotta give the job to Kenny because he’s got more experience.’

Now I ain’t saying I could still earn a living on the brush, because these days I’m only slightly faster than the late Stephen Hawking, but the quality is still there, so that means I can do it it without paying good money to someone else and without being disappointed with the results when they crash it in because all they wana do is get in and get out.

Plumbing: If you’re a JIB Approved spark with an industrial background like wot I is, you’ll have probably done about a mile of steel threaded conduit in the course of a year, on year, on year and those bending skills (quiet at the back) are transferable into copper. Now all you gotta do is learn how to solder and if you apply yourself and keep on applying yourself, you’ll get better, but no *u** is going to hand it to you on a plate.
You can learn the terminology and look on YouTube and familiarise yourself with Part H of the building regs and if you ask questions on site, I find people are only to happy to tell you.

Likewise with plastering. You’re in the s**t with a project at home, you cant afford to pay someone, so you have a go yourself under a bay window. Because you’ve got no other options. It’s only slighty f****d up and you go into work on Monday morning. Eh mate, I did this and then this happened, why? Where did I go wrong? How can I stop such and such happening? So the following weekend you take on a small wall and repeat the process. Then you might find yourself under notice for redundancy and by this time the blokes on site let you trowel up a whole wall because you ain’t really interested in joining bits of copper together anymore. It’s a new skill you’re acquiring. It’s exciting. But at this point you must be very careful not to get an erection - that just wouldn’t do at all…
Then they invite you to put some float on. ‘Don’t fk about with it. That’s what the Derby’s for..!’

To my mind, if you’ve worked several decades in the construction industry without acquiring another skill, ok perhaps not to the point where you can earn a living out of it, but certainly to advanced DIYer level or beyond, then I gotta ask you, How did you manage to avoid this wealth of information thats out there?

You get sparks with gas safe as well, or F gas as well. The lad who I went to school with, whose dad i worked for crossed over into spraying cars and later plastering too.

I look back now and remember a job at a flat above a Rumbellows in Birmingham and one of his blokes spent an entire day patching up the walls either side of a flight of stairs, mixing up about 5 boxes of Polyfiller in the process. And I think WHY? FFS! Simply because there was no one on the firm with any crossover skills.

where does the notion come from that you can be one thing and one thing only?

It takes 4 years to do an apprenticeship and to be fair perhaps as long again to learn the actual job.
But 2 of those years will probably be labouring and going to the shop while you’re waiting for the lad to mature. So take that out, you got maybe 2 years learning and after another 2 you should have someone capable of being meaningfully productive. Say like in the case of like an adult trainee.

65-16 equals a working life of 49 years. And you really think that’s only long enough to learn the one trade?

I went to uni as a mature student. I dropped out of a BEng Measurment and control Engineering.
I did 2 years at spark night school in one and got JIB graded up after 30 months. That was 25 years ago.
Do you wana tell me I’m not a spark now?
Is 25 years long enough to learn a trade?
I can move at a decent pace, but I’ll never be the fastest.
ive seen the fastest, I’ve worked along side the fastest, but I personally don’t think they’re any better, they just know which corners to cut so the work is just a good enough quality.
Ive seen £2.5k worth of custom light fittings blow up because Mr Fast did it so fast that the neutral fell out, resulting in 400volts through em, they were ruined. (3 phase lighting track)
im too meticulous for that, but that does come at the expense of speed.

and thank you all for your replies, some are especially insightful.
Yes
 
It’s got nothing to do with your vorsrprung derch tenqnuiqe ya know. Or those joggers who go round and round and round. PARKLIFE.
Ah Hyde Park. Pissed as a fart on cider, sitting in a traditional deckchair at the Gaymers tent listening to Blur in concert.
Happy days.
 
997CA3B0-3A8B-4904-B671-97FE5E2F1912.jpeg
9AE7999E-EC2A-4E83-8253-9783003B7719.jpeg
F91F6185-0F53-497E-ADFE-196B7F0DFC67.jpeg
B181D394-A8D3-4E5A-BFD1-C95305CCFCEE.jpeg

Someone asked for photos.
you see the very white bit? Thats dry, I rolled it last night just to show em what was happening. The rest of it is just done. It’s grey because the paint is reactivating the PVA, I believe.

The bathroom is just where I worked the roller out. That’s getting tiled anyway.

My hate is cutting carpet or vinyl
 
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I got a few sentences in to that last message and decided to read the bible instead. Now I’ve finished with the lords words, I’m off to bed. Good night.
There’s some pictures a couple of posts above.

is that a bit more like The Daily Star for ya?
 
Well I've picked up quite a few skills as well so I'll give you my view - Training courses are there for a reason and if you ain't done it then No, you are not the full ticket, even after years of doing it.
On a lot of skills and trades, if you leave it for a long time you are no longer current, so No, you are not now a decorator or painter just very competent on part of what the current ones know.

- Plumbing is a lot more than bending a few bits of copper, I can do a lot of it but I am not a plumber and neither are you. Design and put in a heat pump solar heat recovery system? Do the calcs & compliance paper work - no you can't.
- I can paint and spray but I am not a painter or a decorator, I can and do lay bricks but I am not a brickie
- I've done all of a 3 day course on plastering, but I am not a plasterer, and no feck all about lots especially the "new" external render systems (back to painting - you'd have to ask about whether you can paint them and what with, a pro already knows)
Yes, you pick up a bit of the skills, learning from the web/asking questions but that does not make you that trade.
I absolutely despair of the number of DIYer's I get who have tried to put in their own woodstoves "but I've read the Regs and seen it on Youtube" and want to argue black is white.

I've got ONC, HNC and a BSC degree in construction, some brief hands-on training, years of site experience as a QS. None of that is really current now. I can slowly do almost anything manual, but I do not have the in-depth, current, technical knowledge to claim to be the equivalent of any of the trades on site, not even a labourer. Therefore I respect their skills and knowledge, and am grateful for any crumbs of knowledge they pass my way.

OK, Ok, rant over, breathe, go make tea, you're 66 now for fecks sake....then get back up that ladder...
 
Well I've picked up quite a few skills as well so I'll give you my view - Training courses are there for a reason and if you ain't done it then No, you are not the full ticket, even after years of doing it.
On a lot of skills and trades, if you leave it for a long time you are no longer current, so No, you are not now a decorator or painter just very competent on part of what the current ones know.

- Plumbing is a lot more than bending a few bits of copper, I can do a lot of it but I am not a plumber and neither are you. Design and put in a heat pump solar heat recovery system? Do the calcs & compliance paper work - no you can't.
- I can paint and spray but I am not a painter or a decorator, I can and do lay bricks but I am not a brickie
- I've done all of a 3 day course on plastering, but I am not a plasterer, and no feck all about lots especially the "new" external render systems (back to painting - you'd have to ask about whether you can paint them and what with, a pro already knows)
Yes, you pick up a bit of the skills, learning from the web/asking questions but that does not make you that trade.
I absolutely despair of the number of DIYer's I get who have tried to put in their own woodstoves "but I've read the Regs and seen it on Youtube" and want to argue black is white.

I've got ONC, HNC and a BSC degree in construction, some brief hands-on training, years of site experience as a QS. None of that is really current now. I can slowly do almost anything manual, but I do not have the in-depth, current, technical knowledge to claim to be the equivalent of any of the trades on site, not even a labourer. Therefore I respect their skills and knowledge, and am grateful for any crumbs of knowledge they pass my way.

OK, Ok, rant over, breathe, go make tea, you're 66 now for fecks sake....then get back up that ladder...
Got half way through
 
Well I've picked up quite a few skills as well so I'll give you my view - Training courses are there for a reason and if you ain't done it then No, you are not the full ticket, even after years of doing it.
On a lot of skills and trades, if you leave it for a long time you are no longer current, so No, you are not now a decorator or painter just very competent on part of what the current ones know.

- Plumbing is a lot more than bending a few bits of copper, I can do a lot of it but I am not a plumber and neither are you. Design and put in a heat pump solar heat recovery system? Do the calcs & compliance paper work - no you can't.
- I can paint and spray but I am not a painter or a decorator, I can and do lay bricks but I am not a brickie
- I've done all of a 3 day course on plastering, but I am not a plasterer, and no feck all about lots especially the "new" external render systems (back to painting - you'd have to ask about whether you can paint them and what with, a pro already knows)
Yes, you pick up a bit of the skills, learning from the web/asking questions but that does not make you that trade.
I absolutely despair of the number of DIYer's I get who have tried to put in their own woodstoves "but I've read the Regs and seen it on Youtube" and want to argue black is white.

I've got ONC, HNC and a BSC degree in construction, some brief hands-on training, years of site experience as a QS. None of that is really current now. I can slowly do almost anything manual, but I do not have the in-depth, current, technical knowledge to claim to be the equivalent of any of the trades on site, not even a labourer. Therefore I respect their skills and knowledge, and am grateful for any crumbs of knowledge they pass my way.

OK, Ok, rant over, breathe, go make tea, you're 66 now for fecks sake....then get back up that ladder...

I’d agree with most of that
I’ve never claimed to be anything other than an electrician
in fact istr like ending my current decorating skills as ‘marginally better than the late Steven Hawking’

But I did think it was worth getting over the point that I’d been around the construction trade for many decades and know what I’m looking at - relative to someone who hasn’t. In other words not totally clueless.

but my regard for the typical domestic builder is pretty poor.
the last job she had done at her last house ended up with a barrister tearing the builder a new one and getting £36k back out of £40k.

on this present job we’ve had dpm laid over the stone like you’ve fit a carpet.
4 inches of PIR board on top and then another dpm made up of seperate pieces and not coming up above the finished floor in other places. Foul drains with sections at 20:1 a 50mm pipe run at 5.5 metres.
foul drains jointed with washing up liquid. Stud walls out of plumb. A complete failure to understand the concept and implementation of a vapour barrier or cross ventilation. It’s a 9 inch wall construction and he said 2 inch insulation would be sufficien. I’ve take over since and there are now 5 inches including a PIR plasterboard. Window boards fixed with dab that just lifted straight off.

A 4 inch pipe with a drilled end cap and a 50mm pipe just shoved straight in and about to be buried under the pour until I spotted it and rectified it.

All of which were passed by Staffordshire building control.

I’ll put some photographs later, but Ive got to get on now.
I’ll take my ‘Jack of all trades’ work over the ‘proffesional builder’ any day.

there’s not much point in having tickets and qualifications if you’re going to build s**t!
it’s about more than that, you’ve got to actually walk the walk..
 
Clearly a crap job as you say. I doubt very much that this so-called builder has got any qualifications, just a lot of front. Either your sister is good at picking duds or the "builder" is calling in his cheap mates and has no respect for the client.
- probably the latter, who have possibly had to agree to an excessive back hander to the builder to get the job. - I've had several builders suggest that for a 10% backhander they'll make sure I get the job.
Without wishing to diss your sister - sometimes the client is a pain and/or is obsessed with paying the least for the most, which also lead to a crap job and loss of respect. Several on here have had that experience, myself included.
 
I’d agree with most of that
I’ve never claimed to be anything other than an electrician
in fact istr like ending my current decorating skills as ‘marginally better than the late Steven Hawking’

But I did think it was worth getting over the point that I’d been around the construction trade for many decades and know what I’m looking at - relative to someone who hasn’t. In other words not totally clueless.

but my regard for the typical domestic builder is pretty poor.
the last job she had done at her last house ended up with a barrister tearing the builder a new one and getting £36k back out of £40k.

on this present job we’ve had dpm laid over the stone like you’ve fit a carpet.
4 inches of PIR board on top and then another dpm made up of seperate pieces and not coming up above the finished floor in other places. Foul drains with sections at 20:1 a 50mm pipe run at 5.5 metres.
foul drains jointed with washing up liquid. Stud walls out of plumb. A complete failure to understand the concept and implementation of a vapour barrier or cross ventilation. It’s a 9 inch wall construction and he said 2 inch insulation would be sufficien. I’ve take over since and there are now 5 inches including a PIR plasterboard. Window boards fixed with dab that just lifted straight off.

A 4 inch pipe with a drilled end cap and a 50mm pipe just shoved straight in and about to be buried under the pour until I spotted it and rectified it.

All of which were passed by Staffordshire building control.

I’ll put some photographs later, but Ive got to get on now.
I’ll take my ‘Jack of all trades’ work over the ‘proffesional builder’ any day.

there’s not much point in having tickets and qualifications if you’re going to build s**t!
it’s about more than that, you’ve got to actually walk the walk..
I feed the pigeons, I sometimes feed the sparrows too, it give me an enormous sense of well being then I’m happy for the rest of the day,
 
That's one of those jobs where if you don't walk away with a grand it's not worth it.

Nice if you can get it I suppose.

Even if you factored in 300 to cover materials and overheads, that still leaves 700 in Labour for a lab and an improver.
 
Clearly a crap job as you say. I doubt very much that this so-called builder has got any qualifications, just a lot of front. Either your sister is good at picking duds or the "builder" is calling in his cheap mates and has no respect for the client.
- probably the latter, who have possibly had to agree to an excessive back hander to the builder to get the job. - I've had several builders suggest that for a 10% backhander they'll make sure I get the job.
Without wishing to diss your sister - sometimes the client is a pain and/or is obsessed with paying the least for the most, which also lead to a crap job and loss of respect. Several on here have had that experience, myself included.
See what you think of this then.

bit of a moot point doing a cavity wall for those 2 bits as far as I can see, - when the rest is solid 9 inch, tell you what I’m not going to say any more let’s see what you think?
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and the funny thing was, when they.poured that floor the just dumped the mix on a gravel drive and barrowed it in, didn’t even put a sheet down even though they had it, don’t know why they didn’t just put the chute in the building myself?
 
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