OK for waste to run uphill a short distance?

[Ric2013]

But not all plaster contains cement, right? I think I spotted a purple bag on our front lawn this afternoon, so it was probably Thistle Bonding Coat and as far as I can see cement isn't mentioned on the fact sheet about this product.

Even if it were cement, I'm more concerned about the effect on you worrying about this than I am about the pipes.

 

[trf0412]

I like showers to be high up, personally, perhaps you changed your mind, I mean your plumber did . Still, easier to not use the entire chase than chase a bit more if the customer decides it needs to be higher, credit where credit is due.

We have a rain shower head, with a hand held shower on a riser bar, and the distance between the mixer bar and the rain head is fixed. With the lowered pipes the rain head will end approx 5cm below the ceiling (so nice and high), but the way the previous guy did it there was no way it was going to fit!

 

[trf0412]

Just in the middle of putting down hardwood ply, ready for Mon when plumbers are coming to fit bath and shower tray. The screws I'm using are almost twice as long as the ones used by first plumber! Anyway, can I just screw the boards down? Or do I need to glue as well?

 

[huddster]

Yeah, since coming on here a few days ago my plumbing skills have come on in leaps and bounds. Think I'm just about qualified now. Check out what I achieved today!

So, the top half of the cast iron soil pipe has been cut out and replaced with plastic. All the waste pipes have been re-run so that each appliance has its own waste direct to the soil pipe, and amazingly this time around with a fall (3rd time lucky!). The shower pipes now come out of the wall on copper elbows. They have also been set at a lower height which will allow the riser and shower head to not disappear into the loft!! I have absolutely no idea what I (sorry, Plumber No. 1) was thinking there! The hot and cold feeds for the towel radiator, bath, sink and toilet (i.e. everything else!) also had to be tweaked. The pipework going to the shower has also be rerun so that the shower waste doesn't push down on it. All pipes have also been clipped to the joists.

All in all, I think this is a much, much better job and it's now very clear just how terrible the 1st "plumber's" work was.

[For the avoidance of doubt, I'm just playing along with the cynicism (if you can't beat 'em, join 'em), but neither the previous work nor the remedial work were carried out by me.]

I would like to retract my previous comment and wish you all the best with your bathroom.

 

[ShaunCorbs]

Just in the middle of putting down hardwood ply, ready for Mon when plumbers are coming to fit bath and shower tray. The screws I'm using are almost twice as long as the ones used by first plumber! Anyway, can I just screw the boards down? Or do I need to glue as well?

Best to glue as well (stops squeaking) but if you haven't got any screws will do

 

[trf0412]

Squeaking would imply slight movement wouldn't it? And wouldn't that mean cracked tiles? In any case, there is only a single join in the whole room, so I'm not overly worried.

What am I more worried about, though, is that I took the advice of the guy at Jewsons and have laid the sheet of ply in the same direction as the joists and now everything I read says they should be perpendicular. However, the reason for him suggesting this is because the length of the bathroom is exactly the length of the sheet of ply, so by lying them in this direction I was able to rest the long edges of the ply directly on a joist and avoid having to put in noggins along the side. Is this going to be ok? Most of the joists are only 30cm apart, so provided ply isn't significantly stronger along its length, this should be fine, even if not optimal, right?

 

[ShaunCorbs]

depends where the joists land in relation to joints

 

[trf0412]

depends where the joists land in relation to joints

Room is approx. 2.44 x 2.20, with 7 joists running down the length of the room. The 5 joists in the centre are about 30cm apart, the two outer ones about 40cm.

So, the plan was to cut down two sheets of 2440 x 1220 ply along their length, to ensure they meet on the centre joist (leaving cut edges at sides of the room to ensure the uncut edges are the ones that meet on the joist).

Thought I'd see what the big fat Collins DIY Manual (that I'm sure most households have!) says about this and was interested to see that it says to lay square-edged boards parallel with joists, but most internet advice seems to suggest ply is significantly stronger along its length and that it *must* be laid perpendicular to joists. (But ply is made up of sheets laid in opposing directions, isn't it, so I really don't get why it would be so much stronger/stiffer one way over the other?).

 

[ShaunCorbs]

its so you dont have a join in mid air will always pick up a joist with a join

 

[trf0412]

So what's the people's verdict? Buy a new sheet and lay it in the "correct" orientation, or leave it as it is?

 

[ShaunCorbs]

So what's the people's verdict? Buy a new sheet and lay it in the "correct" orientation, or leave it as it is?

aslong as your joint is on a joist your fine

 

[trf0412]

I wouldn't have dreamed of not having joint on a joist, esp. since it's not T&G! No doubt our first 'plumber' would have found that acceptable though.

 

[oz-plumber]

Re: First Plumber.

What did you end up negotiating with him for payment?
You've found more issues with his work after you 'sacked' him.

 

[trf0412]

Re: First Plumber.

What did you end up negotiating with him for payment?
You've found more issues with his work after you 'sacked' him.

First plumber had broken down his quote into plumbing / hardware materials / plastering / tiling. We ended up using our own plasterer, and agreed the price for plastering directly with him. The element of the quote for hardware materials was paid as a deposit before the job started. No tiling had been started. So, when I sacked him, the only question was how much of the 'plumbing' element should be paid. He asked for around 55% of that figure. Had the job been done correctly, I suspect a 55/45 split between 1st fix and 2nd fix might have been about right.

At the time, I knew the wastes needed to be redone, and I wasn't happy about the holes in the joists (although there wasn't much I could do about them by that point), but I didn't appreciate the full extent of his incompetence, so I agreed to pay about 50% of the plumbing element, because he hadn't removed the rubble from ripping out the bathroom.

Now all the subsequent issues have come to light, however, (and see next post for yet another instalment!) I am looking into my options and will shortly be sending him a Letter Before Action asking for a full refund.

 

[trf0412]

Just taken up last piece of OSB to replace with plywood and discovered a couple of scorched Speedfit fittings! (See photos). I know how this happened, but hadn't realised the plastic pipes were affected. Basically, when plumber 1 was fiddling around trying to fit the bath waste, he knocked a copper pipe which then sprung a leak. He soldered the joint to stop the leak and in doing so burnt a small patch on the underside of the OSB (no big deal) but what wasn't visible before now is how the fittings also got burnt.

Can these be left as they are or should they be replaced?? The joints themselves appear to be fine and there's no evidence of any leaks, but still thought it best to check.

 

[trf0412]

And can anyone advise whether this bit of pipework going to our towel radiator is ok? The fat pipes (22mm?) are the cental heating flow and return pipes, so it makes sense to come off these, of course. But the thing that caught my untrained eye is the fact he's used a T piece as opposed to a straight piece, so there's a capped off little orphaned section of pipe which is completely unnecessary.

 

[ShaunCorbs]

Replaced

 

[ShaunCorbs]

And can anyone advise whether this bit of pipework going to our towel radiator is ok? The fat pipes (22mm?) are the cental heating flow and return pipes, so it makes sense to come off these, of course. But the thing that caught my untrained eye is the fact he's used a T piece as opposed to a straight piece, so there's a capped off little orphaned section of pipe which is completely unnecessary.

View attachment 31020

View attachment 31021

View attachment 31022

That's a mess best to re do it if you can

 

[Ric2013]

The scorched fittings:

The one on the right seems like a trace of smoke damage (never heard of a heat mat eh?) and is probably fine, but the one on the left looks like he's probably soldered right up close to it and probably overheated the internals via thermal conduction down the copper pipe.

The pipework for the towel radiator goes down before it goes up, so it shouldn't airlock, and it will probably work alright, but seems to be a mess of various branded fittings unsupported and installed under strain. I wouldn't entirely trust it.

I'm not expecially worried about that short bit of orphaned pipe.

 

[oz-plumber]

I felt sorry for you at one stage - then I took it back.
Now I feel genuinely sorry for you - teetering on 'morbidly sorry'

Those fittings he soldered, he didn't even disconnect the plastic fittings.

Anything melted / scorched - just replace.
Also the mix match of fittings - replace.

I would be sending the plumber some of the photo's you have put on here and asked for more than a refund.

I would threaten him with small claims for the full cost of the rectifications that are needed due to his standard of work.
This should include all the costs that you have incurred for the rectifications and anytime you have put in yourself.

This guy needs a wake up call!

 

[bacon_sandwich]

I also thought of plumbing as artwork and doff my cap to the proper plumbers who can create art. That is awful, as the consequences of any heat getting to the o ring just replace them and that abortion of pipework for towel rad, just get it done in copper , wont take long to knock that up, properly.

 

[trf0412]

The scorched fittings:

The one on the right seems like a trace of smoke damage (never heard of a heat mat eh?) and is probably fine, but the one on the left looks like he's probably soldered right up close to it and probably overheated the internals via thermal conduction down the copper pipe.

The pipework for the towel radiator goes down before it goes up, so it shouldn't airlock, and it will probably work alright, but seems to be a mess of various branded fittings unsupported and installed under strain. I wouldn't entirely trust it.

I'm not expecially worried about that short bit of orphaned pipe.

Thanks for this advice. The new plumber (who rectified all of the mess created by the first plumber last Friday) came back on Monday to fit the shower tray and bath prior to tiling. I was supposed to have put down new plywood flooring at the weekend, but I left the 2nd piece loose so I could show him the scorched fittings and strange radiator pipework. He agreed that it would be better to change them, but after screwing down the last bit of flooring and leaving plumber to fit the bath, I saw from below that he'd only changed one of the scorched fittings. I think from the angle he was sitting it wasn't possible to see how scorched the second fitting was, so he probably only saw a bit of smoke damage. Anyway, he changed the worse one and the one most likely to have suffered internal damage through heat conduction down the pipe (good point you made about this, as it hadn't even occurred to me), so I guess everything should be fine.

He also removed the strange T-piece on the rad pipes, but didn't redo the whole thing.

Re. the mix of fittings, that's because the plumbers who did the radiators used Hep2O and our first 'plumber' used Speedfit, so I don't think it was one guy mixing them. Or is it best practice to carry on using the same fittings that are already there?

See attached photos.

 

[trf0412]

I felt sorry for you at one stage - then I took it back.
Now I feel genuinely sorry for you - teetering on 'morbidly sorry'

Those fittings he soldered, he didn't even disconnect the plastic fittings.

Anything melted / scorched - just replace.
Also the mix match of fittings - replace.

I would be sending the plumber some of the photo's you have put on here and asked for more than a refund.

I would threaten him with small claims for the full cost of the rectifications that are needed due to his standard of work.
This should include all the costs that you have incurred for the rectifications and anytime you have put in yourself.

This guy needs a wake up call!

Yes, I need to sit down and work out a plan of action. However, even if I were to go to the small claims court and win my case, is there a guarantee I'll get my money back? I was just chatting to a tiler (who we had round to do our kitchen) about our bathroom saga and he said he once took a builder to court for not paying £2k, won his case, the guy got a CCJ against his name, but never paid...

 

[trf0412]

Quick update – bathroom was finished last week, so you probably won't see me lurking around here from now on. Does that mean I'll lose my "Top Contributor" badge or do I get to keep that?

For those who saw my other thread, the toilet ended up being fitted with about a 1-2cm gap between the cistern and the tiled wall. Surprisingly, this looks absolutely fine and I wonder if Duravit designed it to be like this due to the lack of fixing holes in the cistern. I've also since seen quite a few photos online of toilets fitted like this (up close to, but not touching, the wall). There was discussion of fixing something inside the cistern and then attaching it to the wall, to sort of pull the cistern back a bit, but the plumbers felt it would have put too much strain on the bolts connecting the cistern to the pan, so had to be dropped. NB. The cistern couldn't simply be pushed right up to the wall, and fixed with silicone, as the back of the pan protrudes about 2cm beyond the back of the cistern!

Re. plumber 1, I emailed him and explained I was very unhappy with his work and asked for a full refund. He wrote back asking for evidence of all the things I'd highlighted which of course I was able to produce very readily. After a few emails back and forth, with him arguing he hadn't done anything wrong, he relented and gave me a full refund! Although this whole thing ended up costing me about £2k more than anticipated as a result of his work (not to mention a huge amount of stress and time), a refund of £1250 reduced my losses to £750 approx, which is a bit easier to live with. And I think to get compensation for the additional losses would have meant going through the small claims court.