Is this acceptable, or poor work?

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Stevie Wonder would be happy to see it. What type of spoon did he scrape the excess adhesive off with?
 
Hi all,

I know I haven't posted much on here but this post does grind my gears.
I know people on rated people and another one called service magic, where I think you have to pay for each individual lead, to be frank the vast majority are chancers. But the one that really bothers me is checkatrade.
Iv recently plastered and coved 3 converted flats and the previous plasterers the customer used were off checkatrade. Since he has fooked the pair of them off site, there previous checkatrade accounts which were all scored 10s have disappeared and they have new ones with less reviews but all 10s again. Is this right or is it ok as checkatrade are getting more registration money each time they set back up!

Does my swede in personally.
Anyway, happy new year all.
 
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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sorry to say but its not acceptable, he doesnt seem to have any experiance in setting out or fixing cove
 
Gawjus said:
Hi all,

I know I haven't posted much on here but this post does grind my gears.
I know people on rated people and another one called service magic, where I think you have to pay for each individual lead, to be frank the vast majority are chancers. But the one that really bothers me is checkatrade.
Iv recently plastered and coved 3 converted flats and the previous plasterers the customer used were off checkatrade. Since he has fooked the pair of them off site, there previous checkatrade accounts which were all scored 10s have disappeared and they have new ones with less reviews but all 10s again. Is this right or is it ok as checkatrade are getting more registration money each time they set back up!

Does my swede in personally.
Anyway, happy new year all.
Click to expand...

Rated people just as bad. If op leaves a bad rating the plasterer can pay rated people £80 to remove it.
 
I think this guy was the same one I recently see, he turnt up with his guide dog and started swinging the poor fooker around by his lead... When I said Oi what you doing? He replied just having a look around.
 
JeffT said:
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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JeffT

With all due respect 3 days to do a professional job of skimming a room and to cove of this size is acceptable. I for 1 would never of committed to completing in 2 days with all the prep and awkwardness involved in overskims and domestic work.

Ive been impressed with your comments up until that. With all due respect your not the tradesman and il tell you for nothing anyone rushing a job will not take the same pride and attention to detail as someone whos being thorough.

Just going to Garage to tell them how long there going to take to fix my door!

Zombie
 
the use of decorators caulk to fill out is ok if the gap is small and cleaned of SQUARE not rounded, you'll never wallpaper up to bottom edge of the cornice now.

has he used easy fill on the ceiling hes just skimmed??

the mitre as said is terrible.

if he has tried to put the cornice up level then hes' failed to start at the lowest point and thats why its ended up like that,
he should have as said, measured down X amount in each cornice and pinged some lines.

where are you based?
 
Em, I'm use RP when I get a couple of slack days. I'm close to Romford (Ilford) and recently priced a job in..... :RpS_w00t:
 
Checkatrade etc are businesses to them the tradesmen are their customers as long as they sell leads or their services I don't think they are that arsed about the standards of the work carried out, personally if I needs a trade I'd go by friends reccomendations too many cowboys about these days. I'm not saying everyone on checkatrade etc are chancers but you gotta be careful
 
caulk also discolours overtime at a different rate to the paint if it goes in too thick... My painter told me that today after a pack of 10 P5 boards dropped off the hop up and cracked nigh on every ceiling downstairs the ither day... FFS
 
Hey, Zombie, I said "seemed a bit long". You're right, I don't know - and I didn't claim that I did... all I can go on is two people out of three saying two days vs one saying three days. Hazards of being the customer! Interesting to hear your view there, useful for the future. :-)

Good luck at the garage ;-)
 
i think you did that yourself jeff and youre trying t get a freebie off someone on here cos theres no way a plasterer did that lol
 
Well, here's the update... I emailed him a few choice remarks (the more polite ones!) from you folks, all anonymous, and reminded him that I'd already made clear I wasn't happy with the work. Told him I thought a partial refund was required. He agreed, offered a number that I felt was ok in proportion to the rate he charged, and the money landed at my bank today. At least he handled the complaint cleanly. Credit to him for that.

I started this evening to take down the coving ready to re-do. Cut a section out near one corner, which took a while... that adhesive is pretty tough, isn't it! Stuck my hand in and pulled... down comes 2m of coving with almost no resistance. Next bit the same, then round the corner a whole wall (3m+) comes away with one tug. Ten minutes later and all I had left was a load of caulk and stray adhesive to scrape off later. Loads of adhesive on the front edge of the coving, but naff all further back on the flat sections, by the looks of it. And that's the end of that, chalk it up to experience!

Interested what some people here have said about RatedPeople... I'll post my review and then maybe check back, see if it's still there in a few weeks and challenge them if it disappears. I hope it's not possible to "buy off" bad reviews, certainly would undermine the purpose of the site if it were.
 
Haha... no way! As someone further up the thread pointed out, if I'd done it myself it'd have been a better job ;-)
 
Oh, and as so many asked, I'll share (though the mod might delete this as it mentions money): it was just under £600 for 2 days work and materials. Plasterer + labourer both days. As a day rate, that's about the same as the other two who quoted.
 
JeffT said:
Well, here's the update... I emailed him a few choice remarks (the more polite ones!) from you folks, all anonymous, and reminded him that I'd already made clear I wasn't happy with the work. Told him I thought a partial refund was required. He agreed, offered a number that I felt was ok in proportion to the rate he charged, and the money landed at my bank today. At least he handled the complaint cleanly. Credit to him for that.

I started this evening to take down the coving ready to re-do. Cut a section out near one corner, which took a while... that adhesive is pretty tough, isn't it! Stuck my hand in and pulled... down comes 2m of coving with almost no resistance. Next bit the same, then round the corner a whole wall (3m+) comes away with one tug. Ten minutes later and all I had left was a load of caulk and stray adhesive to scrape off later. Loads of adhesive on the front edge of the coving, but naff all further back on the flat sections, by the looks of it. And that's the end of that, chalk it up to experience!

Interested what some people here have said about RatedPeople... I'll post my review and then maybe check back, see if it's still there in a few weeks and challenge them if it disappears. I hope it's not possible to "buy off" bad reviews, certainly would undermine the purpose of the site if it were.
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Nice one Jeff glad it worked out and thanks for coming back and updating us, the buying of bad reviews sounds odd I've done a search but can't find any thing that says the same. If you could come back and let is know your findings that would be good :)
 
Hmm. Posted an update but it's disappeared!

So, I emailed him a few views (no names mentioned) and told him I felt a partial refund was in order. And he agreed it wasn't up to scratch, proposed a refund amount and I accepted :-) Credit to the man for handling the complaint well, then.

This evening, I decided I'd pull the stuff down. Started but cutting a section out in one corner - tough stuff, this adhesive, innit! Stuck my hand behind the coving and pulled... 2m length came away without any difficulty. Next section, same. Round the corner, the whole length came off with one tug, 3m+ of coving. Looks like loads of adhesive on the front edge but naff all behind it and not much really in contact with the ceiling or the wall. Ten minutes to pull the lot down!

Now I just have to scrape off all the surplus adhesive, filler and bl**dy caulk!
 
mikeadams1985 said:
the use of decorators caulk to fill out is ok if the gap is small and cleaned of SQUARE not rounded, you'll never wallpaper up to bottom edge of the cornice now.

>> I will, now I've pulled the coving down!!

has he used easy fill on the ceiling hes just skimmed??
>> Yes, that's filler.

the mitre as said is terrible.

if he has tried to put the cornice up level then hes' failed to start at the lowest point and thats why its ended up like that,
he should have as said, measured down X amount in each cornice and pinged some lines.

where are you based?
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>> Essex/East London.


I see your comment about price, Mike... interesting, especially as you appear to be in a supposedly-cheaper part of the country. Might've been a low quote to get work in a quiet period, I guess (just after xmas) - as I said, was in proportion with others. How much would you expect for 2x2 days?
 
JeffT said:
Well, here's the update... I emailed him a few choice remarks (the more polite ones!) from you folks, all anonymous, and reminded him that I'd already made clear I wasn't happy with the work. Told him I thought a partial refund was required. He agreed, offered a number that I felt was ok in proportion to the rate he charged, and the money landed at my bank today. At least he handled the complaint cleanly. Credit to him for that.

I started this evening to take down the coving ready to re-do. Cut a section out near one corner, which took a while... that adhesive is pretty tough, isn't it! Stuck my hand in and pulled... down comes 2m of coving with almost no resistance. Next bit the same, then round the corner a whole wall (3m+) comes away with one tug. Ten minutes later and all I had left was a load of caulk and stray adhesive to scrape off later. Loads of adhesive on the front edge of the coving, but naff all further back on the flat sections, by the looks of it. And that's the end of that, chalk it up to experience!

Interested what some people here have said about RatedPeople... I'll post my review and then maybe check back, see if it's still there in a few weeks and challenge them if it disappears. I hope it's not possible to "buy off" bad reviews, certainly would undermine the purpose of the site if it were.
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glad its worked out and to be fair I reckon you could cove it :-) It is very easy :-)
 
Well 2 at 2 days is 4 days.
Materials say 100??
So 500 for labour between 4days is 125, .

Less travel costs ie van costs(petrol insurance etc) mine works out around £30 a day to run.
Public liability insurance ?
Other business running costs (rated people. Etc)
Your not taking much home are you?
So 125 less the 30 for van petrol etc.
95 less other costs.

Then your taxed.

So what. 65 quid day?
And all this for being self employed?? Haha
Wouldn't get out of bed for it. Get more on the dole
 
Well you could probably leave the £100 for fuel out of the equation when calculating how much he should of paid for his bedroom reskim.
 
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