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Belfin

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  1. @BankFodder Thank you for the further advice, and I will certainly keep this thread updated as it progresses, especially to help others who may have the same problem in the future! @stu007 Yes, that's them and thanks for your help. Completely off topic, but good to see a fellow tankie on here. I see you were 4th; I was JLR, 3rd and then 2nd. Stay well and Fear Naught! Thanks chaps.
  2. Hi BankFodder, thanks for the reply. The firm was T B Plastering & Decorating in Callington, Cornwall. They have a facebook page which I can't link. We have already sought the advice of a second plasterer. He has seen the work, confirmed its way out of any NHBC tolerance and well below the standard of any professional plasterer. We are currently awaiting his quote to remedy the awful quality work, but he has said it will definitely involve ripping out and re-boarding two entire window reveals, moving two door frames outwards, possibly new fire-rated cement boards in the fireplace if I cant chip off the non-compliant rubbish which was put on there, and knocking off several blown corners and bodged internal corners. He also confirmed that the whole lot was plastered in one thick coat, rather than two thin skims as normal. This means that as it continues to dry, more cracks will appear as the outer face dries faster than the inner face. Indeed, cracks are still appearing one week on. When I confronted the original plasterer, I gave him several opportunities to get the work sorted, but he just stood there looking shocked saying "What do you want me to do?" When I replied "I'm not a plasterer, what do you think you can you do?", he just repeated over and over "It's within tolerance, what do you want me to do?" It was clearly going nowhere, so at that point I invited him and his labourer to leave.
  3. I work full time and most of my days off over the past couple of years have been spent ripping out old fibreboard ceilings, replacing them with plasterboard and a full remodelling of the wall layout to the ground floor of our house (I am a former qualified carpenter and joiner). The work has also included battening and boarding existing walls to straighten everything up. Up until Sunday 18th February 2024 we had plaster boarded walls and ceilings which were plumb, level and straight. Many photos of this were taken throughout the build to document the work before the plastering started. The following day, Monday 19th February 2024 a locally recommended crew of plasterers came in, and in two days they have destroyed the lot. 1. They have plastered right down to the floor, leaving bell casts at the base of every wall making it impossible for me to fit skirting boards. 2. Every internal corner curves into itself, is 'wavy', and is no longer vertical. 3. There is not a single flat wall. All are concave, convex, and full of lumps, holes and scrapes. 4. They plastered inside the double-sided chimney (over my cement board) with what they claimed to be a fire-resistant plaster but turned out to be rated to withstand only 49 degrees (!) It also bubbled and cracked on the same day it was applied. 5. The external corners going into door linings are not square. Window reveals are not vertical and differ massively in thickness. 6. They plastered up to and around sockets, rather than removing them. All sockets are now bowed out from the walls. I had to take the morning off work to confront them about the appalling quality of work when they turned up on day three. I went around with a square, level and straight edge and I explained that they have not reasonably given me anything to work with. A bit of filling and sanding is understandable, but it is all so far out of tolerance that to attempt a better skim over the top would throw the walls out even more. For example, the NHBC tolerance for internal corners is stated as +/- 10mm over 500mm. When I eventually found a bit of a corner not full of snots and curves I measured 15mm at best. I politely asked them to leave and not return. After minimal protestation, and offering no solution to rectify the work, they collected their tools and left (leaving all their rubbish). I am absolutely devastated and angry at all the time and effort lost and the money I’d thrown into it all. A couple of days ago a second plasterer came to our house to look at look at the awful state of the work with which we’ve been left. He too was horrified and confirmed that the tolerances were far from an acceptable standard and that the original plasterers had cut corners by applying one thick skim, rather than two. He has offered some ideas of how the work may be rectified, but it is going to mean I must now rip out several window reveals and reboard them, move door frames and chip out and scrape many of the internal corners to accommodate a second skim. In the last couple of days, the beading on several external corners has blown away from the walls too, leaving large vertical cracks everywhere. We have photographically documented everything, before and after. Unbelievably, today we had a bill sent from the original 'plasterer' for this nightmare. £880.00 for labour £285.44 for materials Any ideas where to go from here?
  4. Hi BankFodder, South West Water is not deemed a 'public authority' under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and therefore, not subject to the obligations under it. Cheers
  5. Hi, We built an extension about 15 years ago, and part of the build required s to move the sewage pipework a few meters into the garden so that it wasn't running under the new building work. This meant that we lost the 'fall' of the pipes, so we had to install a sump pump to take away the waste water from our house and the one house nextdoor at the end of our road. This sump pump then connects to the main sewer, and the work was completed in agreement with the local water company, South West Water. Over the last couple of years South West Water have been trying to 'adopt' our sump pump, thus assuming ownership and maintenance. We have refused them this, as the system cost us several thousands of pounds to buy and install and we aren't prepared to have them just take it from us. When we mention they purchase the system from us, we don't hear from them again for several months. On one occasion I came home to find two South West Water workers wandering around our garden looking for the pump control box. However, that is installed inside a cupboard in our utility room in the house, I denied them access and told them to leave. We have now received a letter from a subcontracted company who are under the impression they will be fitting a Sewer Level Monitoring (SLM) device into the manhole we built of the sump pump that we own. Does anyone know where we stand on this whole sewer adoption thing, can we keep demanding compensation for our costs? It sounds like theft to me!
  6. @BankFodder Righto, I'll ask about and see if someone can take a look at it.
  7. @BankFodderI live in the middle of nowhere in Cornwall, so nowhere to get the phone independently looked at for miles. May have to go straight back to Vodaphone and basically tell them that they have caused damage to the phone (?). My son is very interested in getting this phone fixed - he has taken such good care of it. @dx100uk You may be right. It looks like they have caused the 'excessive pressure' themselves while opening the phone up, scratched or cracked the screen, then tried to blame my son. I have since noticed there also seems to be a series of scuff marks on the the phone body between the two side buttons and directly opposite the screen damage. Maybe more evidence of prying the thing open...
  8. I'm getting the sense you may be right! Finally opened the phone. It's packed in exactly the same type of box we sent it off in, except this time there is all sorts of fluff and 'bits' trapped beneath the clear cellophane and the phone's screen which holds it in place inside the box (photo taken in situ). On removal from the packaging there are fingerprints on the back, so it has been 'looked at'. I had wiped it clear prior to packing to emphasis it's 'immaculate and undamaged' condition. Unfortunately, two small but obvious scratches or cracks have now miraculously appeared near the edge of the screen. These weren't declared when I sent it off because funnily enough, they weren't there!
  9. @dx100uk Good morning. The phone refused to turn on - a completely blank screen and a brief 'vibrate', then nothing. It was also left on charge for a while to be sure it was not the battery. @BankFodderGood morning. To be fair, how could a customer reasonably predict a problem in this case when help was initially being offered? When crossing the road, you know there is always potential for a problem! Where do we draw the line when we start suspecting, doubting and taking photos of literally everything...
  10. I shall get the box opened and report back tomorrow! I had no idea about the excessive pressure excuse - cheers.
  11. I don't think there is anything about accidental damage, Vodaphone likes people to pay extra for the insurance. Unfortunately, I didn't take any photos before it was sent off, but then I wouldn't have thought it necessary as they said it was going back under the valid warranty. I didn't really foresee any problems. I do know that the phone was in immaculate 'as-new' condition when I posted it off in the packaging they supplied.
  12. The contract began in August 2020. Vodaphone confirmed that it was within warranty, and I saved the full conversation I had with them.
  13. My 15-year-old son's phone stopped working a few weeks ago. He has always taken really good care of it, kept it in a case, and it was not dropped, scratched, or damaged in any way - it just stopped working. We contacted Vodaphone via the online chat service on their website to explain the problem, gave the IMEI number and were told it was within the warranty. We were then sent a shipping packet to post it into their repairs department. This consisted of a box which we had to build ourselves, and a plastic bag to put it all in. A few days after receiving the phone in for repair, Vodaphone contacted us to say that (despite good care and no damage) the phone had received 'excessive pressure' on the screen, and they would not be repairing it after all. We were also told that a repair would cost around £100. We asked Vodaphone to keep hold of the phone while we discussed our options with them. However, the following day we had a message from them to say it was already on the way back to us – unrepaired. Now our son is left with his sim card is an old, borrowed phone, while his ‘pride and joy’ sits broken and useless in a cardboard box (he’s too upset to open the box to see what they’ve done to it). We’re still paying the contract, but it appears the ‘mighty Vodaphone has spoken’, and will not accept that the alleged ‘excessive pressure’ could be a genuine fault, or occurred in transit in addition to the original fault, etc, etc. Does anyone have any advice on maybe getting this solved?
  14. Thanks Dx. I only asked for further help because you offered it in the post above mine. These people are still writing to me. I'm still ignoring them, as per advice above, but I am twitching a bit! Thanks again.
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