Badly laid patio - Problems with contractor

[countrywoman]

Last Autumn I posted some details about what I thought had been a badly laid patio of Indian limestone. (I cannot find the original post.) Several members responded and one, very kindly, came out to see it and posted some photographs.

As an update, we eventually got a Structural Engineer's report as the contractor argued that he had laid a perfect patio and that there was no-one who could do it better. Anyway, the report stated that the patio had not been laid according to the specification and was sub-standard with trip hazards. There was no fall on the patio and they had not been laid on a sub-base or on a mortar bed.

The contractor argued against the report re-iterating that the patio was perfect and that he had never had a complaint in 15 years. (Checkatrade has him at 9.8 with lots of 10 scores.) We had not paid him but sent him £1000 for materials while we thrashed the matter out.

Eventually he agreed to come back, take the old patio up, re-excavate and lay again to spec.

He arrived on Monday morning, took the old patio up, (which was easy as it was laid on grit directly on chalk). The old cement/grit mix is piled on the patio area and the broken and unbroken slabs are stood up on end in the same area. He then left and has not come back. In conversation with my husband yesterday he says that he is so upset about taking up the patio that he is not coming back at all.

We are left with materials piled up on the garden and us walking over bare chalk to access the house. To say that I am not pleased would be an understatement!

When he was here I was polite and made tea for the two men. He also asked me how he was going to achieve the required levels. I once again said that the builder of our extension and retaining wall had worked out the levels so that the correct fall could be made on the subsequent patio. I double-checked this but by the time I had returned from an errand he had left, never to return.

The slabs were laid without a solid base and some were only supported by 1" of cement/grit around the edge. How can other customers be happy with the work when he does this? Eventually, I assume, the slabs would break with no support.

Checkatrade would not do anything about this last year because at that time we had not paid any money. My husband does not wish to give a bad report to checkatrade in case of reprisals and because it would change nothing but I feel that we have a duty to warn other customers.

The contractor has been rude, intractable and argumentative. He has also argued with me when I asked him to turn his radio down or off. I feel that in taking the patio up he has left us in a worse position than we were at the start. Half of our garden area is inaccessable because it is covered in muck and slabs.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

[Carberry]

Even if you left negative feedback with checkatrade they would just delete it. THey don't care about the clients of the tradesmen. The tradesmen are their clients, they pay for every lead they get so if they're not happy then they leave which is less money for checkatrade and the likes. It's a big con.

My advise is to contact trading standards / office of fair trading, get him kicked off site and get somebody else in to fix the problem.

[local patios and driveway]

Only a grand down, you need to walk away and not dwell on it anymore. It,ll age you with the worry. Keep the rest of your budget and find someone good to do the work. In general those websites are good in respects that people like to keep a good profile, i would leave ok feedback but lower score than anyone else, maybe a 6, dont slate too hard but enough to put people off without having it deleted.

[dig dug dan]

what a shame you have had to endure all this, and the fact he would not turn his radio down just makes it all the more suspicious he had a good feedback score.
Try to get a recommendation from a friend or neighbour for someone that can re-lay the patio correctly, and then take it from there.
I feel for you as its not a good situation

[lutonlagerlout]

not sticking up for this clown, but chalk is a fantastic sub base
free draining and not affected by frost
how big was the patio and what did he price i t at?
i know a lad on mybuilder who has got 45 positive feedback,IMHO he is a rubbish plumber but he goes in dirt cheap to keep busy
and half the people on my builder value cheap over quality
Not saying this about you CW but i wonder why this simple task has turned into a mare
LLL

[Mikey_C]

previous post here

[mickavalon]

Followed that link, and to be fair the Paving looked the best bit of the job, the rest was shocking, but hey ho, that's just my taste. The Risers were way to big in the first place, the inspection clid could have been re-done, and there seemed to be a lot of drainage areas left out around the patio, was he intending to make that into soak-aways. Was the area of Patio that was too high caused by a difference in DPM heights between the extension and the old House, I've seen that done before. Like somebody said, bad but not the worst I've seen, looks like a typical "General" Builders attempt.
P.S I'm not having a dig at any "Generals" on here:rock:

[London Stone Paving]

I remember that post. The general consensus at the time was like Mick said, that the paving wasn't too bad. Like LPAD says you are only £1000 down, I have known people who have been in much worse situations than that. Find another contractor and get the job finished and move on with your life. The time and effort it will take to get any money out of this guy will not be worth it and the stress it will cause you alone is not worth a grand

[countrywoman]

Thank you all for your comments.

I agree that the patio looked quite good on the surface. There were some errors, such as not using a pattern card so there were four-cornered joints, the riven faces were not laid to enable drainage and the large manhole cover in the centre had not been levelled so there was a significant dip on one side and a high point on the other.

Whilst I would agree that chalk is a very stable base the structural engineer (extremely well-qualified and senior) said that there can be a problem with frost-heave; which he has come across before. He recommended a membrane and then scalpings to overcome this and would not want to see anything built straight on the chalk. (The patio-man quoted for this but did not do it.)

The main problems with the patio were underneath. It was laid too high, although there was ample opportunity to lower the ground level and this caused it to be above the dpc on the house and to make the rise of the first step in the flight half that of the others; it was laid without a fall, it was laid on a mix of grit and cement, sometimes to a depth of 6" and not laid on a solid bed. I understand that sandstone should be laid on a solid bed and on a sand and cement mix - the grit mix came off the slabs very easily, which was lucky in as far as he hooked them all up and only broke a few. The slabs sounded hollow and some were already moving, which is no surprise considering that in most cases there was only a 1" border of muck around the edges. The slabs on the top of the steps were laid flush with the edges and on a thick bed of cement, the steps and wall were build with lime mortar.

The excavated areas are for flower beds, into which any rain can drain - or would if there was a fall on the patio. The structural engineer said that the edges of the patio should have been reinforced as the edges of the slabs were unsupported along the borders and we were unable to walk on them.

I am very annoyed that the man came back, having agreed to re-lay the whole patio, and took everything up and left the slabs propped up on edge (according to this site they should not be left like this as it is deemed dangerous), with heaps of the used grit and cement. He then said that he'd changed his mind and would not be re-doing the patio.

It is a fair point that we will not achieve anything from this man but I would like to be able to warn others of his attitude and lack of professionalism. Also his method of patio-laying falls within the cowboy range. To argue that he is the best there is (that includes all who are reading this) and then to come back and destroy the patio and leave us in a worse mess than before is just not on.

We are hoping to find someone who can re-do the patio but it will be difficult at such a late hour and anyone really good will be booked months in advance. Had patio-man said last year that he would not re-lay the patio we would have booked someone for this month.

By the way, the patio is just under 50m2 and we were quoted £4500 ex vat to do it. A fair price for a good job, I think.

[Tony McC]

Just a couple of comments:

1 - the SE is off his rocker if he honestly thinks "a membrane and scalpings" will resist frost heave. The big problem with far too many SEs is that they have buggerall experience when it comes to paving and groundworks but think their experience with walls and roofs entitles them to give forth their two penn'orth as some sort of expert. A classic case of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing. How the bloody hell does a thin sheet of polymer and a sprinkling of low-grade crushed rock prevent frost heave?

2 - If the contractor has returned to site, lifted materials and then left, he could be charged with trespass and theft. The suitability or otherwise of the pavement is immaterial. It is an offence to remove building materials from a site even if you haven't been paid for them. The oft-repeated threat from disaffected contractors that they will go back to the poperty and remove the paving for which they have not been paid is an empty one. Rightly or wrongly, it is classed as theft.

[lutonlagerlout]

can i just confirm that contrary to popular belief you dont get heave in chalk
before building control lost their minds they were happy for us to dig 300 mm in chalk and do a 150 concrete footing just to level it out really
£4500 for 50M is a more than fair price for a fantastic job
which you patently did not get


LLL

[countrywoman]

Interesting comments about chalk and frost heave.

The Strucutural Engineer we used is very, very well-qualified and does dispute resolution, listed buildings, petro-chem, bridges, large engineering projects as well as standard domestic buildings.

He recounted a story to me about frost heave which he encountered in chalk in his early days while working on the foundations for a bridge. Frost was lifting his datum pole out of the ground, as the site foreman had not driven it in deeply enough. Since then he has given frost heave effects a deal of respect. We had to make narrow, deep foundations in the chalk to counter this effect for our extension.

My understanding is that the membrane is so that the scalpings do not mix with the chalk and then there will be several inches of compacted scalpings before the bedding layer and this will help to prevent frost heave.

Not being someone who lays patios, or indeed anything, I am unable to comment but if one employs an expert one must give their opinion some credence. I will pass on the comments about frost heave and chalk to the Structural Engineer - BA(hons), BSc(hons), CEng, MICE, MIstructE. Before you say that qualifications do not mean that someone knows how to do a job, I am aware of this but I found the SE to be extremely knowledgeable when surveying the 450-year-old barn adjoining our property.

An obvious problem with not putting in a scalping layer would be that, should this SE come to do a survey, the work would fail the survey.

Once again, I thank you for your comments/support and helpful tips. We still do not know what do to about the contractor; I am concerned that he will continue to do sub-standard work for other people.

If I get a response from the SE about the frost heave I will post it for all to see.

bfn

[countrywoman]

I Googled "does chalk suffer frost heave" and found lots of articles and engineering books stating that it does. I was unable to copy any detail for this site.

[countrywoman]

Quote: "Croney and Jacobs also suggested that the permeability of soft chalk is sufficiently high to permit very serious frost heave..." (1965)

[Carberry]

Maybe an issue on bridges, skyscrapers, multistorey buildings etc but for a driveway and patio, in my experience, chalk is as good as they come for a sub base. At best the membrane and scalpings will do bugger all, at worst it will hold water and cause bigger problems with frost heave.