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Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2020 6:26 pm
by ian-rug
A customer has asked me to install a 7m long by 5m wide porcelain paving area level with the threshold. He has refused to have a channel drain along the threshold, even a slot type and has insisted that there is no cross fall and the longfall away from the building is at most 1inch so 1:270 gradient (the minimum typically being 1:90) draining into slot channels.
Firstly if i get a disclaimer am i in the clear legally.
Even with that disclaimer with such a small gradient it seems to me that in heavy rain the area may or will fill up faster than it drains at least to a extent.
Are my concerns valid?
Cheers
ian
Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2020 10:26 am
by Tony McC
Yes, your concerns are valid, and yes: your client is a buffoon, and yes: get a signed and dated disclaimer - it's only a matter of time before someone is in A&E being talked into getting all litigious by some ambulance-chasing parasitical lawyer.
You need a statement that your professional advice regarding suitable drainage provision and falls for the paving was rejected and that the client accepts full responsibility for the performance and safety of the paving, specifically exempting the installer of any and all responsibility or liability.
Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2020 5:02 pm
by ian-rug
Tony McC wrote:Yes, your concerns are valid, and yes: your client is a buffoon, and yes: get a signed and dated disclaimer - it's only a matter of time before someone is in A&E being talked into getting all litigious by some ambulance-chasing parasitical lawyer.
You need a statement that your professional advice regarding suitable drainage provision and falls for the paving was rejected and that the client accepts full responsibility for the performance and safety of the paving, specifically exempting the installer of any and all responsibility or liability.
Cheers Tony in all my years (and i started doing this on YTS in the 80's) i have never been asked to run so shallow
.
Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2020 10:21 pm
by lutonlagerlout
we had to do this for a client 2 years ago
I got a letter indemnifying us from him,but I insisted on a linear drain along the bifolds
no issues yet
LLL
Posted: Thu Jun 11, 2020 12:02 pm
by AmazingGarden
I had exactly the same issue last year. The client was happy to give me a disclaimer but in the end I walked away from the job. We know it is the wrong thing to do and if we all say no eventually people will get the message. If somebody is willing to install it even with a disclaimer it will continue. My client's justification was based on the fact that his builder mate had done it and his was ok.
I have another client at the moment that has just bought a Redrow house with a patio that is just below the top of the door sill. I bought the guideline for level thresholds. The guidelines were produced by most of the leading large building companies including Redrow. From what I can see all they do is install a door strip, a 200mm wide gravel strip ( in this case less than 40mm deep of gravel thrown down on rubble) and angle the patio away from the house. In this case the patio falls towards the house. When I asked the site manager if they guarantee it protects against damp he told me they don't and it is all at the house buyers risk.
So what do we stand with level thresholds? I think it is a nightmare waiting to happen.
Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2020 11:56 am
by Tony McC
Due to this silly obsession with bi-fold doors which can be flung open for two weeks of each year, the level threshold issue is one that will not go away, and while there are allegedly sound workarounds, far too many of these are bastardised to buggery and back by incompetent builders, landscapers, diyers and odd-job cowboys, and these unsound workarounds then get picked up by others, who assume the bodge is 'sound', and so the problems grow.
And of even greater concern to me is the 'extending' of a doorway threshold all the way along/around a conservatory or extension or even the whole property. Building Regs is too lax in this respect.
While a refusal to take on such works is noble and admirable, the problem is that, if you don't do it someone else will, and they'll probably make a monstrous bollix of it all. Do you intervene by accepting the job and build correctly, or do you walk away and let the property owner suffer at the hands of an incompetent?
The notion that were all the 'decent' installers to refuse to carry out this type of work the home-owning public would soon learn the error of their ways is a little optimistic, I reckon. The public will always find a way to get what they want, no matter how often they are told it's a bad idea - just look at all those bellends attending raves over the weekend! Reluctantly, all we can do is insist that we prefer to work correctly, and that when we are obliged to go against our experience and better judgement, we won't accept any responsibility.
The one action that *would* make a difference is for valuation surveyors to start picking-up on poor/invalid/incorrect installations and require either remedial works to put it right or have the seller reduce their asking price to cover the cost of such works....then watch the Great British Public (as we are legally obliged to call them) sit up and take notice!