The worst bodge

[LadyArowana]

........, I'll-do-it-properly-come-summer, a-blind-man-on-a-fast-horse-would-never-notice type of jobs?

Or is it just me?

Looks like it's just you

[Keith Bowman]

........, I'll-do-it-properly-come-summer, a-blind-man-on-a-fast-horse-would-never-notice type of jobs?

Or is it just me?

Looks like it's just you

Oh no it isn't

[LadyArowana]

........, I'll-do-it-properly-come-summer, a-blind-man-on-a-fast-horse-would-never-notice type of jobs?

Or is it just me?

Looks like it's just you

Oh no it isn't

Uh ohh, time for confession and absolution I think. Very appropriate for a Sunday.

[robgil]

My whole house is a bodge , I am seeing bodging dating back to the late 1500's. We might have to change it's name to ''Bodgeme Cottage''

But it is still standing from a time with no building regs,no building inspectors,no government training schemes,no foundations,no HIP packs (sorry had to post the last one as I paid £600 for one on a house that has yet to sell!) They did`nt do bad for "yokels" did they?

Right up until around 1960 when they decided to rip it all out and replace everything with cement. I curse the DIY magazine in which had a centre spread on how to build an extension in a week end with nothing more than a trowel, mixer and a couple of hundred blocks, oh , and a little bit of imaginative ingenuity and sheer determination to get the thing up..
It must have been raining that week end.

[Flyfisher]

I've got a number of 'temporary-but-effective' fixes around the house. Things like plastic pipes diverting water away from downpipes where the drains/soakaways are blocked and breathable roofing felt covering areas of the walls where render has fallen off, preventing the rain getting into the walls.

I think of a bodge as something not fit for purpose and probably dangerous, so I don't think my examples qualify - though I'd accept they are not pretty to look at, but that's the temporary aspect I'll fix in due course.

The risk, of course, is that 'temporary' can be a very flexible measure of timescale.

[Zebra]

Likewise FF, I have hoses gaffer-taped to downpipes, rubble sacks as flashing, bits and pieces of ply as outer wall coverings - but it's all temporary and in the name of progress, so probably doesn't count!

[dans]

A section of a main corner beam that had been replaced but didn't quite fit, so they filled the gap with expanding foam

Cracks in exposed oak beams filled with some some of filla.

Lovely old red brick wall that was layered with cement to smooth the appearance before painting it

Cement stuffed into the edges of a wattle n daub panel that didn't quite fit the infill

Much more to come I'm sure of it....!

[Keithj]

Absolution time, is it? Consider it done! The hard bit is the next bit: "Go, and sin no more."

Part of the process is learning: I first came across double-glazer's foam when the installers used it extensively when fitting the new windows in the Welsh cottage. There, it was only for insulation/draughtproofing and seemed to do a job. The new windows were uPVC, but I didn't know better and they were far better than the old ones, which consisted mostly of well-rotted softwood held together with paint.

The Suffolk house was different: foam had been used to replace timber that had rotted away, and the whole was in some danger of collapsing. That builder hasn't been seen in the village recently, although I suspect the news has reached him about opinions on his work.

He's not been back for absolution, either.

[angrybird]

ive had cast iron drain pipes held together with yellow insulation tape, walls covered in waterproof tile adhesive and then plasterboarded over! Todays "find" was a newly discovered stone wall covered with 3 inch thick cement mortar on removal of the cement ive found the stone had been pointed with silicone sealant!!!

[bartonp]

Oh where to start...

• Our entire front wall was built in a single layer of block on the very edge of a narrow stone rubble wall. It was supporting the weight of the first floor and the roof. We had to rebuild the whole thing properly. The stone rubble wall we demolished by kicking it...
• The first floor joists were supported by the above wall simply by them poking through the block wall with render then applied to the whole lot. All the joist ends were rotten as you might expect.
• Electric cables went over the floor joists but under the floor boards with no notch. Walking on the floor upstairs was hence squashing the cables.
• An electric cable was joined in the roof by simply baring the ends then twisting them together. It was then hidden under a layer of rockwool just waiting for somebody to put their hand on it. Fortunately it was spotted first..
• The block built garage was built directly onto top soil with no foundations at all.
• The thin layer of concrete floor was letting the damp through so a new layer of concrete was added straight on to the old floor. However the plaster wasn't removed from the wall so it still went down to the old damp layer providing a nice route for rising damp to wick up all the way around the room.
• A block pillar was built to support two lintels, an I beam, the floor above, the wall above and the roof above. The foundations for this pillar turned out to be 40mm of concrete on top of a thin layer of sand (mostly washed away) on top of some large rubble (full of voids).
• A plastic window upstairs turned out to be directly supporting the end of one of the six A frames that made up the roof. i.e. the window was directly taking the weight of a twelfth of the entire weight of the roof.

Credit where it's due though - it must have all be OK as it had not fallen down (yet)!

[MdB]

Current Status

• Front wall replaced.
• Joist ends removed with remainder supported by new wall
• Complete rewire
• Garage currently still standing but only for a short while longer.
• Floor replaced
• Pillar replaced

• Lino removed
• Guttering front of house replaced, back of house to be done shortly
• Soil removed
• Partitions replaced
• Stopcock removed
• A frames reinforced
• Plasterboard removed
• Cooker fixed
• Wiring replaced
• Almost all the cement replaced with lime. Last section to be done shortly

Credit where it's due though - it must have all be OK as it had not fallen down (yet)!

Interestingly, our two old stone end walls which visually look identical, are actually quite different in their construction. It is strongly suspected that one wall fell down a long time back and was rebuilt stronger with buttressing. The other wall is not in a great state and is going to be reinforced shortly when we butt an extension up against it. My feelings are that the 1850's builders were as much bodgers as the more recent work.

[Pford75]

Worst bodge i've ever seen - student digs of mine...old style blown fuse replaced with a spoon!!

Same house...a rotten windowsill, the gap was filled with.....a spoon and then filler...maybe the owner was in the spoon business and had easy access to an unlimited number.

In our current house, the top floor ceiling joists were nailed underneath the floor of the attic...meaning that when walking in the attic only panel pins (and I do mean panel pins!!) were holding you up.

[Zebra]

Perhaps they would have been better off using spoons.

[Roger H]

Another student digs bodge:
Room rewired with wiring surface-mounted across walls and ceiling.
Surface mounted light switch transpired to prevent door being closed as it projected by 2".
Solution: Cut 5"x2" notch in door to enable closure. Luckily, it was an internal door.

[steveb]

I give you pipes buried in screed.

IMG-20180627-WA0000.jpg (104.15 KiB) Viewed 307 times

The copper pipe was "protected" from the cement by being partially covered in gaffer tape, and as such is only partially effective at stopping the pipe from rotting.

The iron pipe had a isolator valve, actually buried in the screed.

The concrete floor surface, once we had removed the wooden floor, had writing on it in various places. Warm. Warm and Wet. Wet. Wet. Dry. Someone had been there before and decided to document but ignore the problem...