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NotJustANumber99 posted:Lost all the car batteries and a compressor. Neighbours lawn mower. A day faffing around. My sense of security. My faith in humanity. I was surprised (not really) to see this happened but then remembered that the UK has the original Surrey/Whalley and maybe it's a Surrey thing.   e: While I was working as a site safety officer at a small private hospital in our Surrey, we had a guy climb our crane overnight to cut the copper grounding cable from the very top. I have no idea how long it took to scamper up the crane to do this and then gather probably 100lbs of braided copper and I guess put it in the back of a truck or something. They also broke into the site office and stole my boss's laptop which I used to play diablo 2 LOD which was a huge and upsetting development. VelociBacon fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Aug 11, 2022 |
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Aug 11, 2022 19:18
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An L shaped sense of security. Robbed blind and haven't even moved in yet, wild
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Aug 11, 2022 19:21
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Not a massive amount then. You should have had minimal faith in humanity already.
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Aug 11, 2022 19:22
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its the thought that they come back and clean me out thats most concerning. Locked everything up, repaired camera, parked the digger infront of the container and taken the battery home. Towed the dead pickup up to the throttle point of the driveway so no way to get a vehicle onsite to load up. Towed with towing eye of tesla in reverse. My other thought is leave tesla onsite in sentry mode and have it explode if anyone else comes on site
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Aug 11, 2022 23:09
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NotJustANumber99 posted:Lost all the car batteries and a compressor. Neighbours lawn mower. A day faffing around. My sense of security. My faith in humanity. Did the bricklayer ever come back?
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Aug 11, 2022 23:52
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nah. they weren't interested anymore. It was fiddly bits and some of what they'd done had fallen down so awkward and I guess high up and I didn't have proper scaffolding (even though I explicitly asked them if there was anything else I needed for them to do the work and they said no). So I did it all myself including turning the mario wall into a proper wall which is kind of important cos its the feature wall of the whole main living space. I was annoyed cos I suck and wanted a professional to do that, but having seen their work to date I was like I dunno probably not missing much.
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Aug 11, 2022 23:59
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Failed Imagineer posted:Sounds like retaliation for the village green you destroyed. point of order. I did not destroy the village green! but I am now deploying the village facebook page to find out if any busybodies saw anything. They were too distracted by the village youths sitting.. and I mean literally SITTING on the village bench.
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Aug 12, 2022 00:03
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Loiterin'
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Aug 12, 2022 00:26
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chatted to my good old mate on the corner and he reckons these youths are using their phones to spy in the windows of undressing ladies in the village I nodded my head sagely in agreement but I'm pretty sure, to the tune of "video killed the radiostar", that pornhub killed the peeping tom
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Aug 12, 2022 00:45
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When you say "All the car batteries" have gone, do you mean like, they emptied out the battery packs on the tesla?
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Aug 12, 2022 00:59
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lol no I have several er... temporarily sub operational ICE vehicles on site. and their batteries have been sitting in the bathroom for a while.
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Aug 12, 2022 01:04
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NotJustANumber99 posted:lol no Was this a strategy to make your neighbours like you more or?
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Aug 12, 2022 01:48
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What's UK for mullet + camaros on cinder blocks
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Aug 12, 2022 03:27
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NotJustANumber99 posted:its the thought that they come back and clean me out thats most concerning. Locked everything up, repaired camera, parked the digger infront of the container and taken the battery home. Towed the dead pickup up to the throttle point of the driveway so no way to get a vehicle onsite to load up. Towed with towing eye of tesla in reverse. Make sure you put the warning sticker on your car window to make it legal. 
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Aug 12, 2022 04:52
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Getting robbed is poo poo, my condolences 99. NotJustANumber99 posted:. Towed the dead pickup up to the throttle point of the driveway so no way to get a vehicle onsite to load up. Towed with towing eye of tesla in reverse. So if the pick up is dead how are you going to move it? Push it back into the site with the tesla?
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Aug 12, 2022 06:45
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It can stay where it is for a bit. But tow it back with the digger. Then back again with the tesla. Although actually it will probably be easier to use the digger to move a grab bag of heavy rubble back and forwards each day. Also fix the pickup.
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Aug 12, 2022 07:56
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You know those road plates I suggested? You could dig a pit in the drive and fill it with vipers, drag road plates across it while you are there, cover with inconspicuous branches and leaves when you are not
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Aug 12, 2022 09:31
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Salisbury Snape posted:You know those road plates I suggested? You could dig a pit in the drive and fill it with vipers, drag road plates across it while you are there, cover with inconspicuous branches and leaves when you are not Reminder that both NJAN99 and his brother have already been hospitalized from falling into ditches on his work-safe site.
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Aug 12, 2022 09:36
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Hadlock posted:What's UK for mullet + camaros on cinder blocks Courtesy of 90s documentary Keeping Up Appearances..   
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Aug 12, 2022 09:37
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Jaded Burnout posted:Courtesy of 90s documentary Keeping Up Appearances.. Fulton Hogan is a New Zealand contracting company, founded in my city 90-odd years ago. I always wondered if it was something different the UK, but at the time, had no way to confirm. A quick Google now and yes, a character on a British show was indeed wearing a cap from NZ. Good to have closure on that after 25+ years.
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Aug 12, 2022 12:45
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Hadlock posted:What's UK for mullet + camaros on cinder blocks Liverpool.
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Aug 12, 2022 13:40
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Jaded Burnout posted:Courtesy of 90s documentary Keeping Up Appearances.. exactly what I was going to post. Onslow and an old Cortina(?) with a dog living in it.
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Aug 14, 2022 17:10
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jabadoo posted:exactly what I was going to post. Onslow and an old Cortina(?) with a dog living in it. 1972 Hillman Avenger, or so says dozens of old car nerds when I was looking for screenshots.
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Aug 14, 2022 17:53
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Oh yeah, he drives around in the banger Cortina.. 
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Aug 14, 2022 18:44
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Playing around with the oak, trying to figure out how best to get it all in place. Like whether to assemble the whole frames first and lift it all in or do in bit by bit in situ? We have all the oak for the A frames in the vaulted area but also the goalposts for the front of the garage carport. These need a bit of machining as I bought them overlong incase I ballsed it up and also need to drill them through to put some bolts through into the awful blockwork. I'll leave expansion space here so any movement doesn't gently caress it all and rip the puny blockwork apart.  Using the digger with spreader bar to lift this in seems to work well.  Then slot the diagonals in and whack in some pegs tot he pre drilled holes.   Its bonfire night! where we celebrate out government not getting blown up which is some incredible marketing cos lets defo blow up the government.  smiley face means I'm joking and dont have to go to prison  Digger breaks again!  roof going on top of the oak  The builders aren't coming back so I'm having to build this wall myself which is a pain as its probably quite important to get it right as its going to support all the oak.  need engineering brick padstones for where the oak ridge and purlins will bear on the walls because, as mentioned, the blocks are poo poo. 
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Aug 16, 2022 22:26
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OK, so why aren't the builders coming back? Can you sue for breach of contract?
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Aug 17, 2022 00:51
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Breakages aside, the digger seems to have been a good investment overall. Also love the OSHA certified long bendy plank of wood as your scaffolding.
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Aug 17, 2022 06:24
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It does seem you have an incredible amount of issues with builders to me. Is this normal?
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Aug 17, 2022 06:36
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British builders are very sensitive, delicate souls. They’re like hothouse plants or beautiful ice statues, if you treat them wrong they’ll disappear into the night and never return~~~
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Aug 17, 2022 07:08
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If you think about a big construction company, they have dozens of tradies on staff and/or on contract, with quantity surveyors and quality inspectors to go around and check on the work, and either get it redone or replace the worker. Then compare that to some homeowner getting a renovation or self-build done, where they don't have the experience to advocate for themselves at contract time, don't have the ability to judge good or bad work outside of the egregious, and don't have the confidence (or contractual/financial exit strategy) to put their foot down with the builder even if they can tell something's wrong. And on the flip side you have contractors dealing with paranoid or misguided individuals who often get upset or distressed about things that genuinely don't matter because, again, they can't tell the difference. Mix in the complete crapshoot of skills and personalities on both sides and it's a wonder anything gets done at all.
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Aug 17, 2022 07:22
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To be fair it also sounds like 99 has sought out the cheapest builders he could find and gotten exactly what he paid for. There are good builders in the UK, but they either get snapped up by companies or end up so busy they're impossible to get hold of. Leaving the average home builder the choice of arrogant Dave, absent Dave, bodge-job Dave or incompetent Dave.
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Aug 17, 2022 10:38
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I had my house built via a bigger company and I believe most of the frame (wooden house) was built mostly by two guys from Seinäjoki. They did good work, also hired them privately to put up the garage and do the panelling. It was pretty nice to get most of the work done and coordinated by one big company rather than having to coordinate it all yourself. That must be a real PITA.
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Aug 17, 2022 10:47
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His Divine Shadow posted:I had my house built via a bigger company and I believe most of the frame (wooden house) was built mostly by two guys from Seinäjoki. They did good work, also hired them privately to put up the garage and do the panelling. surely you're Seinäjoking
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Aug 17, 2022 11:55
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Bobby Deluxe posted:There are good builders in the UK, but they either get snapped up by companies or end up so busy they're impossible to get hold of. Leaving the average home builder the choice of arrogant Dave, absent Dave, bodge-job Dave or incompetent Dave. 
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Aug 17, 2022 13:22
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We had a painter doing the outside of our cottage who disappeared for over a year 'waiting for supplies' He also washed.himself off at the end of a (2 hour) day with our dish sponge. And left paint marks on the fridge drops on the floor and somehow paint smudges on a picture frame in a bedroom I was renting and couldn't give a poo poo about chasing him up.
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Aug 17, 2022 13:33
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Landlords historically fastidious about hiring the best.
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Aug 17, 2022 13:57
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Ratjaculation posted:We had a painter doing the outside of our cottage who disappeared for over a year 'waiting for supplies' My mother had a room partially redone last year and they did the entire job except the trim and the plates on the electrical outlets and then never returned. They weren't paid (and they didn't ask for anything up front), which you would think would motivate them to finish the the job. She spent like three months trying to get them to come back and then gave up and hired someone else to finish it. Other than one of their subcontractors calling her to pick up a nail gun he left behind, she still hasn't heard anything.
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Aug 18, 2022 13:45
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Pigsfeet on Rye posted:OK, so why aren't the builders coming back? Can you sue for breach of contract? The contract was verbal and not really worth the effort. They'd messed us about several times already, just disappearing for however long. Probably could have dragged the back in kicking and screaming but not for another month so I might as well do it myself in the meantime. As I want to be getting on with everything else and frankly I'm lost interest in the stress/drama of dealing with the usual excuses. Jaded sums it all up pretty well in his post. These guys were well recommended by a local guy who works for a larger building company so I guess either he tries harder there or their houses are just poo poo too. Carrying on with the roof trusses in the corner of the L which is like a big Ikea I guess, follow the instructions, end up with a few bits leftover, hide them.  cut down all the noggins  for doing my noggins in  Also need to install the wall straps every 1.5m or so along the wall plate to hold it down to the walls. I quickly developed a routine for this as the flaky blocks mean every screw into the walls needs to be lined up, predrilled and a rawl plug inserted. Whack em all in and climb up my tiny stepladder to screw down vertically into the wallplate too. Also being careful not to put them where they'll conflict with eventual trusses or rafter locations on the wallplate.   Jaded Burnout posted:Breakages aside, the digger seems to have been a good investment overall. I think so. But theres some jobs we just can't manage with it. So rent more plant(not to be confused with the plant room)  Just couldn't comprehend of a way of getting the oaks up with our digger, hasn't got the reach and they are incredibly heavy. This is just unnecessary showing off though.  Test in situ and make sure I'm comfortable reaching over the whole building, which I am not overly.  Pick some things up, we've got a winch too as thought that might be easier to lower things more accurately rather than moving the whole big arm, but its a ballache as you need somewhere to dangle your pull chain (the bucket) and er... then what? how do you reach back up to it to do the actual winching?  multiple attempts at trying to decide how to do this whilst also amassing bravery.  to the point of just dicking around really  OK. plan. Put the er... bottom bits of oak in, beams?   That cuts down the weight of the whole rest of the assembly which we will do on the floor.  Then lift those up, position for lift, legs down and hoist away.   It takes three of us, one in machine, one either end of the oak top A frame manoeuvring it by hand as it dangles, handing off control as it gets higher as we need to swing it from parrallel to the building to perpendicular without smashing into the walls, and finally relaying instruction back to driver to get it slotted into the pre machined slots on the top of the oak beam. Got rid of the winch, not helpful.  You can then sit there with the machine just for safety whilst bashing in the oak begs to hold it together and attach a few stays if necessary but it isnt windy, not going anywhere in a hurry.  then pints. To be honest this is a very bad post and not very legible but I've got covid I think right now and struggling. Also at the time this was the first one so very experimental and unsure, I'll post tomorrow with images from the other ones where I was happier and took many more useful pictures. covid now not then NotJustANumber99 fucked around with this message at 23:15 on Aug 18, 2022 |
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Aug 18, 2022 23:13
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Best of luck with the COVID. I lament that this isn't an episode of Grand Designs where we can have Kevin whatshisface slagging you off and making weird metaphors throughout, but at least you're providing the necessary amount of tragic mishaps and schadenfreude 
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Aug 18, 2022 23:33
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NotJustANumber99 posted:To be honest this is a very bad post and not very legible but I've got covid I think right now and struggling. Also at the time this was the first one so very experimental and unsure, I'll post tomorrow with images from the other ones where I was happier and took many more useful pictures. covid now not then It made enough sense to me! Sorry to hear you've got the 'vid, you can't catch a break. Failed Imagineer posted:Best of luck with the COVID. I lament that this isn't an episode of Grand Designs where we can have Kevin whatshisface slagging you off and making weird metaphors throughout, but at least you're providing the necessary amount of tragic mishaps and schadenfreude I'll now read the post while listening to music that sounds like witches are approaching on the wind.
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Aug 18, 2022 23:39
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